Tribal Knowledge: Is anyone looking for SUP board design and or shaping tips?

[Tom]

Dave, Just want to throw in my encoragement for your suggestion. This is a great post you started here and I'm looking forward to a board build thread. Either surf or tour is fine with me.

[Allan Cheateaux]

Its funny how people developing stuff independently of each other can draw the same conclusions...

Dave is providing some serious beta here, kudos for not "guarding the secrets"


As far as designing a 14 footer, here is what was learned from my experience. I made 2 at the same time so I could try out different design ideas, layup construction etc...

The boards were both 14' x 27 x 5 with the exact same template. Both had a veed nose rolling and a chine on the rail (hard edge, slope, hard edge). One had a single cocave while the other a double. In the foollowing pic you can see how I took the double concave (1/4") out the tail.



The orange board was a standard 6oz double bottom, double top with a 2/3 deck patch.
The yellow board was single bottom, single top with a carbon rail wrap and carbon deck patch.

The yellow board was much lighter, stiffer and faster (double concave). It was an effortless pull through the water.


These boards where a hybrid touring race board, so subsequently didn't excel in either arena. While they did haul 50 pounds of gear well, the inherent flex in the orange board (standard layup) was spooky at times and prob contributed to the overall breakdown of the board. It paddles like a wet noodle now, but did have some great races... but overall, the single concave contributes to much "suck" and wetted surface to the glide, making it a much to slow design idea for me... works for some though.

In hind sight... I would have pulled in the tail, thinned out the overall template, foil and rails... but you already know that from Dave.

They worked good for California water, but the rocker could have been more relaxed for the majority of the time flat water conditions...

Im building boards for lakes now that have close to zero rocker...


Tony mueller is a great resource and a guy who builds some fast boards. He models his after wave ski's as thats what he raced for ever and knows best.

[Allan Cheateaux]

Wow, that was one rambling a$$ post...

[Allan Cheateaux]

How about this for organizational purposes here. I feel Dave's advice will get lost if too much design theory tossed around in one post on multiple boards. How about we start new posts based on certain criteria... ie a 14' race post, 12' stock post, 10 surf post...

You reply with what "you have seen that works!"

Not what you hypothesize (people used to tell me quads on SUPS where stupid), or feel, but what you have first hand experience with. Pictures, board files, sketchups etc...


How do we feel about that?

[Dwight (DW)]

Allen, were those boards 1.0 lb foam

[kingdavid]

Allen,

Great couple of post. Thanks for taking some of the load (and the blame) off of my shoulders. Your post regarding your two boards and their performance characteristics is a great contribution. I'm sure Dwight will gain from that post.

I concur regarding the separate threads for the three different SUP board criteria. In fact, I'll jump right in with a 9' 6" surf SUP. I'll start the thread over the next couple of days. Until then we can, and should, keep running up the posts in this thread to see what other tribe members have to share.

Thank you, and best regards,

Dave Daum

[Allan Cheateaux]

1# no stringer... Im not going to lie either... 1 layer of glass is insufficient to protect the foam. This was with a floor layup as well, so minimal resin was used.

[kingdavid]

DW,

If you use 1 lb. or 1.5 lb. foam you should place Divinycell or some other foam reinforcement material under your feet. This will help resist dents. S Cloth is about 20% stronger the E Cloth. You may want consider the use of all S or a combination of S and E. Wide S Cloth is hard to find. If you or anyone else has a line on the wide S Cloth; please share it with the tribe.

Inserted rods, stringers, and carbon inlays are a great way to eliminate the flex. Flex and spring are really important for turning a surf SUP. Flex is but not desirable for flat /race paddling. Honeycomb is super stiff and would be a great material to play around with.

Maybe some of your tribe members have some secret anti-flex methods that they are willing the share???

Dave
   

[Dwight (DW)]

This was with a floor layup as well, so minimal resin was used.

What does floor layup mean?

Newbie here 

[Allan Cheateaux]

Epoxy resin is stronger the less you use, the trick being how do you completely saturate the cloth using the least amount of resin. For those of you with vac setups, demand resin saturation does a pretty great job.

But for me sans vac setup at the time, I needed a way to get the most bang for me buck. Speaking with George at Plus One shapes in southern california, he turned me onto a method of prepreging glass/carbon the low rent way...

Floor glassing.

Start with bisqueen 2 ft longer than the subject board construction. Lay out your glass and trim to fit. Transfer the glass to the bisqueen (on the floor, and mocked up ply table etc... big, flat and free and noticeable cracks). Start mixing up epoxy and saturating the cloth with a hard squeegee. Pull out as much resin as possible and let it sit for 15-20 minutes depending on temp. As it starts to get less liquid, transfer it to the blank and pull, tuck, wipe into place. Let cure 8 hours and then pull back bisqueen. Repeat for next side...

Now before anyone tells me why this is a horrible idea, there are a couple benefits I would like to state...

1. resin consumption is kept to the absolute minimum. Epoxy isnt Poly resin, the techniques used dont corrilate. Plus the shit's expensive.

2. When pulled back, the fiber actually "fluffs"up and adds pile to the glass job. When we filled this in with an epoxy/microballoon mixture and sanded it back with 320-400 we had an amazing surface texture. To bad the crappy design didn't benefit the finish.

3. No need to spackle the blank to fill in holes. While the weight gain in this step is negligible, it is one more thing to do.

4. It makes the work EASY! Just pour on, spread out, let saturate while spreading a seperate area and then move the resin to the next zone. It can froth up a little, just work on your technique. You dont have resin pool into low area and dry out of high areas.


You need a lot of clean space, but its a great method to glass a board you are going to paint or gel coat.

[Allan Cheateaux]

I've received many questions about the best design for distance paddle / race boards. In fact, I recently received a call form an angry individual in Lake Tahoe who complained because a buddy of his raced past him on one of our 10' surf-style SUP boards. What angered him was the fact he had just spent $4,000.00+ (US dollars) for a 14' carbon-fiber flat water race SUP only to be smoked by a guy on a surfboard. Here are some observations I've made:

This is classic! A great example of the power of the paddler, not the paddle... although Im sure Dave's board helped out. Chris Koener has a great story about dropping some hawaiians on the new C4 race boards while paddling a 11' "pool toy"

[andygere]

This is a great thread; I wish I had seen a primer like this one on concave before I shaped my first board without any.  http://www.grainsurf.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=554&start=0

I love the idea of a step-by-step post on building a board (see above), and would love to see something on a 10 foot or so all around surf SUP.

On wide S-glass, I called around everywhere, including several industrial suppliers, and nobody had it.  I used a combo of 30" S-glass on top and 38" E-glass on the bottom of my hollow wood SUP with good results.  I was more concerned with paddle shatters than heel dents, since the wood decking on my rig is a lot denser than EPS.

Keep the great info coming...

[Yohan1973]

On wide S-glass, I called around everywhere, including several industrial suppliers, and nobody had it. 

Did you try www.Fiberglast.com They carry many types of glass up to 50" wide

The link below MIGHT work....
http://www.fibreglast.com/showproducts-category-Fiberglass%20Surfacing,%20Boat,%20and%20Tooling%20Fabric-99.html

If not then go to   
Products > Reinforcements >
Fiberglass Surfacing, Boat, and Tooling Fabric


Also, if you are on their mailing list for the next 2 days they are offering 20% off
2-24-09 to 2-26-09
Online orders only
Enter Coupon Code: 97581

[kingdavid]

Yohan,

Thank you for sharing this link with us. It looks like Fibre Glast has several products and How to information that will help us all.

Best Regards,

Dave Daum
King's Paddle Sports

[srfnff]

Hi Dave,

Great post here and since we're voting I'll throw mine in the ballot box for the 9-6 SUP surfer you mentioned.

A Question: How do you measure rocker, I mean officially. What I do is lay the board flat on the floor and then just place a tape measure from floor to bottom of board at the nose and the tail. Is this in the ball park for an "official" measurement?

Thanks, and thanks for your work on this.
gary