Compsand Community

[SuperFatPat]

Ben: If you're down here this week it will be great to go for a surf.  Steiny was kind enough to take the green board for a ride and give me some feedback, but I'd still like to give the spitfire a try.  Thanks.

Bernhardt:  You know, I'm going to have to really qualify any ideas I have by saying that I don't know much at all about shortboards.  Or longboards.  Or anything else really.  I still consider myself very much in the steep part of the learning curve.  The board I have them in now is 7' 1.5" x 12.5",20 1/8", 14 1/8" x 2 1/8".  The widepoint is back from center, although I can't remember exactly how far back it ended up.  Nose rocker just under 6", 2 1/4" tail.  The board works.  I'm still learning how to generate speed with pumping, coming off a longboard background.  But when I do a pig carving turn and then lean forward into trim it flies, yet has all the hold and more responsiveness than any thruster I've ridden.  It's funny, one of the fins has a little nick or something (I dropped it before install  ) and when I get going fast is whistles at me.  I love it; now I count a really good session by the number of whistle waves.  I think that having a board with an outline that works well in trim is a good idea with the surftrux, that's one big advantage. 

Just got back in town, and saw that there are still waves... can't wait for the morning.

Pat

[PeteC]

Hello everyone, another new guy from So Cal.   I'm normally on Swaylock's, but a couple of members from this forum asked me to join.   I  manufacturer a lot of custom accessories, currently Gore-Tex breather vents.   I also make replacement parts for Skil 100 planers (front shoes mostly), as well as do repairs.  My son operates a board repair business, and does repair work for Hobie, Dewey Weber, Infinity, and other local companies.  I have been building boards (primarily PU) for family and friends for almost 30 years.  My primary job is  consulting engineering, and I work for a number of medical companies in the US doing mechanical R&D and manufacturing engineering work.  Besides surfing, I'm also a diver and spearfisherman. 

[Kit Sidwell]

Nice to have you here Pete.
I always like the technical stuff you bring to the party over on Sways.
I'm definitely a tech fiend myself 

Kit

[barb]

howz it goin fellas, barb from old bar here (mid north coast NSW Australia)
great job with the website, you blokes are really blazing your own trail with this stuff.

Have been dabbling with the compsands on and off for a little while now and have recently completed #4, a 6'4" x 20' x 2 1/8"quad. Goes well, but is a stiffy as i had a brain explosion and went for a concave deck which tightened everything up IMO. Not too concerned about it as I made it for a summer groveller. 

I'm having some minor delam issues under the ball of my back foot on all the boards i've made. The quad has delammed after 4 surfs? I'm pretty sure its to do with my build technique  (leaving tape (6mm) on the balsa joins on the underside of the skin). I normally squash big footwells on my pupe's and have done similar to my compsands though nowhere near as bad, and only under the back foot. Have been using 4oz under & over 3mm decks and boards are vented. Any thoughts?

here are the boards i've done so far as well as a close up of the quad
 

 

 

[Benny]

hey barb - nice looking boards.

for what its worth, the only compsand of mine that popped a delam was also the only one where I left masking tape (the cheap paper kind) inside the skin, trusting the epoxy to soak in & hold it...

That one also was on a bit of a concave part - the transition area on a fish where it goes from a little deck dome into the front foot of nose rocker.  Definitely not from foot pressure up there   

Try gluing the skin pieces together with dots of superglue.  You only need a dot every couple inches and they stay together just fine in the bag.  The superglue stays clear and is thin enough that it doesn't cause the pieces to separate...

[paul cannon]

its the tape
tape the outside of the skins
resin doesnt penetrate tape
i could never understand the old tape inside disscussion
back in the early day

[barb]

Thanks guys for confirming my suspicions, definitely avoiding the tape from now on.
I taped on the outside of skin of #1 and remember it being tedious picking all the bits of tape off where the resin seeped through, thats why i went the inside tape method. I'll go Bennys method on the deck of the next one. Live and learn.

[Kit Sidwell]

If you run the tape along every join (on the outside) then no resin seeps through, and doesn't glue the tape down.
The tape peels off great as the resin doesn't stick to the adhesive.
And your planks are really well taped together, so theres no chance of any gaps.
It uses a lot of tape, but it's worth it.
I use the really budget masking tape for that.
Save the good stuff for pin lines etc.

[4est]

4est (Forest Fisher) here from SoCal.

Been on swaylocks since 2004.

I mostly ride longboards and have build a couple clark blank 10'6"s, clark blank Lis/Frey fish, and a HD EPS grom mini-LB.

I have a balsa compsand 6'8" 2/3/4/5 fin option board in progress, and a balsa compsand water ski trick ski in progress as well.

--4est

[paul cannon]

hey mate
is your name forest
cool name

[4est]

hey mate
is your name forest
cool name

Yes it is "Forest" ==> For-est ==> 4-est ==> 4est

Thanks, it is a family name: my dad, me, my 1st son.

--4est

[dougirwin13]

Yup. That'll make it a family name

Great-grandma, grandma and mum all had the same christian name.  Al eldest daughters.

Mum cracked the shits and called my sister something different

[paul cannon]

thats a cool name
great for a surfboard label

[StrangeBrew]

Barb,

  Nice lookin sticks; I like'em alot. I'm a big round/thumbtail fan...something about the aesthetic; clean flowing lines...can't say that I'd be able to distinguish between a squash and a roundtail with the same pod dims, but visually....well...clear winners in my books.

Benny's suggestion works well for sticking the wood together, but I personally have had problems with this approach, largely cause I scrape away every spare gram of resin when lamming and I'll occasionally get pinholes that suck water pretty bad. I found the easiest way to avoid it was to actually tape the ENTIRE joint...and then use the tape as a resin dam. Carefully open the joint to about 30 degrees after you've wedged the pieces together as tight as you can, and then apply a bead of 15 minute epoxy using a syringe insuring the application is right down to the bottom (tape) in the joint. If you're careful when mixing and avoid getting many bubbles in the mix, when you place the skin back on a flat surface, any excess epoxy will squeeze out of the joint and on to the surface where you can mop it up with an absorbent or just scrape it off and what's left in the joint will be void free.

As most 15 minute epoxies have shitty UV characteristics, you should use the side with the ooze on the inside of the board. After 15 or so minutes, once the resin is pretty set up, but not fully cured, the joint should be strong snough to allow you to handle the entire skin and remove the tape before the resin "gets it for good". Side where the tape was goes on the outside of the skin. I think you'll find it's a very quick and very effective method....

hth
g

[Benny]

I can tell you haven't made any 10' x 24" 

That much 15-minute epoxy, that many joints, that many long lines of ooze... no way you'd do it a second time.   

I solve it by dotting the wood & laying it down on a big piece of plastic on my workbench.  When I'm ready to bag on the skin, I apply the resin directly to the wood, squeegeeing it into the cracks between the pieces of wood.  Surf, some comes through to the other side, but that's better than pinholes.  Then I lay down the cloth & the blank and into the bag it goes. 

When it comes out of the bag, there's a little resin that got through to the outside of the wood skin.  But after you lam the outside, it goes invisible anyway.  Its the same resin, after all.