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Cobra said..
Why **** the board sticking sh!t trinkets all over it or countersinking crap in the deck.
just put a pair of neoprene knee pads on.
Easyer to play with knee pad thickness than all that crap

You mean put pads on my knees rather than the board????? That's a novel idea, have to Toss that one around in my head for a while, not sure I like the look.

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decrepit said..

Cobra said..
Why **** the board sticking sh!t trinkets all over it or countersinking crap in the deck.
just put a pair of neoprene knee pads on.
Easyer to play with knee pad thickness than all that crap

You mean put pads on my knees rather than the board????? That's a novel idea, have to Toss that one around in my head for a while, not sure I like the look.

**** the look if you have bad knees you have bad knees. I've surfed with a knee pad , old ****ty footy knees. Better than screwing around with decks and deck pads that won't give the real relief you need. Some great soft but supporting and thin Knee pads out there.
how about try some knee pads and see before you pull the trigger on the deck idea. I've knee paddled SUPs and can tell you you won't do that for long.

+ if you don't get the padding right on that board it will look like a SH!t fight in no time. I've seen what SUP Decks look like with too much knee paddling.
and it was a NAISH with bamboo lamented deck and deck padding..Unless yours is better and stronger or your body weight is 40kg Good luck.

Well I do plan on doing the job right, but I take your point, trouble is I no longer have a mal to try things out on.

If you are thinking of knee pads, suggest you have a look at mountain biking pads as some of them are very flexible (designed to go hard on impact).
The cheaper option of the tradie pads are hard shell and soft inner but I think the hard shell you could use stick foam on outside to give you more grip on the wax otherwise they could slide if your wax wears thin.
If you don't like the pads you will work out the sweet spot than you have the skills to router the deck and recess an area.
Good luck

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515 said.. >>>
If you don't like the pads you will work out the sweet spot than you have the skills to router the deck and recess an area.
Good luck

Yep, that's what I'm thinking, make a normal deck and see how I go, rather than try and work out where the pads should go before the sandwich goes on.
There's a good chance my knees will build up resilience with a bit of use anyway. They certainly did 50 years ago, I had knee bumps, feet bumps and toe bumps.

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515 said..
If you are thinking of knee pads, suggest you have a look at mountain biking pads as some of them are very flexible (designed to go hard on impact).
The cheaper option of the tradie pads are hard shell and soft inner but I think the hard shell you could use stick foam on outside to give you more grip on the wax otherwise they could slide if your wax wears thin.
If you don't like the pads you will work out the sweet spot than you have the skills to router the deck and recess an area.
Good luck

Yep I was thinking trade pads, I could knee on concrete for hours with them. soft flexible wouldn't damage the board with different texture for grip.
Decrepit A zillion options With the knee pads and that was my point.
unless you have and tried something that's going down on your dec and know what you want you could be in for a world of pain literally. mate Like me
Owning knee pads for 1 hour only to fling them in a dumpster, that could be the same with your deck paddling.
i was thinking a neoprene knee pad would help with the fact we all know neoprene is pretty good at not slipping and handling water.
2 you can get them in Velcro adjustments So you can custom fit.
3 you can ADD thin Extra impact water proof paddling Under the neoprene and adjusting The neoprene for extra thickness. The extra padding can easy Be removed later when seasoned.just trying to help mate.

OK you've both convinced me, I'll forget about the knee recesses and see how I go.

Measured the block density at 14.88Kg/m>3
Hot wired the block, cut the outline and got the bottom basically shaped today, weight just under 1.5kg.
So currently it's aprox 100l, looking good to be a good kneeler, don't think I'll loose a quarter of that shaping the deck
Next job, is fit the blue, closed cell, higher density, styrofoam insert for the fin box.

Then I'll vac bag the bottom on with some carbon in it. I want to stiffen it up so I can shape the deck and rails,

Agree with vacuum bottom before shaping deck and rails, that's one advantage of not having blank cnc'd.
Strip of carbon and layer 4oz underneath?
Looking forward to photos shaped deck

Question are you finishing using clear epoxy or paint?

yep, I have some unidirectional carbon, and I just bought some special, shapers, S+E 27" 4oz from Ryan, for use under the sandwich.

There's no way I can do a clear finish, too much bog on the board and too much carbon dust around, It will be painted.

So slow progress, but I've got the 5mm d-cell on the bottom with 4oz cloth and unidirectional carbon. Shaped the deck yesterday.





So who can pick where the nose is, left or right?

Pre-shaped the 3mm gurit for the deck today, tomorrow arvo I'll get it set up for the vac bag early Friday.

I think I'll use a layer of 4oz e glass on the bottom, and 4oz s glass on the deck with a 6oz carbon knee reinforcement.
My rough calculations, say it's going to be a tad under 90l and weigh between 5 and 6kg.
If I'm correct it should knee paddle my 65kg quite well, although the water line will be over the rails.

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decrepit said..
So slow progress, but I've got the 5mm d-cell on the bottom with 4oz cloth and unidirectional carbon. Shaped the deck yesterday.





So who can pick where the nose is, left or right?

Pre-shaped the 3mm gurit for the deck today, tomorrow arvo I'll get it set up for the vac bag early Friday.

I think I'll use a layer of 4oz e glass on the bottom, and 4oz s glass on the deck with a 6oz carbon knee reinforcement.
My rough calculations, say it's going to be a tad under 90l and weigh between 5 and 6kg.
If I'm correct it should knee paddle my 65kg quite well, although the water line will be over the rails.

What a great post and the board is coming along so so nice...

Nice work Decrepit
I'm picking nose on the right as more gradual curve, the left seems to have more flick in the rocker.
Yes S glass is awesome, love it but why not on bottom?

As option of not painting, I made one sandwich board using epoxy between eps and d cell, then once full sandwich layers glassed bottom and deck using Vinyl Ester Resin with pigment. Its a lot quicker to complete board. The con being painted epoxy board you will use less resin laminating.

Please keep progress and photos coming

Basically because I have 3m of e glass and 3m of s glass.
Yep, you got that right, but looks back to front to me.
I did notice kirkside had epoxy pigment, but never occured to me to try it.

I'd forgotten about legrope plug, so today I'll insert some blue styrofoam for it.
And Mark at SurfSailAustralia is posting me down the insert and a bung

So every thing's ready for the vac bag in the morning. here's the gurit preshaped.

Well that went quite well.


a couple of small voids at the tail, you can just see where I've opened them up for re-gluing. I trimmed the excess overlap from the bottom, glued the voids back down and bogged the dart cutouts, will just need a sand back and very light re-shaping of the rails tomorrow. Next week is pretty hectic, I'll need a full day to vacuum the deck s glass on, not sure when that will happen.

Great photo shows the boards lines - nice looking board

My shaper's eye knows it's not perfect, (the planner got away from me at one stage), but it's close, and I find it's looks pleasing.

Change of plans, I invited Bugs over to discuss where the knee and heel reinforcements should go. Of course he had to check out the whole board, so there will be few minor changes to deck and bottom.
And I'm now disposed to carboning the whole deck, I just have to check if I have a long enough length. If I have the s glass will go on the bottom.
While we were talking I started ripping off the tape holding down the void patches, only for them to pop off, bloody slow resin hadn't gone off during the cold night, taped them back down, and hope they hold.
It's warmer and sunny today, so I'll stick it outside with some black plastic over it while I measure the carbon, and try and work out how much extra weight that will add, (it's 200gm/m2 not the 125gm/m2 the s glass is).
Hmm looks approximately like an extra 250gms. Guess I can live with that, could still come in under 6kgs.

found the imperial tape measure today, thought I'd cast it over the board now it's got most of it's skin on.
9',3/4" X 23" X 4,1/8"
Resin didn't regrip, so had to redo a few spots. Thinned the deck at the tail out quite a lot, not much gurit left there now.
21knots forecast for tomorrow, so hopefully I'll be enjoying a good windsurf.

Bugs eh
Bugger about the resin, if its really cold warm the resin which makes it thinner and easier to work with and goes off faster.
Enjoy your windsurf

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515 said.. >>
Enjoy your windsurf

Was a great session, improved my over 75 ranking.
gpsteamchallenge.com.au/sailor_session/show?date=2020-07-27&team=2

Here's where I was yesterday.

Here I am today.

Not a good day today, had the opposite problem with resin.

Instead of using the slow resin that previously gave me a hard time. I tried a different brand, started off early when it was cold, wet the s glass out on the bench, and rolled it out on the board. Then the problems started, resin didn't want to stick to the divinycell but did stick to the squeegee. So I had a hell time smoothing the glass out. Then I discovered my next mistake, poor planning of my new workshop. I have the board building area adjacent to the big northern facing roller door. The sun started creeping over the board, so I just shut the roller door, That didn't make much difference, being anywhere near the door just felt like standing next to a big radiator. So by the time I had the cloth sorted, the resin was like thick treacle. That's when it really went wrong, I couldn't smooth the peelply out, the resin really grabbed it, and the cloth still wasn't sticking well to the divinycell. So trying to smooth the peelply just stuffed up my hard won smooth glass. So I just had to tape the breather on, stick in the bag and hope for the best. The board is still in the bag, although the resin gelled very quickly it's taking it's time going hard. So I'll probably have some photos tomorrow of how it's come out.

Meanwhile I'll try and figure out a way of moving the glassing area away from the Northern opening.

Great effort on getting # 1 ranking Has Bugs made you a new sail?
Like Kai Lenny you are not defined by one watersport and the best part to maximize fun depending on the days conditions

Wow yesterday sounded challenging! I hope its all ok.
You definitely get used to particular resin and you know how it "works" and how much time you have but add extra heat and pressure is on.
And squeegee are a personal preference, I prefer the thin plastic but not the thick rubber ones.

At least with your next workshop next to the door is going to be the best place to cure your boards.
Looking forward to the next photos

Thanks for keeping this thread going..

Sure it will come out great in the end.

Quickly removed board from the bag this morning and ripped wadding and wrinkled peelply off to reveal, --- a much smoother bottom than I expected, nothing a very thin bog won't cover.
But It's a very dry layup, It's the first time I've only vacuumed 1 layer of cloth, usually on windsurfers I use two layers at opposing diagonals. I think the extra resin helps wet out the divinycell better. This arvo I'll squeegee on a runny bog and try to force it through the weave to fill the pinholes.

I'm wondering now if I should wet layer the deck carbon, instead of laying up on the bench. It's going to be hard to get the carbon down in the centre of the board, unlike glass were I mark the centre line and overlay it on the board's centre line mark. I can't see through the carbon to track any visible mark I can make. Also I don't want a dry layup on the deck.

Greg, Bugs keeps threatening to make windsurfing sails, but something keeps coming up with the moths that he's just got to get sorted.

I've used thick rubber squeegees since the late 60s, I guess I'm used to them now, but I did notice Ryan was using a thin plastic one the other day, must ask him for a try and see what I think.

I'm also partly regretting Monday's effort, my back problem has come back, started slowly Tuesday after our oldies keep fit class, then got worse Wednesday. So not sure how to apportion blame, all to windsurfing, all to exercise or a bit for each.

Gave the board a light sand and squeegeed a thin coat of thin bog on, to fill the weave.

Here's the dry crinkled layup, fortunately, the crinkles are just a very thin layer of resin, that just sands off.
I think the dry lay up helped, if there'd been a surplus of resin the crinkles would have been in the cloth.



Here it is with the thin bog on.


Tomorrow I'll get the deck ready for the carbon, and decide how I'm doing it.

Great progress photos @
As you say really runny bog to get the worst of the pin holes.

Yeah can't see through black, go with laminating the carbon on the board and trust your skills that it won't be dry. Plus you get more off cuts.
Worth trying the thin plastic squeegee but probably on a small project first.

I would be interested in Bug's take on the high aspect foil sails and one day you could get the magic sail.

Hopefully your back gets better

Good day today, put the board in the sun covered in black plastic to speed the cure of the bog so I could sand it, without clogging the sandpaper.

Cut out the polar fleece breather, (spotlight have a sale on, and I found a board or two ago, that this works well as a breather). Cut out the peelply and carbon. The carbon is in 3 pieces, there's a join about 1/3 of the way up, (don't worry there's about an 80mm overlap, and the 3rd piece, the knee/heel reinforcing straddles it.
So I now have a plan, I'll mix resin for each piece separately, that will give me a much loner working time, with less "pot time" for the resin.
If the first piece of carbon is too sticky for the peelply, I can squeegee a thin coat over from the 3rd mix.

With the extra working time, (it's probably going to be colder and cloudy on Monday), I was thinking of a table wetout. I think the carbon will be better behaved than the glass. It's a flatter weave and thicker, so should stick to the d-cell better, but not so much that I can't move it around and smooth it out. Maybe I should try with a small offcut first and see how it behaves.

After it's sun cure the board sanded nicely, the glass overlap is now smooth and most of the fin box support carbon on the tail has been tapered in. There's still a small step as I didn't want to risk sanding into the glass. I'll get that smooth once a thicker filler coat is on.

And yes, it doesn't look dry any more, so I think I've filled the pin holes.

Had an idea today, used a white marker to mark the centre line on the underside of the carbon, that way I should still be able to line it up with the board centre line. I'll find out in the morning.
So here's the front section and reinforcing piece, the back section is on the bench. I'm just marking where the reinforcing piece comes to on the front section.

The thick white line is the edge tape, I've put on all cut edges to stop them fraying during transfer on the roller. That will come of easily once the carbon is wet out. I'm going to cut the excess carbon off at the rail tuck, once it's nicely stuck on the board