Hi,
I am thinking of making a windsurf board, but I have a few questions that I am hoping someone might be able to help or provide guidance.
Most boards seem to be constructed as follows
1. EPS foam core
2. single / double layer of 6oz cloth ?
3. 5mm Airex/Divinycell layer
4. 2 layers of 4oz glass or carbon ?
Rather than having a painted board I would like to go for a clear or veneered board very much like this style of surboard below.http://www.boardwise.com/p-5279-tiki-shortboard-slx-clear-surfboard-61.aspx
Just wonder whether this is possible and would the board be durable enough ?
Thanks
Justin
I got to ask why make things hard ?
Why not just go Clarke foam and polyester.
Add glass rovings eitherside of the stringer and down each rail on the underside.
Before all the people say it won't be strong enough, thats how all boards used to be and it was plenty strong enough.
Advantages are it is cheaper, qiucker and easier, and you know the first board you make will be bad, so wait until you make a good one in polyester before you go sandwich construction and spend the extra money and time.
Been thinking of doing it myself. Reckon I could knock out 3 in polyester in the same time and cost as one in sandwich.
Then again I would never pay money for a polyester board, so not sure how my logic works.
It can probably be done but it is extremely unlikely that you will come up with something anywhere near as good as what's available on the market, new or second hand.
The boards on the market now are the product of 30 years of design, trial and error over hundreds of different board styles.
To jag something on a one off design that is anywhere near as good would be close to a miracle.
But,... if you are doing it just for your own interest and amusement then go for it.
I would skip the 5mm and go for 3mm as its much easier to work with.. If you skip the paint its gunna be yellowing fibreglass over green Airex that will look like poo after awhile.. A good coat of white 2pak hides everything and keeps the water out..
The only reason why anybody shouldn't build a board is the spare time required..
Why learn to paint when you can buy $15 Picasso Screen prints? Why learn Guitar when you can learn the kazoo..
Have a look at www.ecboards.co.uk/ (menu on the left) and if you are still game after all that then go for it :-)
We went through a stage of making our own boards in the late 80's in Auckland.
We used polystyrene and put a 3mm ply stringer down the middle.
Then used 2-3 layers Epoxy/glass can't remember what weight. If I can give any advice it would be to take your time, don't rush, especially when shaping, glassing and setting the fin box & mast track.
Getting a good glass finish without experience is really hard and we ended up painting them with epoxy boat paint...Similar to modern boards I suppose. Get an electric plane.
It was a lot of fun.. especially test driving the one you made against your mates and comparing.
Also gave us something to do when there was no wind, in between changing the gear boxes in our cars to get us to the beach, but hey we were single with no kids back then.
I am working on mine since december (but I don't have much time and had to shape another blank since the 1st wasn't good)...I have to make stringer negative this weekend, then I'll laminate the bottom, after that I gotta work on the deck.
Shaping the bottom Vee was prety interesting and time consuming work, but I liked it.
I will put carbon fiber cloth on top and if it will look nice (no cosmetic failures) I will just put lacquer on top.
Learning the Kazoo over the guitar is the easy way out, like buying a board instead of self learning the noble art of fabricating one yourself..
Here is a rare insight into what our music would be like if musicians always took the easy Kazoo route.
I found a load of YouTube videos uploaded by Nelson Factory (12 in all) which shows them building a board. The onlhy downside is that there is no sound as they have been recorded in real time and speeded up, but they are still really useful and shows the diffent stages of the process.
www.youtube.com/results?search_query=nelson+factory&aq=f
