Curtis’s New board.

Curtis Cromwell, who does all the glassing here and works in the shop, likes his boards a little different than most people.  He really likes the raised deck idea ( having had several of them), so this one is no different but this one comes with a much flatter and fuller raised deck than his past ones trying to gain a little extra paddling power for the up coming winter in 5/4/3′s. This one was also designed with a much deeper single concave than the past ones so a little more rise in the deck should help the float out also.  We’ve brought the tail in fairly thin so hopefully it’s not to “corky” feeling and hold in on the steeper and more powerful waves of winter. We like the epoxy construction and the blank is a 2 lb density EPS.  The rails are wrapped as you can see with a 6 lb. density  MDI urethane foam.   We have been doing this to all of our EPS blanks, it is stronger against rail dings and if you do get a small ding in the rail you won’t have the problem of it soaking up to much water unlike the straight EPS foam.  Dimensions, 6’4″ x 19 3/8″x 2 1/2″. It has a 12 1/8″ nose and a 14 3/8″ tail.

EPS FOAM

foam-blockEPS or Expanded Polystyrene is associated with Epoxy surfboards. There are 2 types of EPS blanks being used today. EPS that is extruded (XPS) and tends to look more like Polyurethane foam and the Bead foam which is more commonly called styrofoam.  Even though most people call it styrofoam it is actually a trade name used by Dow Chemical for their EPS foam. Most epoxy surfboards being made today use the EPS bead foam so that is what we will focus on.  The EPS beads are put into a mold and using pressure, steam and a blowing agent the beads are fused together to take on the shape of the mold. Most of the foam is made into large blocks and then are cut using a hot wire into either smaller blocks or what ever shape the customer may desire. The smaller block can then be cut into the shape of a blank using rocker templates and a hot wire.

After the blank has been cut it can be cut lengthwise to insert the stringer or stringer combination of your choice. This is more work for the shaper but the benefits are all the rocker templates are your own and you can design and adjust the blank to your liking. It is a great tool for any shaper as the product is completely your own , not a reshape of whoever shaped the plug in other foam blanks. By doing it this way, the blank is very true [Read more...]

START WITH THE FOAM

There are still a few left

There are still a few left

Since this will be my first post in the Shaping Bay I will start where the board starts and that is the foam. [Read more...]