I wanted to share the stoke about my new homemade raceboard with some pics and a description of what I did. I like to learn by mistakes, so I wouldn't use any of the following as instructions. I figure if you don't do things the hard way at least once, you won't truly appreciate the easy way.
My goal was to make a high volume, low rocker, wide board at the lowest possible cost.
I started out with 2" thick hunks of pink insulation foam at Home Depot and glued them together for my blank. These are XPS (i.e. closed cell) so the foam won't absorb water when dinged. I went stringerless, figuring the thickness and ridiculous amount of glass will hold it together.
I then drew out a basic shape (computer printed template will help make it more symetrical next time) and started sawing the outline, including cutting in the rocker. A much easier way would be to use a rocker table to bend the foam, but, alas, I love to do things the hard way.
Here's the board starting to take shape. I mostly used a large surform to mow foam, then a sanding block. A big hand planer would make things easier. The shape ended up to be about 5'6 x 22" (56cm) x 3.75". A little smaller than planned, but had to keep mowing to find symmetry. The blank started out at 60cm, so to do a board any wider, I need a new plan for foam.
I don't have any pictures of glassing or routing the boxes with me now. I glassed first, then dealt with the fin boxes and inserts...it would be much easier to do the other way around. Foam is much easier to route than glass.
I put 3 layers of glass on the deck (2 layers E-warp + 1 layer S-glass), then 2 more layers over most of the deck to glass in the foot strap inserts and fin boxes (tuttles go through the top and bottom). I put 2 layers on the bottom (1 E-warp + 1 S), plus 2 additional layers of patches over the fin boxes. All in all, a whole lot of glass...the board's not light.
Here's eric getting fed up with sanding and doing it the canadian way:
Just kidding, that was the final wetsanding before the fancy paint job. And, voila!
I think this board will be a decent all around board and get me going in the race board realm. Once I ride this one enough to know what I'd change, I'll probably make another. Materials cost not including tools was ~400$ and it took me 3-4 weeks.
