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Looks good...enjoying the continuous evolution.
Wish I could take this one for a spin.

nomastomas wrote:Coming from a fin-less boogie-board background, the biggest adjustment I had to make when riding the G2-G4 was to trust the design and use the fins instead of the rail for holding position on the face and for turning.

Nomas,

I'll have some footage soon of finned and finless boards, from a recent surf trip. The rail is certainly key in turning finless boards.

Bob

Exciting day today. Watched bottom being laminated (yeah, shaper geek!). Amazing what a little carbon fiber can do to a shape...board could be done next weekend, but I have to order some special lams for it. Almost went with Future boxes, but Future quad fins are not near as interchangeable as FCS. The Future Quad sets have a 1/2" deep rear box, so rear fins can only have a 1/2" tab. FCS dual-tab base allows more mix-and-match. Yeah, I like the ultra snug fin fit that you get with Futures, but apparently I'm not a good enough surfer to notice the performance difference

Lamination complete and fin boxes routed. Glassing around the "horns" was a challenge, but fortunately my glasser has done literally hundreds of SUPs and has a lot of experience working with carbon fiber. Still some ragged ends here and there. Those will be removed after hot-coating. At this point I'm the hold-up. I had trouble getting my logo artwork to Boardlams.com. They offer a really cool service, providing silk-screen quality lams using commercial ink-jet printer. Bottomline, no expensive "set-up" charges and small-run capability. I'm teaching myself how to use Inkscape, which is an Adobe Illustrator clone, so that I can produce the necessary SVG files. So far, the board, at 52", feels lighter than my 48" E-cloth board.

Super cool!

So what's the carbon schedule single 4oz? And what does it cost compared to a normal glassing?

Do you think the black will cause problems in the cali sun?

I'm gonna get my logo done by boardlams and pick them up on my trip.

I was reading about drew baggets black dart carbon construction just the other day http://www.lostsurfboards.net/c3-black-dart/black-dart/

Nomas,

Is it an optical illusion or is there are fair bit of thickness up front near the horns? Are you going t post a few more photos - I was interested in the bottom and foil particularly.

Bob

Krusher - I keep my boards in board bags when not in use, and I'm having my glasser install a vent plug just for good measure. I'm still researching/thinking about what I'll do for deck traction. I'm going to try wax first and go from there. I'm considering a full bottom graphic from Boardlam.com in the future. The palm tree on the board below is a piece of original art that was transferred to rice paper by Boardlams. It turned out really well. The carbon fiber is 5.7oz Hexcel Carbon, one layer deck and one layer bottom. It adds about $30-$40 to this shapes material cost. Carbon fiber retails (at Fiberglass Hawaii) for $15.6 per yd, while 4oz E-Cloth runs $4.45/yd. Carbon fiber is difficult to work with, wet or hardened, so labor cost will be higher, too.

Bob - between camera angles and the unfinished lamination, not to mention the complicated contours of the shape, its hard to minimize the distortions in photos. The shape's center of mass is just forward of center, with both ends foiled-out. I'll post more photos and maybe some video when its completed. But quickly stated, the bottom goes from belly to tri-plane to v out the tail. Both the outboard panels and the v-panels have slight concave.

I have just shaped an 8-0 hybrid surfboard using iFoam which is a blend of EPS and EPP foam developed by Marko Foam and INT surfboards. The foam is a little weird to shape but it is said to be almost impervious to water, and doesn't dent. Pinch it and it just pops back . And yet, its as light as EPS. It cost about 20% more than EPS but it has some attractive qualities. It might be a good choice for prone-boards.

For the last several days my home break has been in the midst of a solid run of 4' to OH++ waves with off-shore conditions. My 48" would be very under-powered in the larger OH+ set waves, so I'm anxiously waiting for the TBX to be completed. I've seen a couple of TB owners in the lineup and I would be interested in hearing how their boards are working in these conditions.

Nomas....I have been having lots of fun this week at C St. on my 23 liter T4. I am confident I would have had just as much fun on on my 21.5 liter T2....if not more. I consider the larger T4's extra float handy in smaller waves...and typically like the smaller T2 in larger waves. May be counterintuitive but there it is. So....given the Monday projection for 8ft. plus....the smaller T2 will be my ride. Hope to see you out there.

SJB wrote:Nomas....I have been having lots of fun this week at C St. on my 23 liter T4. I am confident I would have had just as much fun on on my 21.5 liter T2....if not more. I consider the larger T4's extra float handy in smaller waves...and typically like the smaller T2 in larger waves. May be counterintuitive but there it is. So....given the Monday projection for 8ft. plus....the smaller T2 will be my ride. Hope to see you out there.

Thats exactly how I feel with bodyboards, bigger and more powerful the waves, the smaller the board I use.

That's a lot cheaper than I though for the carbon fibre.

The amount of options for blank materials and materials you can wrap and glass them in is getting huge now!

The one thing I like with wax is you can add and take it away to adjust grip in different areas, I tried a big cork patch on my last board and am finding it a little to grippy, I like to move forward and back on take offs an need to move up the board fast for spins and it a bit to grippy for that, if it was wax i could just remove some.

With bigger waves theres always the issue of too much speed. A smaller board generates more drag than a bigger board. It has less planing area and is more susceptible to leg drag. The added drag counters the extra speed generated by more powerful waves. Most experienced p-board riders have experienced the skipping stone phenomenon where speed and planing surface combine to generate excessive lift. I'm very concerned about this with the TBX and hope that I can modulate max speed by increasing fin size. The quad-fin set up is very helpful in accomplishing this.

I agree with the wax assessment. I use a little on the back third of my board and an inch or so across the nose for hand grip. Use less in cold water when wearing a wetsuit.

Let me know when you want to sell it.
Look forward to hearing the ride reports first of course.

FedEx just delivered my new logos, so off to the shop. Just a few more days and I'll have a ride report. Surf has been great this month, with more NW on the way.

Bob - here's a good shot of the bottom contours before lamination, and a screen grab of the foil from Aku. The bottom contours a more subtle than what appears in the photo due to the shaping room lights. There's also some distortion from the iPhone camera making the bottom look more curved, front-to-back, but you can see the progressive change in bottom contours from belly, to tri-plane to "V". Not easy to do in such a short shape. The foil picture shows the profile along the centerline (Black line) and the profile out at the rail (Red Line). Notice the difference in the rocker curve between centerline and rail. This design provides a flatter speed-rocker when paddling or going across the face, with much more curve when on rail to facilitate turning. The board is 1-5/8" thick at centerline and 2" thick at the rail. This is truly a shape that has to be held to appreciate all the nuances of contour.

"Something wicked this way comes" Introducing the "Manta" a.k.a TBX. I'm really pleased with how this design turned out, but you be the judge...

More pix...

Hey Thomas...cool looking shape! Ride report when u get a chance

rad, looks like a devils purse...

Took it out today in lumpy, 2'-3' leftover groundswell (couldn't wait for decent waves). Bottom makes for fluid, buttery smooth turns, but needs deeper fins to get the best traction. Started with 4" asym-foiled front and 3.8" 50/50 foiled rears, but finished with 4.7" fronts and same 3.8 50/50 rears. The Manta paddles well and at 26L, is still very easy to duck-dive. Compared to the G4, the Manta turns smoother, not as twitchy. Just the feel I want in bigger waves, nice smooth carves. I need to try using asym-foiled rear fins to determine how much of the "smoothness" is attributed to the fins and the fin set-up, and how much to the tri-plane-to-V bottom. Finally, extra length didn't seem to make significant improvement in leg drag reduction. But, I could feel improvement in glide, especially in the larger set waves. Bottomline: so far, so good. Need some 5'-6' surf to really see what she's got...