RSSIt's official, the DIY epoxy surfboard featured in MAKE Volume 19 is my new favorite board! I had a super fun session this morning -- it's fast, skatey, and incredibly light and buoyant. At just 6'5" it catches waves easier than my old 7'4".
Big ups to Greenlight Surfboard Supply and their eco-friendly surfboard kits. The expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam is recyclable, the stringer and fins are bamboo, and the low-VOC epoxy resin is much less toxic than traditional polyester resin. Greenlight's new lamination technique, using a stretchy bamboo fabric instead of fiberglass cloth, is easier and safer. The kits include all materials and hand tools for first-time shapers (like me) plus complete instructional vids. Check them out!
Greenlight Surfboard Supply: Link.
MAKE, Volume 19, DIY Outdoors, "Greener Waves": Link.
Some pix from the build:
Shaping the EPS foam with a rasp. First you draw rail bands with a Sharpie, then you mow down bevels between the bands, to rough out the rail curves.
Stretching the bamboo "fiberglass" cloth across the board's bottom, up over the rails, and down onto double-stick tape on the deck.
Bamboo cloth in place, ready for laminating with epoxy resin. No wrinkles outside the tape line!
Gluing on the fins with epoxy resin. Clamps and shims hold the fins at the chosen toe-in angle (nosed inward slightly) and cant angle (leaning outward slightly).
Brushing on a second epoxy coat, aka "hot coat," to fill in the initial lamination coat. Let it cure, sand it smooth, then do a final "gloss coat" and you're surfing.
$400 for the starter kit. They go up from there.
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The board looks awesome; you're officially a stud, Keith! Did you embed an IMU in there while you were at it?
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thanks John -- hey that's our next project! check out Surflog at http://surflog.ning.com, we're working on sticking a 3D geospatial data logger (accelerometers, XYZ sensors) to surfboards to see what kind of cool tracks we can capture, map, reanimate, etc.
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wow - i read the article recently and am super siked up to make one. unfortunately, i am back in ohio now but will be a great project for the winter so i am ready to hit the NC waves next summer!
one question - is it essential to have another board there as a reference while you are shaping? i can pick up one of our boards in NC at Thanksgiving if needed but i want to make another longboard so kind of a pain to transport.
tx and enjoy the waves
brad
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not essential but helpful -- just to see the way a skilled shaper turned a rail or thinned out volume in the nose. as a first-timer, it helped me a lot to have the comparison.
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you look like a hot young kevin costner in the first photo! nice!
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