I’m finishing up the shaping of my first board! It’s about a 7’6" assym.
There are some ugly chunks of foam missing along the stringer because initially, I planned on adding a wooden stringer but decided against it after having already cut the blank in half. Could this cause problem? I plan to put a carbon fiber strip in the middle on the top of the deck.
Also, along the rails, some of the sandings became difficult from the glue that I used to paste two blocks of foam. This makes the rails look sharper in some places and there are also some chunks of foam missing. Should I fix this with epoxy and glass bubbles? Or will this also be difficult to sand alongside the foam?
Doing an asymmetrical shape for your first attempt at shaping is really swinging for the fences, but going for broke is a famliar tale here. Many of us have done similarly. I’m a home builder and I made a similar mistake (I did a resin opaque on my first board - big mistake).
A 7-6 stringerless in EPS is a gutsy move. It’s not the foam so much as the length vs thickness. Flex is basically a function of lenght x thickness so the longer the length the more leverage is occurring at each end. If this was a 5-5 length at the same thickness then it wouldn’t be an issue, but with the longer length you’re going to get more flex. Starting with when you go to glass it - the blank might sag as you add more weight to it. You might have already noticed the blank flexing while you were shaping it. I don’t know that a carbon fiber strip up the center is going to do it for you, either. I’ve done full bamboo veneers over stringerless midlengths (that works), but that involves vacuum bagging which is a whole 'nother level of complexity.
If you’re going to use carbon fiber tape you might consider laminating that down first and by itself on both deck and bottom before you do the main lamination. Then you’re not adding a lot of weight at that step (so you won’t get sagging) and the carbon fiber will actually support the blank better when you are laminating it.
If you have big chunks of foam missing you can cut a plug of foam and simply replace the area at and around your hole. For smaller you can fill with resin+filler. Just be aware that those filler patches are harder and will flex less than the surrounding foam, so don’t do that with the big holes.
For your rails I’d actually suggest going back to your planer, setting a super shallow cut and just walk it from end to end until you get a consistent angle, then turning the rest of the rail with a sanding block (first) and finish by hand. With these other bands you want to stop short of even touching your glue line so that when you go to finish you end up just barely touching it.
I do a lot of EPS boards using multiple pieces of foam. Gorilla glue or similar glues tend to make it hard to get a nice clean rounded shape. I prefer adding a band of foam along the rails about an inch wide. I try to only put the glue where I think I won’t hit it when shaping, but that doesn’t always work. If you have a nice small and sharp hand plane like a David plane, you can slowly cut away at the hardened glue, but you need to go slow and be careful. Another thing you can do is get a new razor blade and carefully cut away the glue. Do a cut from one side of the glue down about an 1/8" and another from the opposite side of the glue line. Cut it like a v and deep enough to shape what you want. You may have to cut a little into the foam leaving a small void, but then you can get the rails right. I use spackle to fill in EPS. You need to sand it back to foam anyway, so spackle it and sand back it to where it’s mostly foam and the spackle is only filling the voids. You can cover up all the glue lines and spackled area when you glass it.
I do double layers of glass and often do 3 layers on the deck. For stringerless boards, I wrap all the layers around the rail (except if there is a deck or bottom insert). They end up stiffer, but strong.
As for the shape, I would try to get a nice hard edge on the bottom rail in the tail. Most of my boards have a well defined edge (tucked under rail) from the front third all the way to the tail.
With a Surform shave a piece of EPS scrap foam for shavings. Mix those shavings with spackle forming a paste/filler. Fill all voids with this paste. Wait until the patches are 100% dry. Even if it takes a couple of days. Screen or sand those patches until they match adjacent surfaces. Then proceed to glassing.
I had thought of mixing some scrap foam with epoxy/some paste but had never seen it mentioned so thought it probably not worth the trouble. Will give it a go.
“As for the shape, I would try to get a nice hard edge on the bottom rail in the tail. Most of my boards have a well defined edge (tucked under rail) from the front third all the way to the tail”. This is my plan, hard edge on the toe side and a bit softer on the heel.
Gdaddy why do you say an assym is difficult as a first board? I figured any board I did would come out asymmetrical anyways so might as well stick with that from the start.
I just think that when starting out you’re attempting to develop an eye for the curve and that’s easier to do with a symmetrical shape that provides the 2 sides for direct comparison. Really, when starting out I think its better to keep everything simple - template, rocker, foil, bottom contour, fins, and especially the glassing. There’s already a big learning curve to clear just with all the basics. Dumping the entire chrome accessory aisle at Autozone onto a used Yugo isn’t going to make it drive any better.
Very few surfers have the skillz it takes to outsurf a “basic” design.
I see. Well I suppose it depends on what one’s intentions are. I’m not looking to become a shaper, just wanted to make a funky-looking board that hopefully floats too!
"I see. Well I suppose it depends on what one's intentions are. I'm not looking to become a shaper, just wanted to make a funky-looking board that hopefully floats too!"
No problemo. Everyone here has an origin story. I started out wanting to learn how to do my own ding repairs because with 3 sons who surf our ding repairs were getting expensive.
