BIG Simmons from busted longboard?

Hey y’all this snapped board was sitting in a ravine in Pacifica forever, walking back to the car the other day I noticed someone had cleared the ravine out and piled up the trash so I grabbed it thinking it could be handy for repairs.  After looking at it I got the idea to chop the rotten end off, dry if out and make it into a not so mini Simmons.  

After cutting the rotten end off the eps looks surprisingly ok and it’s 6’10" long.  Most of the post I see are about folks repurposing longboards into pretty short minis.    This thing is 3 1/4" thick and 23 1/2 wide at its biggest. 

I’m strictly a lazy longboarder who surfs Pacifica as well as Bolinas and Santa Cruz when I get the chance.  I ride a 9’3 single or a 10’ boardworks single and mostly go out there on the small mellow days.  Since this thing has so much volume I figure I could ride it and have a good time but after doing some research I’m unsure if a big ol simmons shape would even work in the weak messy Linda mar surf  I’m used to.

I dream of shaping my own board one day and have done a ton of repairs and installed a fin box.  I figure this project would be a good learning experience before trying to shape my first board but wonder if it’s a terrible idea shape wise for the kind of waves I surf?  Any tips are appreciated!



You could glass off the back, add keels or fins and surf it but I think you might have some problems in both paddling and surfing the board that way.   

The original apex of the rocker appears to be about in the middle of the red band.  That means you have a long rocker curve (~58") forward of that and a much shorter curve (~24") behind it.  If it were my board I’d chop ~18" off the nose, strip back about 6" of the glass off the bottom and rails and reshape/ reglass the nose.  Blunt the nose, thin it from the bottom and add a litte more curve to the bottom rocker to the nose.  Add some belly to smooth out your entry.    You’d still have a wide-point back rocker and the volume would be sufficient to float a 200# surfer.

Simms designs generally don’t need very much nose rocker.   

Thanks gdaddy!  This is exactly the kind of info I’m looking for.  I think I understand what you mean after it being hard to paddle in its current shape after reading that and laying it flat on my porch.  This thing has a bit of a banana shape to it.  

 

Is the reason why it’d be an awkward paddle that a significant amount of the board would end up sticking out of the water due to the nose and tail rocker?  I’m also wondering if taking material off the belly to flatten it out might be an option although that would complicate the rail shape.

my loose plan was to patch it up after it drys out in the sun this week but it sounds like some actual stripping and shaping may be the way to go.  Any and all tips or design idea are much appreciated 

 

I think this is a good project.  I like to see recycling in action.   

Taking some length/weight off the nose will move the point of balance back toward the original rocker.  That will also lower the effective tail rocker, which is a good thing for Simms.  They normally run a really short tail rocker (like 1" or 1.5").    Along with the shorter length and lower volume (much easier to duck dive) you’ll be able to really drive off the tail and muscle that fat tail block around, which is how the design is mostly surfed.    

Are you planning on putting a pair of keels on it or perhaps going with a quad?   

Gdaddy: i was thinking some keels pretty far back since I’m used to a single.  Don’t want it too loose since it’d be the shortest board I’ve ridden.  I’m pretty stoked on recycling boards, my main ride is a 9’3 off the free section of Craigslist that has lasted years with about a million repairs :-) 

Hey neighbor! Give it a ago,good way to get some skills in before a real blank.but your still gonna have to put some money into it (Resin and cloth about $150 or 200.) blanks are the cheap part$100+ - . Maybe make some wood fins, I snagged some bamboo cutting boards at Ross for $5.being eps is also a little tricker to shape and needs some spackle especially if yanked laminate off it will pull some with it…

Lindamar is great for mini sims or long sims…

keep us posted 

Heres some I have done.if you scroll around the dates you can kinda see before and after 

https://www.instagram.com/p/B_ar-xAHDL4/?igshid=1sv9roijjncdk

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/BB8B6ZIzKCI/?igshid=194vksztvy1ap

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/BXwehjiA_MR/?igshid=1r5h317pu7jrf

If you need help with outline blending curves is a good start. Also has fin templets 

https://www.blendingcurves.com/outline-templates/nug-a

Damn Tom! these reshapes are beautiful!  I definetly wish it was a busted poly board rather than eps since it’d be a little easier and familiar for me to work with  Gonna try to keep as much of the original resin on there as I can to keep it cheapish and ugly lol.  Using a cuttingboard to make fins is genious.

There ya go, Mad max it! 

I just sanded down and spray painted a old art project board and it actually came out nice. 2 x light coats and scratch resistant for the most part…

looks like a fun one.  looking at the rocker and foam thickness flow you might use some strategic bottom concave placement to shift things around. Mush buster!

 

Totally a great idea, I’ve been looking at some “stubby” shapes on here lately for inspirations.  I’m trying to gather if simply flattening the belly out would help with paddling/getting into waves?  I’m thinking similar to this post:

https://www.swaylocks.com/comment/510245

This bad boy is looking goofy as ever.  Plan is to clean up the tail, patch it up and then throw it in the bay to see if paddling is a nightmare or not.  

turned out Supppper sloppy with a lot of rough spots where i patched this thing up but i’m pretty stoked on how it turned out.  I took it out yesterday in some pretty poor conditions at Linda Mar and was smiling the entire time.  I paddled out to a fairly uncrowded peak that was mostly closing out because I didn’t know what to expect.  As someone who only rides longboards I had a blast getting into waves much later than I’m used too.  My feet had to be a lot further foward than I expected or that tail seemed to sink and slow me down.  I definetly had a hard time turning before the waves closed out but I’m excited to try it out in better conditions.  I went with a single fin because I had a fin box from another broken board I grabbed from the trash.  It was a pretty squirly ride with a single in it, I’m wondering what some changes to the tail shape or switching it to a twin would achieve?  I’m stoked to have saved it from the landfill.  Any further suggestions on modifying this thing are appreciated! 

 




The tail block is so wide that it would take a 16" deep singlefin to hold the board in if you were to ever get it on it’s rail.  Which is why nobody runs a single on a 22" tail block.   .   

 

Big twin keels, set about 6" forward of the tail block.   The outline is so straight in the rear that the board will run fast in a straight line and won’t want to turn; you’ll have to muscle it to overpower that tail block.   Also, expect the board to pick up the energy of the wave in a very sudden and abrupt manner.  You won’t have a lot of margin for error on your transitions.    

Thanks for all the tips gdaddy.  I’m considering making that tail less wide to try and get this thing a little more turnable.  I kept it as wide as possible and just rounded the edges for maximum ease of paddling but obviously went a little overboard.  I’m also trying to decide if I’m going to make some keels or buy some fins/boxes.  Overall I’m having a good time and experimenting, this thread has been super helpful

This is a just-for-fun project, not a daily driver.   There’s no call for spending $50 or more on a nice pair of keels and boxes.     Save yourself the money and make you own keels and then glass them on.      Plywood is cheap.  Just remember to seal them well before you glass them on.   

This is a super rough sketch of what I’m thinking of doing to it.  I am curious abut your suggestion to put the keels 6 inches up from the tail block?  Been doing a lot of research on fin placement for a “minisimmons” which mostly seem to have the keels closer to the tail but I don’t see much info for putting twins on a big boy like this thing.  I guess its tail rocker/legnth kinda takes it out of that minisimmons realm so I may be researching the wrong shapes.  I think I have just the right cutting board to make those keels

Looks more like half a long board than a Simmons.  I’m sure at least a couple of people will think  “Oh!  He snapped his longboard, so he put a fin box in it and kept on surfing.”    Which in reality is exactly what you did.  Lol.  What did you do with the back half?  You should be able to get a “Tomo” shovel nose style shortboard with sidebites out of the back half.  I never thought about it before;  but you can add a board to your quiver without spending any money by just cutting your “log” in half.

Let’s recap the original design before we talk about the more recent Mini-Simms: The original Simmons shape consisted of longboard-lengths wherein he was trying to go fast, but wasn’t that interested in any significant amount of turning.   Simmons didn’t WANT the tail going anywhere, so those moon-shaped keels were mounted at the corners to add stability and control and hold, not drive and release.    He was getting his drive off that long and relatively straight rail line, which is how the traditional longboard designs work in general.      

Kenvin’s  Mini-Simmons was intended to be actively surfed but in super short lengths, much shorter than the surfer’s height.  The short length of the board and a contemporary stance will automatically  provide the rider with a lot of leverage over the fins.  And if you watch the vids of Kenvin and the kids surf those things out at Windandsea they were putting their rear foot right on the tail block because that’s what it takes to control and overpower all that surface area in the tail.    

The thing is that even the actual Mini-Simms have a lot more curve in their outline than what you have.   The original design had the wide point back behind center, which is one reason they were able to get those pivoting turns.    

That’s why I suggested that if you want to turn that board into a simms-type ride you would want to shorten it up more; which you didn’t do.  So now you have a much longer-than-Mini length, a rear quarter with absolutely no curve and an even wider tail block that they use - these are all factors which will make the board go fast in a straight line but be that much more difficult to turn.    

That’s why I am suggesting you add some control back in by moving the keels further forward.    That will make it easier for you to get your rear foot over the keels so you can start to assert some control over that tail block.      

This pic will illustrate what I was talking about above.   Note the small keels on the original (which were for hold and control) vs the bigger keels on the minis (which are for more drive).  Also take note of the wide points in the minis, they’re well behind center so you get that curve right in the middle of the surfer’s stance, and you also get a somewhat narrower tailblock.  Both of those features add control into the mix.