Blank Week End

What the blank are you going to do this weekend? I just cut in to my last EPS blank. I made four homemade EPS blank boards. The prototype was a bit weak; it still in one piece but its delaminating pretty bad. The second I gave away to the “Crush the Ice for Life” event in Rome, Indiana, the third I made to give to the city to thank them for letting us use Griggs for Nationals last year, and the fourth I made for a friend. This one will be for me.

This blank is a remnant from one of the other four boards. The blank that doesn’t quite fit my hot wire guides. I did use the rocker guide. The foil will be more free form. I'll have more flying foam fuzzes than normal. I'm hoping the foam blows away in to SD's back yard.

I’ll do another resin swirl on the bottom of the board and maybe a fabric inlay on the deck. I bought more futures fins and boxes and I bought X-Trak Long Bow traction.

Oh, and tomorrow will be surf day.

Here’s the blank


Cut for stringer install


New clear gorilla glue. The polyurethane Gorilla glue works better and faster when you wet the surfaces.

Very nice! However, I have NO FOAM pellets in my backyard. It's all on the side yard.

I have not used a stringer on any of my boards. On boards this small is it really needed ?

Don't know, I've never built one without a stringer. SD has, and he has used alternative materials for stringers like carbon fiber. Also I weight 220, what do you weigh, maybe I need the extra strength?

The size of the board is only one variable, a 1 pound EPS foam board WOULD need either skins or a stringer to be ridden...well to not SNAP

Foam less than 5 pound density isn't structural, so will need an enhanced glassing schedule not to snap under hard use. Lakewakes takes a good middle of the road with 3 pound EPS and a good glassing schedule, those boards are solid. IS's don't have a vertical stringer, instead they run a full length veneer (woodloc is their terminology) and then a robust glassing/resin schedule.

For years, I believe, the standard for skimboards was 5 pound H80 Divinycell, with 3 layers of 6 oz e-glass.

I've built 2 pound EPS with 2 x 4 oz top and 1 x 4 oz bottom. Super lively board, but got heel dents on the first ride, eventually lead to a delam under the feet.

IMO, 2 to 3 pound foam with several layers of 6 oz wouldn't need a stringer and should last a reasonable amount of time.

My planner started losing power so I thought maybe the brushed were going. The brushes didn’t look to bad but I replaced them anyway. With new b rushed the planer wouldn’t even budge.

On further inspection I found that the belt melted on to the belt housing! I put on the spare belt and carefully finished mowing foam without the guard. My planner was cheap, you get what you pay for.

Cleaning up the foam I filled my shop vac three times!

Here'e a picture of the planer, belt cover and the old belt that was friction welded to the belt cover.


Just the old belt and cover

I've shaped the board. The spackling in some of the rough spots needs to dry before I can glass. I'm going to resin swirl the bottom of the board and put a fabric inlay on the deck.


I truncated the nose and just made it a shovel.

Don't let your RR sit around too long. Over the winter my resin cured all by its self right in the bottle. Time to place another order

Oh no! You've had trouble with the cold and RR products.

At least yours wasn't self-inflicted. I typically buy the 1 board size of RR. It's 3 bottles and they are all the same...including the lids.

In one lamination, I mixed the lids up, put the resin lid on the hardener bottle and the hardener lid on the resin bottle. The next time I went to mix some epoxy, I couldn't open the bottles!

I wouldn't rule out a mix up with lids.

my hardener is blue

Show ,
I stopped doing the swirl because i found that the paint would not mix well in with the epoxy and would cause soft spots in the lam coat, after the hotcoat all was good , but i dont want to take a chance on a delam

My last two boards seemed pretty strong to me.

Isn't the whole idea of a resin swirl, for the pigment not to mix well? I mix clear resin pigment thoroughly, then I add the catalyst. I mix the colors with one or two stirs and then distribute. I have a delam problem on my long board but I used really dark colors and it was left in the sun. My first EPS board delamed but I didn’t use color where it delamed.

It seemed so be soft in the area's were the color was darker from not being mixed, the next day after lam coat those area's were soft but after hotcoat the board seems ok with no soft spots.

Here's the resin swirl. A bit darker than I intended and the overall application not what I had in mind. We'll see what it looks like when it's all done.

How did you wrap the rails before you had resin on the board, or did you use a clear first and then put the swirl down?

I was thinking of doing a blue/clear swirl, but I was going to have one portion clear and then one blue. Mix the clear, mix the blue and then mix the two together barely and then apply it to the board. I was also thinking about doing this process as the hot coat. Is this a bad idea?

all your questions can be answered on swaylocks.com

Here's the latest. Trimmed the lap line and added the fabric inlay.


The deck before trimming


Since I was going to do a fabric inlay I didn't bother to mask


The trimmed board


The nose has a lot of color. Turns out it does show through the fabric, I should have masked.


Close up of the inlay


After adding resin

Mark, I did the swirl poor first.

I had intended to use a lot less resin, I wanted to leave most of the glass bare. However, I mixed up too much resin and felt that I had to use it all, stupid. I used the RR accelerator and let the resin set up for maybe 15 minutes. Then I mixed enough resin to do the edge and laps. Lapping the cloth pulled it tight to the board.

There are spots on the bottom on the board that don't have resin yet. I’ll get those spots in the sanding coat; might need a second sanding coat.

After trimming the fabric inlay

I like that look Ed, very nice.

i like the inlay.. is this close to your previous builds with only a snubbed nose ?

The rocker should be close but I don't think I have as much concave in the board.

Show ,
cool board , The best way i found to do a swirl is like you said to pour the color in with the lam epoxy give it a couple of wirls and pour about half of it on in a crazy patern then i mix in the color in the last half of the epoxy and pour the rest on the board then start spreading . now i have not done multi colors, i see the darker colors dont work in some cases. check out sways on the colors that work best. like yellow and red.

So, I finally got my Add F, I ran out, and I got some time to work on the board. I'm rushing to try to get the board done in time for the Indiana Surf and Turf and the Muncie Water Bowl. I was making good progress, then I knocked the board off the shaping stand and did major damage to one rail.

So now I'm fixing a board that I've never ridden. Dang it!!!