Mega Platter 2.0...asymmetrical...?

skiff · #21

Soulglider- Yes, the blanks are EPS and the glassing is epoxy. The board, despite it's size, is super light. The rubber pad part of things might be the heaviest component? But overall, even with the pad, the board feels very light. I have one of those SUP handles installed in the deck, so it's easy to manhandle, hike down trails to the various spots, etc.

Nomas- Not sure what to tell you other than the board seems incredibly easy to turn to me..............nothing 'chore- like about it? The board has extreme vee in the tail, when it's completed, I'll put a ruler to it and maybe that will show it better in a photo? Vee is the key I think to this design since it's so wide. It goes rail to rail as easily as I need any board to, so I'm very happy in that regard.

nomastomas · #22

Yep, extreme V would be an essential ingredient, to counter both width and length. Please, how deep and where does it start as measured from the tail? And what about rocker? In the photo above, only the rear half of the hull is in the water. Are you pulling up on the nose? Finally, how long is the board in the photo and how tall are you?

Marko Foam. is a great company to work with. They occasionally drop off Stretch's blanks at our shop in Camarillo, and then someone drives down to get them. My local CNC guy won't touch my "odd" shapes. Too much re-setting of the machine. Marko never hesitated. I think eps is a natural fit for p-boards, given its lightness and buoyancy. It feels like your not riding anything. BTW, for you shapers out there, Marko offers a rectangular block 72"x48"x8" in 1.3, 1.9, 2.7 PCF Pressure Molded, as well as "bodyboard core" 45" x 23" x 2.8" with shaped-in rocker in 2.0 & 2.2PCF density. Great starting place for a boogie board style p-board.

skiff · #23

Yeah, we've been using Marko Foam since the beginning and they're solid. My shaper does a ton of SUP's for Santa Cruz and beyond, and I suspect what they can offer is why he's been on their program since the beginning. My stuff? I'm just in their system and am taking advantage of it.

That is not me in this particular photo. The board is 6-3 x 29" wide (*my standard dims...), and Brad is 6' and 180lbs of chiseled stoke. Don't have an exact dimension on the vee, but it starts at the tail and runs 2/3rd of the length of the board, if that answers anything for you. Is he pulling up the nose? It doesn't look that to me, but you'd have to ask him, I was just the photographer in this instance.

skiff · #24

Boards are right around 74 liters of floatation I believe. That FIFTY PERCENT more than your average, generic, 9', 2+1 longboard, all in a template that is only 6'3" long.

soulglider · #25

skiff, thanks for the info. the board in your photo above with your hunk of "chizzled stoke" on it looks like it has some deep displacement type belly in the nose. if im correct is is like the first third of the board into a graduated deep vee? if so, theres your easy to get rail to rail, which super necessary in prone boards. flat is fast but being able to put a proner (especially a wide one) rail to rail without thinking about it it has to have some thing like that. cool experiment. as far as the eps goes, i have a board 4'5 thats been laying around here for ever, thats made from eps. i just havent pulled the trigger on having it glassed because i didnt want to waste the money on a cork. ive had a couple of kneeboards made from eps and thought they were too corky but if it "feels like nothing" like nomoretom says and that you, especially, swear by it, maybe il will and give it a try.

skiff · #26

This computer rendering of the board probably shows the vee the best? And SG, you're correct, the forward half of the board is very 'hull-ish', almost like the front of a classic Liddle. After all this time, when people ask me what 'that' aspect does, I'd have to say that it just somehow helps the board 'fit' better in the pocket, and I think also helps smooth out small chop or chatter in the wave face.

The board design is pretty simple really. Huge twin concaves as the engine to generate speed, the hull up forward to help it fit, and the vee (created by the deep double concaves) helps it roll rail to rail easier. The quad fins seem superior to single fin and fish fin versions (of the same shape) that I've tried, and now the latest aspect of the on-going experiment will be the asymmetrical tail, since the asymm fin placement initial testing was so successful. And the basic principle behind ALL of these mega platters is.................the boards are large enough that once I'm up and riding on a wave, there is only BOARD in the water, my legs are lifted free and I'm dragging nothing. Drag equals.........drag............and I'm endeavoring to create the fastest design I can come up with.

I was longboarding back when the first EPS started to show up, and all the Surftechs began to flood the market. Lots of my friends tried them, and about half of them discarded the notion fairly quickly just because they felt 'too corky', whatever that is? But I'd say in a prone device.................all I ever feel from EPS is positive, I get no negative feelings at all? I love the light weight, and I love the superior glass jobs that the epoxy provides. My boards are light and incredibly tough, I have them years with virtually no degradation, so to me, that's all good. Also, to me, a lighter board seems able to pull through waves easier, whether in a wipeout or getting caught inside? They just pop up quickly, which is always nice.

soulglider · #27

Cool stuff! My friends have been riding stand-up/kneeboard hulls for years and have been victimized by my chiding. Then one day I was reading an article about liddles boards and a light came on, the things that made for "lame" riding stand-up/kneeboards could be the very thing to get me deep and high in the pocket and rail to rail easily. Been hyped on the design ever since. The board I showed pics of has forward displacement to a dual concave (flat) and then vee with concaves out the tail. The bottom rails are chined with my typical 60/40ish super pinched hull rail.

skiff · #28

SG- I really think the hydrodynamics of both our boards are identical, at least as far as the dual concaves and hull'ish front ends? And I'm betting that our rails are somewhat similar (see photo below). Where we differ is primarily is that I prefer a wide tailed board, and yours is much narrower? I have many friends that ride Liddles, and we are constantly razzing each other. I think to create an ENTIRE board made out of the hull design is a mistake, and severely limits virtually every rider that has ever attempted to ride one, but half of a hull? As I tell them, 'THATS the way you make a hull that performs. Give it a modern tail, a dual engine thrust setup, and then put the hull part on the nose.........and THOSE will work.' As we all know, surfboard design is 99.9% art and very little science, so it's a long string of opinions masquerading as hard math and therein lies the wobble factor.

nomastomas · #29

skiff wrote:Boards are right around 74 liters of floatation I believe. That FIFTY PERCENT more than your average, generic, 9', 2+1 longboard, all in a template that is only 6'3" long.

You may want to check your math. The "generic" 9-0 x 22.5" x 2.875" modern longboards I shape are 68L-69L. A 74L board would only be about 9% more volume than a generic 9-0.

Pes78 · #30

At the gathering I was very suprised on how small skiff's board felt. You just see the numbers online here and I think for me I thought wow that's really a big board. But you pick it up and it is really light maybe feels like a midlength board. I would say from when I looked at it there is about a quarter inch of concave at it's deepest but that's just a guess. Still want to try one of your boards skiff.

krusher74 · #31

I think this "corky" thing is actually the spring in stringerless eps/epoxy. If you shape two boards of eps and PU both 30L's then the slightly lighter EPS board can't account for a decernable difference in float.

Next time you have a EPS and a PU board to compare hold the rail with one hand and give up toward the nose a hit with the side of you fist, feel how the EPS bounces and springs, this spring is what some guys feel bouncing them out of the wave face that they then feel as "corky/extra volume" that is physically not there.

skiff · #32

Yeah, I know there's a lot of controversy with regard to the physical realities of 'floatation' and liters and how all that interacts, be it PU or EPS? But I'm not so concerned with that. The EPS blanks just work better for my type of boards, and since both my shaper and the glasser specialize in the EPS/epoxy technology, I just go with it and have been stoked so far so no need to change or over-analyze it.

I do know that Stretch does a lot of his mega big wave boards, the 10-6's and up...........with a bamboo laminate on the deck. He says it's primarily to make the board '...feel more like a regular PU board....'. Some of his big wave test pilots prefer the feel of the bamboo EPS boards, and say they make the EPS boards '...ride like....' the PU boards they grew up on.

Me? I'm just in love with the lightness of EPS; there's no way I would ever consider going back to polyurethane blanks and polyester resin.

soulglider · #33

Skiff, we are totally on the same page, my tails are usually a lot wider than this and this one isn't quite as narrow as it seems in the photo. Your art reference is dead on for me, science is a good starting point for a test tank but every wave is totally unique as are all riders. What's perfect for me might be a piece of crap to you. I will save my L's for what little beer I'm allowed to consume. I look forward to seeing how this eps will work. I hope to try one of your boards some time. Maybe Paul and I can come up , I haven't been to sb for a couple.

krusher74 · #34

skiff wrote:Yeah, I know there's a lot of controversy with regard to the physical realities of 'floatation' and liters and how all that interacts, be it PU or EPS? But I'm not so concerned with that. The EPS blanks just work better for my type of boards, and since both my shaper and the glasser specialize in the EPS/epoxy technology, I just go with it and have been stoked so far so no need to change or over-analyze it.

I do know that Stretch does a lot of his mega big wave boards, the 10-6's and up...........with a bamboo laminate on the deck. He says it's primarily to make the board '...feel more like a regular PU board....'. Some of his big wave test pilots prefer the feel of the bamboo EPS boards, and say they make the EPS boards '...ride like....' the PU boards they grew up on.

Me? I'm just in love with the lightness of EPS; there's no way I would ever consider going back to polyurethane blanks and polyester resin.

Or maybe the "lightness" you think you like from the EPS, is really the extra spring in the board it gives you , (or both)

skiff · #35

No, I've had several of these boards done up with your typical PU blank and polyester glassing, and trust me, these new EPS versions are no more than a third to a half of what the old boards weighed. I wondered for a bit if weight even mattered with this style of surfing? Maybe the extra weight created a momentum or inertia that would be a good thing? But now, after a few years on these lighter boards, I can tell you that Lightness Is King, at least for me.

krusher74 · #36

skiff wrote:No, I've had several of these boards done up with your typical PU blank and polyester glassing, and trust me, these new EPS versions are no more than a third to a half of what the old boards weighed. I wondered for a bit if weight even mattered with this style of surfing? Maybe the extra weight created a momentum or inertia that would be a good thing? But now, after a few years on these lighter boards, I can tell you that Lightness Is King, at least for me.

If you board is 75L then lightness is going to help as in PU its going to weigh the same as a longboard.

For my own board at only 23L the weight difference would be much less.

Do you know what the L41 EPS pcf is and what the glassing schedule is?

skiff · #37

Do I know the laminate schedule?

Nope.

I'll probably be picking up the board next week or the week after, I'll ask the guys at the shop at that time. Whatever they're doing is working fantastic as these boards get subjected to a pretty rough life and yet they last very well, so I'm stoked. No doubt the rubber pad on top does something also to help with the board's longevity and resistance to aging.

skiff · #38

Looks like the airbrush is finished, should move through now to glassing and be in my hot little hands before this El Nino thing kicks in with full force. Deck will be 90% covered with a black rubber pad, so it's kind of a 'three color' color scheme...

skiff · #39

New board should be coming soon, but until then..........plenty to keep us busy using existing inventory. Boards ridden here run the gamut, from quad Mega Platters, to 26 x 5-6 twin fins, to a buddy's daughter's 'Catch Surf' kids foamie twin fin..........in PINK! They all fit, they all worked, as we all should know by now, it's far more about the waves than it is about any particular board's design minutae. This day proved it to me.

skiff · #40

A few more from the day... Continued using my existing board with the asymm fin setup, and couldn't be more pleased. Can't wait to get the fully asymm template board.