| How to Build Your First Surfboard by Stephen Pirsch |
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HALL OF FAME Mark Sadler |
TIPS
& PROBLEMS
SOME DO'S AND DON'T'S (the result of reading thousands of emails) Do think outside the box of conventional surfboard building. Designing a board is a wonderful thing. It can be sculpted to any shape desired. Maybe professional designers have some disadvantages compared to a home builder. If about 80% of the surfboard industry is evenly divided into two severely different camps, yet is almost totally comprised of clones within each camp, it seems there must be room for some other design. Do design a board for the average rideable conditions of the home break. Use this one board for all waves. When traveling to surf a dramatically faster wave, which would optimally require a different board, most surfers do not adjust well to a different board, for a short period. When vacationing, the trip is often over before a surfer can fully adjust to a new board, then he must adjust again to his home board. Do make board changes in small increments. Surfers, in general, do not adjust well to changes of over 6" in length, 1&1/2" in width, or 1/4" in thickness. The most likely result of a large change is a return to the familiar. Do resist the now widely accepted belief that a surfboard must stay down in the wave to function properly (slightly sunken even at full plane). This is not the optimum design for the average surfer. Do not read every thing possible about surfboard building on Swaylocks (a great site for a second board), or a surfing magazine etc., then try to sort out what to believe. The media is packed with conflicting information. How can a first time builder know what to believe? Do not choose board building as a career. It is low paying, seasonal, and monotonous. Choose another career, and build boards as a hobby or side business. Do try to disregard the controversies over which materials to build with. It would be better to use the most inferior products and have a design compatible with your weight and waves, than the opposite. Any of the materials mentioned in this book can make a good functional board. Do keep it simple on your first board by doing the following: Do build to last. Do use more cloth than what is on standard production boards. As oil prices, and surfboard prices, continue to rise, so will the desire for a more durable surfboard. Consider 6oz. "E" top and bottom with a 6oz. deck patch as minimum. 4oz. "S" top and bottom with a 4 oz deck patch is an equal minimum. Do get your hands on the materials (foam, cloth, and resin) as soon as possible, and practice. Surfboard building can not be learned by only reading and listening. Many of the details that are hard to understand will become clear only when you practice. For instance; there is no way to explain how to shape a rail or wrap cloth around a rail – you must get the feel of it. Practice. Do consider buying a premade board, especially if you want a popular shape. The best reasons to make your own board are: saving money, making a non conventional shape, or enjoyment of the process. It is questionable to buy a popular shape from a custom board building shop. Custom shops are best used for custom designs. The popular models by Surftech, Southpoint, and Bic are usually more durable, and often cheaper than custom shop boards. Do find someone you trust to point you in the right direction (maybe to this site, maybe some other), then stick with it. Do read, and re-read the book (if this is the site you trust), copy it and re-read the applicable section (GLASSING etc.) just before doing it, (this is what the people who have the best results say they have done). Note: about 3/4 of my email questions are already answered in the book. I love my emails, but please do not email me if you choose to use
another source to build by. Please email the source you used.
TIPS When trying to figure out the best position to catch a wave, try the following. Observe where the larger set waves are breaking, and paddle just beyond the next large set wave. Find two objects that line up with your position in one direction, (a rock, and a tree etc.) and two objects that line up in another direction. Keeping these four items lined up will fix a position within a few feet of the same place (every time you paddle back). Note that as the tide, wave size, and conditions change, different items will have to be lined up. If only two objects are lined up, you will still likely have better positioning than anybody else in the water. This gives you a huge advantage. When a surf spot is crowded and aggressive, the best choice is to surf somewhere else. Aggressive crowds are very likely to ruin your state of mind, and you may become what you despise. Yes - there are good surf spots (even point breaks) that are not crowded. If you read about a named spot online, or in a surf magazine etc., or saw it in a movie, it will very likely be crowded. Get "The Surf Report" (949-661-5108), P.O. Box 1028 Dana Point, Ca 92629 U.S.A. These reports are now available online at www.surfermag.com under travel. Realize that even though these reports cover virtually the entire surfing world, there are still many breaks that are not listed. Look through these reports and find a spot you have never heard of. Go exploring! Amazingly... great, un-crowded surf can be found within walking distance of a cheap hotel. Think about stretching, and doing pop-ups (rising quickly from lying to standing) before going out to surf. This will lessen soreness and improve your surfing. Paddling is the most important, and most overlooked part of surfing. It makes sense to keep in good paddling condition when not surfing. If paddling is not possible, swimming is probably your best bet. Strong paddlers will find learning to surf much easier. It will not matter how determined, coordinated or agile a person is if he is a poor paddler. It is simple: strong paddlers are almost always good surfers. When you are not sure of the exact size of your first board design,
tend to err on the large side. If you do not like it, you
can strip it, and reshape it. 2. An inexpensive 4/3 suit with ultrastrech arms. 3. An inexpensive 3/2 suit (ultrastrech arms) with hood, gloves,
and booties. Fix any hole or abrasion in your wetsuit by cutting a lycra patch (from old black rash guard). Coat the wetsuit, and the lycra patch, with two coats of contact cement. Let them dry completely, then press together. Small holes and beggining cracks can be filled with multiple coats of contact cement alone. Contact cement is better than using Blob etc., because it will stretch. If the hole is large, sew it with dental floss.then coat the floss with contact cement. Cover any contact cement, after the finished coat is dryed, with baby powder, corn starch, or dust; so it will not stick to itself. Coppertone sport sun block, continuous spray, 30spf (and it's clones - Nuetrogena 70spf etc.) seems clearly the best sun blocks. Walgreens has a cheaper generic. This group of aerosol sun blocks drys almost instantly, is not slippery, does not run in your eyes, and applies very fast (blocks uva and uvb). Don't use zinc oxide. Consider wearing a hat when surfing small waves. www.oneill.com has a hat with an attached rash guard. www.essentialsurf.com has a Da Kine Indo Surf Hat with neck strapand neck flap. Consider lycra running pants, and lycra biking/running shirts in place of the very expensive surf shorts and rash guards. These can be worn with a speedo swim suit underneath or with regular surf shorts over them. The lycra pants and shirts are available at: www.zyflex.com , www.americanwave.com , and www.academy.com for less than surf shops. Try local athletic stores which carry running supplies. The pants, are much more comfortable and flexible than surf shorts, protect the inner leg from rash, and can be rolled up above the knee or left long for protection from rash, sunburn, and skin cancer. If you have problems with skin abrasion (rash) apply New Skin before surfing. This is available as a liquid or spray, at pharmacies, and groceries. If the abrasion persists try Super Glue (brush type). This will stop it. Shaving the affected area can also help. Note that Super Glue makes an excellent bandage for cuts exposed to surfing turbulence that would tear off tape bandages. Super Glue is being used as a substitute for sutures in hospitals. It falls off as skin cells grow.
What is done in the first minute after being stung will determine the difference between minutes of moderate pain or hours of horrible pain. Please try to forget what you have read, been told, or have used to treat Man Of War stings - I should know, I worked in the county emergency room as an RN, and am a veteran of about one hundred stings. Remember this: get that damn gelatinous stringy goo off immediately! Resist paddling in to wipe it off on the beach. Quickly, try to splash it off first. Often, simply thrashing an arm or leg etc., through the water violently will dislodge it. If it is wrapped, quickly pull it off, pieceby piece (it will not burn the inside of fingers). If it can be completely removed in less than one minute, you will probably be in moderate pain for only about 10 minutes - then the pain will subside. If you paddle in to remove the attached tentacles on the beach, you will be suffering miserably for hours, with local burning and radiating muscle, and lymph node pain. The longer the time between the attachment and the removal, the longer and more intense the pain. Try to have some hard liquor available. Pour some over the burn (a few times), and consider drinking much of the rest. The hard liquor treatment will stop the injection of poison and give pain relief. Generally, due to the elapsed time, the only benefit of going to the emergency room will be for pain medication. If you are going to surf in a man of war infested area, be aware you can protect yourself.Simply cover as completely as possible with lycra pants, lycra shirt, (or 1mm Mares wet suit) booties, latex gloves,ozone hat etc. You can be stung through the lycra, but it will be relatively mild (not bad enough to make you want to go in). This is the hard way to get great un-crowded point break surf. What is done in the fist minute after being stung will determine the difference between minutes of moderate pain or hours of horrible pain.
The following will attempt to help you solve a few of the biggest
problems of surfboard building and repair, (not previously mentioned)
including: premature resin hardening, failure to add wax/styrene
surface agent, and delaminations PREMATURE RESIN HARDENING Probably the worst thing that could happen, when building a surfboard, is resin gelling in the cloth before the rails are wrapped. Do not despair. Even this can be fixed. If you are using polyester resin, and the resin starts to gel on the cloth when you are still saturating the flat part of the board, it is too late to continue. Very quickly pull all gelled cloth off the blank. Very quickly scrape all the excess resin off the blank with the edge of a plastic squeegee, or anything with a straight sharp edge. If the resin becomes too rubbery to scrape off, stop. Let the resin harden, and slowly sand it down, close to the foam (it is not necessary to completely remove it). Use #50 or #100 grit sand paper on a block, or a #150 - #220 grit disk on a drill. If the hard resin is only in small spots, surround the resin with a layer of duct tape to protect the bare foam. If your resin gels too soon on a hot coat, do the following. Stop. Mix enough extra resin to finish the hot coat. Apply this mix to the uncoated areas to be hot coated. It is unlikely anyone will be able to notice anything unusual about your board due to this, although it may look very uneven at the time. Remember, almost all the hot coat resin gets sanded off anyway. If your resin gels too soon on a gloss coat, do the following.
Stop. Let it harden completely. Sand it off, as if you
were sanding a hot coat. Re-gloss coat. FAILURE TO ADD STYRENE/WAX SURFACE AGENT The main problem caused by forgetting the surface agent is gumming of sandpaper. Since you are using far more surface agent in the method below, it will initially gum your sandpaper until all the surface agent (which has wax in it) is removed. The resin underneath will be hard, (polyester resin does not fully harden without surface agent) but slightly less hard than it would have been if the surface agent had been used originally. This will gum your sandpaper a little, but nothing like sanding with no surface agent. Fix this problem using one of the two methods below. Method 1 Method 2 DELAMINATIONS Delaminations are often caused by repeated heel dents or other similar impact damage. The result is the outer shell separating from the foam, causing a soft spot. On extruded polystyrene a slightly raised bubble will probably be noticeable on close inspection. Try to fix any delaminations as soon as you notice them. They will expand if you do nothing, and will eventually totally ruin your surfboard. Fix delaminations by first pressing a screwdriver etc, all around the outside edge of the delaminated area, marking the circumference with a pencil. Put a 5/32" drill bit in your drill, and penetrate the delaminated area with holes (drilling about 1/4" into the foam) every 1" in every direction (one hole for every square inch). Erase the pencil marks. Mix up a few ounces of ss2000 epoxy resin and hardener (not 5 minute epoxy). Draw up about 12 cc of mixed resin with a 12cc plastic syringe body (no needle). This will fit air tight in the 5/32" holes. Inject no more than 1cc of mixed resin in each hole. When it starts squirting out the adjacent hole, stop, and repeat until all the holes are injected. Press the delaminated area down lightly with your latex gloved hand, (until it touches the foam, and the resin starts squirting out of all the holes). Wipe up the excess. Put wax paper over the area, and place bricks etc.(long end up) over the entire area. Pull the paper when the resin hardens, and sand the excess. You will probably have to touch up a few of the holes with more resin. If the delamination is more than 1/3 of one side of a board, it is too far gone to be worth fixing (in my opinion). I feel it is better to remove all the glass and totally re-do it, or just give it up a buy a new board. Most delaminations could be prevented by simply using slightly more cloth in the laminate. If your board or boards have delaminated more than once in the same area, you should use more cloth in that area on your next board or next repair. Many people do this repair by drilling only two holes, injecting one hole with a large amount of resin. This method looks better, but does not stick as well, and will likely delaminate again under the same impact. To be almost positive that it will not delaminate again, drill the holes deeper (all the way to the lamination on the opposite side). In order to inject the resin use a piece of I. V. medical tubing (luer lock size). Insert one end of the tubing on the end of a 35cc syringe and the other end into the bottom of the hole. Inject resin while pulling the tubing out. If you do not use tubing, air pressure will restrict the resin flow causing numerous refills. Cover with wax paper and bricks as above. I have never had a board delaminate again after repairing this way. You may not like the way this repair looks, but remember: the better your board looks after a delamination repair, the more likely it is to delaminate again. If you can't get I. V. tubing, syringe body, or you have an area larger than one square foot, do the following: Drill 3/16” holes to the lamination on the other side. Insert (slightly over length) dry 3/16” wooden dowels and mark correct depths with pencil. Keep track of hole for each dowel, and cut dowels to correct length. Drip resin in the holes, (a few drops) then insert 3/16”" resin covered wooden dowels. Cover with wax paper and bricks as above (2&1/2 gallon plastic baggies filled with sand work better). Sand flush. Do not leave any exposed wood – touch up with resin. To make a board that is almost impossible to dent or delaminate, consider the following: Puncture or drill the blank (before lamination) every 2" (bottom to top) with 1/8" drill bit or 1/8" steel rods. Make a puncture tool by first drilling 1/8” holes in a 6”x 6”x 5/8” piece of wood. Insert 1/8”x 3 - 4” steel rods (9 rods) into holes in wood, and epoxy in place. The holes in the punctured foam will fill with resin when laminating, bridging the top and bottom together. When the first lamination gels, wipe the resin, which will drip out the opposite side of the holes. This has been tested since 2005 - it makes the board amazingly strong, and is how I build my personal boards now. Please do not do this in order to reduce cloth amounts. Delaminations are like impending death for surfboards. Please
consider using more cloth in your laminations. One extra layer
of 4oz cloth is the difference between a disposable board, and one
which will last indefinitely. YOUR SITE Please think of this site as your public access board building site. It is responsive to your emails, and is not dependent on any commercial interest. Please feel free to constructively criticize it. There is no direct advertising, and nothing is received for any links shown. The book has been totally supported for years by my son Ian and me. We are happy to be of help to the public. Although the site was never intended to make a profit, it does cost to keep it running. Please help support your site. For a twenty dollar donation (donation button in left top column) we will send you the new companion DVD to this book. Also your name will appear as a donor (even if it is for 1 penny). Thank you. |