you take your car to work, i'll elaborately detail a longboard
July 26, 2021 10:41 AM   Subscribe

 
Very cool design!

What is the base board made of, before he started adding fiberglass layers to it?
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:10 PM on July 26, 2021


Greg- he started with an EPS (expanded polystyrene) foam blank, that would've looked like a rectangular block. This video skips the part where he would've done "shaping" of that block to get the specific surfboard shape that he wanted.
posted by stinkfoot at 12:20 PM on July 26, 2021 [1 favorite]


There are also people and companies that provide partially - shaped blanks for different boards to glassers, because shaping and glassing are to a degree different skills.
posted by q*ben at 12:37 PM on July 26, 2021 [1 favorite]


And as long as we're talkin' about shapers and blanks, might as well tip a hat to Grubby Clarke
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 12:42 PM on July 26, 2021 [1 favorite]


Awesome. I don't know anything about surfing but I love watching people build stuff like this.

He makes the fiberglass and resin look so easy but I've done a lot of research into making cedar strip canoes, which also use a layer of the same stuff, and if there's one thing I've learned it's that it's really easy to do it very, very badly.
posted by bondcliff at 1:24 PM on July 26, 2021 [4 favorites]


Totally old school. I was making boards like this in 1969-71. Hand shaped and glassed by hand. You have to work fast. Once you add the MEKP catalyst, the resin begins to go off in a few minutes.

Now days, for production, a prototype shape is scanned and then CNC machines rough shape the blank of production boards to within 1/8”. The production shaper has become the ‘scraper’ smoothing out the furrows and grooves from the CNC cutting head. Then, for polyester resin glassing (what is demonstrated here), modern vacuum bagging techniques can reduce the amount of resin that is used, reducing cost and weight significantly and improving strength. UV-catalyzed resins are often used. The manufacture of epoxy boards is very different (although those can be laid-up by hand as well).

Still, some old school shapers are still around and custom shapes are still done this way, more or less, although most shapers send their finished shaped blanks to a regional glassing business which deals with the toxic and carcinogenic chemicals, OSHA, EPA, etc. Since the 60s, I’ve gotten my longboards from Rich Harbour and shortboards from Tom Neilson. Both are pretty much retired except special orders; most boards shaped under their label are done by hired shapers.
posted by sudogeek at 2:14 PM on July 26, 2021 [4 favorites]


+ for the post title
posted by iamkimiam at 3:09 PM on July 26, 2021 [3 favorites]


That's a lot of work for something a shark is going to eat.
posted by Beholder at 3:48 PM on July 26, 2021


I'm kind of surprised they didn't spray on the fill and gloss coats.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:28 AM on July 27, 2021


« Older The building blocks of the zero-carbon...   |   We need more buzz Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments