I have a firewire baked potato fst at 5.5 which was trashed in a few sessions. The deck pretty much caved in including the bamboo 1cm lower where my feet go. I started shaping a pu copy and plan to glass with epoxy with nelextra quad ax. Im woried that my board will end up too heavy but i want it to last. I was going to go 6ox patch, 5 quad ax, and another 6 for the deck, and a 5 quad ax and 6 for the base.


Will the board end up too heavy? appreciate any advice. Cheers chris

Which firewire did you have?

The FST don't have bamboo decks the LFT models do and are notoriously weak and not suited for kiting on.

All pu boards end up with the decks caved in to some degree, if your firewire was a LFT you'll notice a lot of difference in strength and compression with 6 x 6 deck and 6 oz bottom on pu blank, I tried the quad axial glass a while back and found it soaked a lot of resin.

Thanks for the advice. Yeah i checked its the lft version. I think im set on the nelextra quad axial (nylon i think) as i want somthing that will help resist harness punctures too.. maybe ill just use the quad ax on the deck only.

What's wrong with a bit of deck compression? The key to selecting the right glass weight for you is where you want to end up on the 'performance v longevity' scale.

Do you want a board that brings out the best of your kiting, or one that just simply lasts? Since you're making your own boards, play around with a few glass variations and see what weight works best for you and sits where you need it on the scale.

I don't think John John won his world title on a board with 6+6/6 and deck patches, but he doesn't pay for boards either.

You could just vacuum bag 2mm pvc foam in compression area and glass as usual.

Did you use a higher density blank?

If you have a standard density blank with a 6+4oz on the deck and a 6 oz on the bottom the board will be dead after about 6 months. If you use a heavier density blank, the weight and performance is very similar but the board will not compress half as much and won't break.

I have found for an 80kg rider the best amount of glass on a PU board is a 6+4oz on the deck and a 6oz on the bottom glassed in polyester. It normally lasts about two years of kiting with straps.

I used an ultra light yellow bennet blank. No idea what density it is but it felt pretty hard on the outside but as i had to take off so much foam it is now pretty soft across the deck. In the future i think ill try vacuum bagging which should open up some more options and keep the weight down. Anyway i just started the base with a 6oz + fin patch and will probably do a 3/4 6oz patch, 5qax6 deck. I guess im worried that my heavy copy wont surf anything like the light fw original.

When laminating the base today the trickest part was keeping air bubbles out from around the futures fin boxes. Im sure there must be some tricks to get that sorted. What i did notice when measuring the firewire is that the fin boxes were nowhere near symmetrical despite the board being effectivly made by a computer. Makes me appreciate the workmanship involved by shapers to get it all right with hand built boards.
Anyway thanks for the advice!