so I got me some EPS and balsa sheet...

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kayu
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Re: so I got me some EPS and balsa sheet...

Post by kayu » Sun Nov 06, 2011 5:27 pm

Carefull dUg , your dealing with an extremely addictive drug.........

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Re: so I got me some EPS and balsa sheet...

Post by diggerdickson » Mon Nov 07, 2011 1:04 pm

absolute bummer dug, I hate the fuck up fairy, she seems to hang around my poor man shapers area a fair bit lately. Did ya manage to work out what went wrong with your mix mate. Im sure you will be able to work around it and fix it up mate, how bout some more pics im hanging to see.
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dUg
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Re: so I got me some EPS and balsa sheet...

Post by dUg » Mon Nov 07, 2011 10:57 pm

kayu wrote:Carefull dUg , your dealing with an extremely addictive drug.........
Kayu this is about my ninth board...but my first compsand. I've dicked around with carbon fibre, triaxial cloth and kevlar... but I'm loving sticking wood and foam together right now. :)
diggerdickson wrote:absolute bummer dug, I hate the **** up fairy, she seems to hang around my poor man shapers area a fair bit lately. Did ya manage to work out what went wrong with your mix mate. Im sure you will be able to work around it and fix it up mate, how bout some more pics im hanging to see.


LOL digger... she gets around, doesn't she? :lol:

Yeah all good... whacked a 60 grit on the 6" orbital and sanded the living snot out of it. I cut it out and trimmed it, coated it in epoxy, and got it affixed to the deck this arvo. Also got all the shaping done, one rail is better than the other but that always seems to be the case for me. Near enough. I used my patented technique, I call it "tape bagging", on the deck skin. Basically, you stick some polythene sheet over it, then bind the bastard up with duct tape REALLY tight. Added some weight just to make sure the rocker stays put, and also over the stands to help keep the skin pressed down on the deck.

I'll rip all the tape off tomorrow and see how it went, also hope to get the carbon fibre rails done and leash plug installed. I've also gotta even up one of the concaves ( it's single to double ) and sand out some bruises I put in the bottom 5mm skin. I have to say though, it's feeling pretty stiff and solid. I reckon this ""thick skin" technique has merit - I'll definitely be doing it again.

Would love to have it glassed / sanded / glassed by the weekend but that's VERY optimistic.
deck_skin.jpg

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dUg
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Re: so I got me some EPS and balsa sheet...

Post by dUg » Tue Nov 08, 2011 9:11 pm

tape-bagging. unwrapped it this morning... worked a treat! :D
Image40.jpg

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Re: so I got me some EPS and balsa sheet...

Post by Quangers » Tue Nov 08, 2011 9:39 pm

That's a great idea - lots of tape though.
Been watching this thread with interest - I like what you've done so far and can't wait to see how it turns out. Cheers for putting it up.
A question, what happens to the bag if some of your resin leaks out from under the skin and makes contact? I have always wondered about that scenario with vac bagging too.

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Re: so I got me some EPS and balsa sheet...

Post by kayu » Tue Nov 08, 2011 11:59 pm

.....love that low tech dUg !

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Re: so I got me some EPS and balsa sheet...

Post by kayu » Wed Nov 09, 2011 12:05 am

... :lol: ,,I remember a thread on Swaylocks where this guy built a rocker bed , put the board on it , and atually shovelled 6 wheelbarrows full of garden dirt on it...... it's the result that counts.

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Re: so I got me some EPS and balsa sheet...

Post by diggerdickson » Wed Nov 09, 2011 12:13 am

dUg wrote:tape-bagging. unwrapped it this morning... worked a treat! :D
Image40.jpg
dug, thats f#&k(*g brilliant. I really hopes it works mate, I really do, one for the little guys, yewwwwwwwwwww.
no, Im not a surfer, Im just a garbage man".

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Re: so I got me some EPS and balsa sheet...

Post by dUg » Wed Nov 09, 2011 9:36 pm

Quangers wrote:That's a great idea - lots of tape though.
Been watching this thread with interest - I like what you've done so far and can't wait to see how it turns out. Cheers for putting it up.
A question, what happens to the bag if some of your resin leaks out from under the skin and makes contact? I have always wondered about that scenario with vac bagging too.
not really... 2 rolls for $5 at Bunnings... and even then I only used half a roll. :lol:

I imagine resin gets out all the time in vac bags... but it won't stick to the bag and the wicking stuff probably takes care of it. I don't use resin to affix the skins... I used this füćking evil furinture epoxy I have had kicking around in the shed for 15 years. It looks like toffee and when it sets, it's the hardest, nastiest shit you've ever laid eyes on. Virtually impossible to get ANY to squeeze out the sides, in fact, it actually forms an intergral part of the composite sandwich.
kayu wrote:.....love that low tech dUg !


lo-tech's what it's all about Kayu, well, it is for me anyway ;). I wanted to improvise as much as possible - use stuff most people would have lying around - just to see if it could be done. I'll go high tech in future with rocker bed and vac gear, but I'm happy to have proven you don't need all that stuff to make a half decent job of a backyard compsand. I used all kinds of crap to hold down the bottom skin!
diggerdickson wrote:
dUg wrote:tape-bagging. unwrapped it this morning... worked a treat! :D
Image40.jpg
dug, thats f#&k(*g brilliant. I really hopes it works mate, I really do, one for the little guys, yewwwwwwwwwww.

Cheers Digger. It's come out pretty well... glassed both sides today and even managed to not make a complete mess of the carbon fibre rail inserts. I am now fairly confident it'll be surfed on the weekend, just got the fin plugs and gloss coat of epoxy to do tomorrow.

I am concerned I have over-rockered it, which means it'll be a bit of a pig to paddle and might feel a bit like it's pushing water. I have tried to compensate by sanding a decent concave right through the guts, but I'm not sure it'll be enough. The planing section of the board is less than I would like for the waves I surf 95% of the time. In really steep, clean waves though, looks like it'll be loads of fun. I'll find out soon enough.

More pics tomorrow, hopefully.

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Re: so I got me some EPS and balsa sheet...

Post by dUg » Sun Nov 13, 2011 1:54 pm

well... here it is... the finished product...
Image32.jpg
Image31.jpg
Image29.jpg
Image28.jpg

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Re: so I got me some EPS and balsa sheet...

Post by Quangers » Sun Nov 13, 2011 7:04 pm

:shock: Awesome! Well done. That is f@@@@ing cool.

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Re: so I got me some EPS and balsa sheet...

Post by black duck » Mon Nov 14, 2011 10:18 am

Fcuk, looks the jizz Dug.
Why do you have a west logo on it?
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Re: so I got me some EPS and balsa sheet...

Post by dUg » Mon Nov 14, 2011 10:26 pm

Quangers wrote::shock: Awesome! Well done. That is f@@@@ing cool.
Cheers Quangers. Think someone might buy it off me?
black duck wrote:Fcuk, looks the jizz Dug.
Why do you have a west logo on it?
let's say contractual obligations and leave it there. ;)

Thanks bd... I'm happy with how the board looks and with the finish, especially compared to the previous ( non-compsand) one which I botched the glass job on.

Ride report pending...

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Re: so I got me some EPS and balsa sheet...

Post by kayu » Tue Nov 15, 2011 12:56 pm

Nice job dUg.......its time to start thinking about the next one ! :lol:

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Re: so I got me some EPS and balsa sheet...

Post by dUg » Tue Nov 15, 2011 10:17 pm

kayu wrote:Nice job dUg.......its time to start thinking about the next one ! :lol:
Thanks Kayu. We'll see...

OK, now you've all had a chance to look at the pics, I guess I should deliver the much anticipated ride report.

I must admit, I was a bit hesitant going back into the shed after the Quad Pod I shaped in 2010. The fcUk ups on that project just seemed to come one after another, and when the resin finally kicked way too fast as I poured it onto the rails, destroying any chance of a half decent job, I was seconds away from putting an axe through it. I seriously was. But for some reason I just walked away, and came back after a week and finished it. It was too heavy and looked rough as guts... but it surfed brilliantly. I still retain quite a soft spot for that board despite its rather obvious flaws.

The compsand, on the other hand, went pretty well. I had some minor stuff ups, but nothing I couldn't save... and I figured once I'd tacked down the last flap of glass on the underside of the rails, I was pretty well home and hosed.

On Saturday I excitedly stuck on a new tailpad, a new leash, and then got all warm and fuzzy as the "first waxing" ceremony got underway. Ahhh... there's nothing like it is there? With every flick of the wrist and loop of white stickiness your mind just drifts further and further into how good those first few waves are gonna be, and how smug you'll feel knowing you made this pleasure machine with your very own hands.

Paddling out, my initial feeling was that it was a bit... well... average... and not quite the quantum leap in paddle performance I might have hoped for. Still it felt nice and corky duckdiving a couple of waves, even though the swell was barely waist high. Sitting up on it I was definitely a bit higher in the water, and I savoured that for a few minutes waiting for the first set. When it came, I stroked into the first one... but it seemed hard to get onto. I hoped it wasn't the board. Next one was a tiny bit bigger and stood up for me, so I stroked hard and launched into it.

Straight away, I knew something was wrong. Horribly wrong.

For a start I struggled to get through the section... the board felt stiff but worse... there seemed to be all this hideous turbulence and drag right under my back foot. It was like I had 10kg of weed snagged on the leash. I flicked of the back a bit surprised, but dismissed it as maybe poor back foot placement. I figured maybe I had to ride this a bit differently to the one I copied it from.

The next wave I was a bit wider and got my weight onto the front foot more - but there was none of the rapid acceleration and easy settle-in to a high-line I expect from a decent board. Instead, the wave raced off without me, leaving me in dead water going nowhere fast. I did finally manage to get a couple of fatter waves and get it out of the bog zone, but even then, it still felt pretty bad. Well, not bad. Sh1thouse, if I must be perfectly honest. As bad as the worst boards I've ever surfed.

I then decided I'd bail on the reef I was surfing and head for my local beachie in the hope something with a bit more punch might favour the board. There's a left-hand bank I've been surfing a bit lately, it's a bit crumbly, a bit fast, but it breaks right through to the beach and has a fun closeout right at the end. Sadly, I never got near that. Every wave bar one the board just struggled to get any speed, and the one snap I managed off the lip felt so kooky and awkward I was almost ashamed to leave the water lest someone see me. A couple of mates out there were shaking their heads. "You're struggling on that thing, eh?" was the general consensus. When finally the glass off ended, and the wind suddenly came up, chopping up the small swell in about 30 seconds, I faced the final insult of having to paddle in. And that was the last time I surfed it, and probably the last time I ever will.

So let this be a lesson to you, would- be backyard shapers.

You can spend hours in the shed tweaking, refining, and creatively visualising. You can file, and sand, and polish, and sleep the sleep of the righteous, happily fatigued working man . And you pour your heart and soul into something that looks and feels sweet, not just to you, but to anyone else that sees it... and feel proud.

And it can still end up being a useless piece of dogsh1t you can hardly wait to get rid of.

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Re: so I got me some EPS and balsa sheet...

Post by alakaboo » Tue Nov 15, 2011 10:30 pm

aaawww. That sucks.

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dUg
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Re: so I got me some EPS and balsa sheet...

Post by dUg » Tue Nov 15, 2011 10:35 pm

alakaboo wrote:aaawww. That sucks.
Not at all.

It's cathartic. It's metaphoric. It's on ebay.

:lol:

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kayu
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Re: so I got me some EPS and balsa sheet...

Post by kayu » Tue Nov 15, 2011 11:13 pm

I wouldnt sell it so fast dUg.....make a rocker jig from the original board you copied and see if the new one matches.....check everything you can......there's something to learn from it...

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