I made a start on this mini simmons inspired Nug, Its a stringerless PU blank and i plan to glasss it in 4oz S glass and epoxy with a a Sglass and volan tape down the bottom to controll flex
My plan for this was too have a cross between the bar of soap and mini Simmons, id like it too surf on the flattish 2’ days, when i do fancy a Log, and be a blast for those ‘fun’ days i fancy something different, a little top to bottom but really loose
So far i have it at 5’4, 22"x3" and nose and tail are both 18.75".
Rocker is coming in at 0.75" tail 2.25"nose.
Now, id really like this to be skatey, and fast, but i Cant decide on the rails or fin choice
I love my twin fish, both with modern keels, but i was contemplating going twinzer on this, to keep the drive and looseness! What you guys recommend?
Should i go 60:40 rails or a beveled 50:50 to leave a little more volume in the deck.
Ive taken a little off the nose and tail from the deck side, should i adjust the rocker or leave as is?
I was planning on belly front and the deep single to double through the rear, does this sound right or am i barking up the wrong tree with this outline?
I’d go with quad boxes with single FCS plugs for single-tab canard experimentation. With a tail that wide you might find you need the extra bite of quad vs twinzer(?) Plugs will give you options…
The outline is fine. I actually like it. You’ve got a little Hull “camel hump” thing going on there in the deck. I Think you could thin it out a bit. 1/8” to 1/4”. Good to remember that as far as float and buoyancy go you can concentrate that where you need it and thin out where you don’t . My rule of thumb is to always keep my maximum thickness between my shoulders or chest and my thighs or knees when paddling. You can leave the tail fairly thick because that is where your weight is in your stance(rear foot),but don’t be afraid to thin out the front 25% or so(ie the nose). I’m not prepared to make a call on fins and placement until I’ve seen what you do with the rails and the overall bottom contours etc. personally I think those two things will have a tremendous impact on what to do for fins. Not criticism, just some thought as to provoke. Hoping to teach your eye to visualize and your mind to see the detail of a finished blank. Lowel
I took it out the shaping shed to get a fresh perspectice on the foil, and i didnt like it. Id been aiming for an S deck, this board doesnt suit it and reflector from your comments and looking at the last few boards ive shaped, I have been enjoying some fairly foiled out tails recently
Will flattening the deck off keep the volume where its needed and an element of performance to the wide nose and tail?
Im thinking of 60:40 rail, slight up turn in the nose and hard out the back. an allmost parralel to the stringer bevel. Hovever i do have a bigger board with 50:50 full rails which lights up the small mush days.
Bit of belly, deep single too double between the fins??
Small keel + twinzer leader is my favorite fin setup for short fat assed boards. The cant in the leader solves all the drama of using a keel on your backside.
GDaddy, your last bit of adivce has served me really really well, which makes me rather inclined to listen!!!
I want the twin drive but that extra little bit of looseness! My fish with shorter swept keels surf lovely, you can use the fin for direction and my reasoning for not going traditional simmons style was to get away from that tracky style of surfing
Ive foiled the tail out 1/4", got rid of the hump. Taken another quater inch off the nose top and bottom and its flattend the deck off a bit.
Ive all nost finished the bottom with the front 1/3 belly, mid section is a 1/4" parralel concave, and taking the tail to a double with v or tri plane if you prefer. The exit off the tail needs a final clean up to even it out
Ive ended up with 3/4" tail rocker, and 2 3/8" at the tip. Now, this is measured with the belly, would this result in too litttle rocker???
If it were my project I would work on the bottom from the center point forward and add more nose rocker. Leave the deck rocker alone for the time being and put some more foil (and rocker) into the front 1/3 of the board from the bottom. You will also be reducing the swing weight in the nose. You can surf a super flat rocker but there’s really no upside to dropping below 3". Some of the original Mini-Simms were pushing 4" in the nose due to the blank they were using - I think that’s excessive for such a shape, but less than 3" is an extreme, too. In my opinion.
There are many ways to shape, but FOR ME I usually try to get my bottoms dialed before I even skin the deck, and I try to leave as much of the deck rocker alone as I can. This starts with figuring out which blank I’m going to use, which part of the blank I’m going to take the template out of and what the thickness and rocker is of that part of the blank before I start thinning it out from the bottom for my rocker.
While it may be true that all elements of a design are equally important to the outcome I think the rocker might be the first among equals.
For the foil, if you’re going to add (let’s say) a total of 1/2" of belly to the nose then bringing the thickness of the nose to maybe 1" or a little more before re-doing the bottom contour will leave a barely-there 1/8" roll from the deck, a 1/8" facet for the perimeter of the template and another 1/8" facet leading to the transition to the belly. By the time you turn that section you’ll end up with a refined
The attached pic kinda gives you an idea of the bottom rocker and foil for the mini-simms, although it looks like this shaper used a blank that already had the rocker so they ended up taking the foil off the deck. The original mini-simms from Joe Baugess had a bit of deck scoop but not nearly so extreme as this example. But leave that aside for now because with what you’ve got you want to foil the blank from the bottom to get to that thickness at the end.
Anyways, that’s how I would proceed from where you’re at right now. Others may suggest differently.
God its refreshing to have advice and experience shared!
I managed to get in the Bay today and get the shape finished off. Just needs a quick rub down for glassing now.
I took your advice and used the front half of the rocker too foil it out and get some more rocker, i was just shy of 3" but, with it being chop nose and with the foil there it looks right
I went a head and put a mild belly in, 3/8" in the first quater into a nice blended single then the double out the back. Shaping the deeper doubles will require some nicer tools in future. Perhaps i will make a few curved blocks to keep a little more continuity there
Once i had got that foil right at the front the back did not seem right atall soo i kept the 3/4" tail rocker, added a little more rocker at the rail ( ive found the fish work great with extra bit of rail rocker ) and dropped the thickness through out the back half of the board from the deck. I took allmost a half inch away at the 12" mark!
Went ahead and shaped the rails, 3/8" tuck and boxy througout with a bevel, a little up in the nose and hard edge in the back. Its given me the lines i was trying to picture, pretty stoaked!
Unfortunayely my session got cut short for the kids, but ill get some pics up asap!
On a nice note i had one of the besy sessions on my longboard, glassy 4-5’ at the local and scored a few great waves. Never been on the nose in those sort of waves and it really opened up my eyes! Even got a nice cover up much to the dismay of some visiting short boarders!
You mention blank choice! What blanks do you go for for this style? We have a great local foam blower here (all mdt) who make a 6’6 simmons blanks with tiny rocker and 3.5" thick throughout! Whilst ive found it plentiful, i cant help but think the 5’10RP is so user friendly for anything flat wide and short!
I like the 5-10 RP rocker a lot. I’ve used the stock rocker for the shorter and flatter fishies by just taking the template out of the middle and for the longer 5-9 to 5-10 alternative shapes without doing anything to the rocker. I also sometimes order a flatter rocker when I’m doing a larger fishie or the like that will use more of the rocker.
Simmons shapes and their variants use that wide-point back design so for those I like to template the blank forward of center so the midpoint of the rocker is under the wide point of the template - for those I usually have to order a flatter nose rocker because I’m using all or most of the blank’s nose rocker ansd flattening the foil off the deck to blend it in with the thickness @ 18".
But again, that’s just one way to do it, 'cause I know other people do it very differently. To great effect.
