Everybody wants to

[Nels]

Everybody wants to, you know it's true! I yanked a broken Wavestorm out of a trash can at Zuma a couple of weeks ago, some kind of year-end flotsam from the surf school up by Trancas. It was only held together by the bottom skin when I got it. I've never forgotten the story and photo of the altered board some guy had up in Santa Cruz or SF. So here we go...

It took a couple of weeks to dry out the stringers. Once that happened I squared off the tail and cut some bottom skin off the tail section to epoxy to the cut. I figure I'll buff the edges. I still have to reattach a bit of the bottom skin before then. In the meantime I'm looking at fin placement options. I'll ride it finless first but it's currently running around 55" long and with the width and thickness it's a beast.

I'm thinking some sort of mini-Simmons style fin situation, roughly like this. Any observations? Straight ahead or with a .25" inward angle?

More to come as it progresses, if that's a good word for it. The bottom skin is pretty bombproof. The deck skin...softer obviously. Trying to get wax off the deck is a complete horror show. Maybe people just throw them out once the wax gets grungy. I'm told without wax these boards are slick as snot...

Nels

[GeoffreyLevens]

Never even seen or felt one in person so no idea of top skin texture? but I've cleaned some pretty nasty wax off boards just by leaving them deck up in the sun for an hour or so and then shaving w/ putty knife. Obvious I know. What's up with this beast?

Toe in on fins will create wee bit of drag but also make it turn easier. Considering what a brute it is, that 0.25" angle toward nose might be beneficial. Were they straight on or toed in originally?

[krusher74]

Never even seen or felt one in person so no idea of top skin texture? but I've cleaned some pretty nasty wax off boards just by leaving them deck up in the sun for an hour or so and then shaving w/ putty knife. Obvious I know. What's up with this beast?

Toe in on fins will create wee bit of drag but also make it turn easier. Considering what a brute it is, that 0.25" angle toward nose might be beneficial. Were they straight on or toed in originally?

The Wavestorm. ... Dimensions: 8'0” x 22.5” x 3.25”; Volume: 86 liters; Board weight: 6 kgs; its gonna be super floaty its it still 40L! i would cut another 6 to 10 inches off it.
There just polyethylene like a body board, sun works as you say, or in country with no sun like the UK i use a kettle of hot water.

you could cut some deck material of the tail piece and glue it on , I vote swallow tail!!!

glue https://www.amazon.com/Solarez-Sponge-R ... B009R0EYYM

[Nels]

These actually are EPS, not PE like bodyboards. I didn't think about using deck material; I cut bottom skin. The deck material of this board is a bit beat anyway...board was well-abused. More photos later.

[asier esnal]

from that piece you can get a good paipo, mine are also made in eps.

Use epoxy and fiberglass to seal the tail, you have to leave all the EPS in a way that does not constrict the water. the eps does not rot, but it absorbs water since it is open cell.

encouragement and good luck

[bgreen]

Hello Nels,

I had the recent experience of trying a thick BB. It was a finless board. It was fun down the line but as soon as it got tuby - goodnight Irene.

I also didn't like the feeling that it rode more above the water.

Having said that, you've got nothing to lose with your experiment.

Bob

[Nels]

More photos...

I'm going quick and dirty. This is the shape. I'm not going to try to skin it and reshape. It is what it is, sort of. Camera angle makes it look asymetrical...I'm no hipster; it's squared off, straight up and down.

Closeup of the Wavestorm skin. Lots of little textures bits, plus wrinkles in other areas. Wax seeps into it all. Gentle scraping on a hot day got some but also took off some of the skin. Who knows how old and abused the thing is. That's why I figured to take bottom skin to cover the break. The usual repair/re-attachment material is hot melt glue but that would take forever.

Rocker is what it is too. The rails are...well, let's say "tucked under"...

Bottom of tail section, where I cut for the skin graft.

Their fin placement, slight angle on side fins.

[krusher74]

These actually are EPS, not PE like bodyboards. I didn't think about using deck material; I cut bottom skin. The deck material of this board is a bit beat anyway...board was well-abused. More photos later.

I was saying the deck is PE. not the core

The bottom skin is hdpe plastic i would not use that as a tail block ii will have hard edges, Use PE from the deck then the tail will be nice and soft to slide on and off like a bodyboard. When your on the tail back corner over the fins the nose. nose rocker is going to be a huge reach if its 55" long. Then if you get up on the board to get to the front rocker to make it go you are going to be way forward on your fins making the tail want to slip.

[nomastomas]

You might want to consider placing the fins where your hips will be when riding, to avoid what Keith is referring to. A bigger issue might be the lopsided foil, with too much foam in the tail.

[Nels]

Thanks for the feedback, guys.

The bottom skin is hdpe plastic i would not use that as a tail block ii will have hard edges, Use PE from the deck t

I was figuring to sand the edges. I'm also not sure of the integrity of the deck skin since the board is thoroughly abused, but a quick test shows I might be able to harvest some deck skin and if I can that will be the way I go. I can always go back with the HDPE, which I will test sand/buff off the board anyway just to see how that goes.

you might want to consider placing the fins where your hips will be when riding, to avoid what Keith is referring to. A bigger issue might be the lopsided foil, with too much foam in the tail.

This whole project is a series of "issues", starting with the "raw material" in any form. I've never even touched or held a Wavestorm board before. I've never sensed "the magic" with them and still don't. This one is abused like I said, with saggy, wrinkled deck skin in places. If one is optimistic I guess you could claim a "tucked under edge" on the rails. They are also heavy, and this is true even after this one dried out for a couple of weeks. (Upon re-reading...that kind of sounds like the way I feel too... )

My plan is to seal it up and take it out with no fins, just to see what I have. I pulled it out of the trash can with two fins left on it, so I'm taking that as some kind of sign from Neptune. I'll figure fin placement from the finless test. First good Santa Anas of the season have closed up my garage (direct blasts when the door is up) so it's on hold at the moment. This whole project is a lark, an amusement...amusement being in somewhat short supply in modern surfing...

Nels

[krusher74]

They are the best selling board in the world! "the magic" of them is that the are the cheapest board you can buy coming straight out of china. They unfortunately fill the needs of the average cheap kook starting out in the sport. They are the plastic bag/single use water bottle of the surf industry. They also sell out of costco and had at one time a free replacement scheme and at one time jamie obrien was taking them to pipe snapping them and going back to costco for another.

[Nels]

They are the best selling board in the world! "the magic" of them is that the are the cheapest board you can buy coming straight out of china. They unfortunately fill the needs of the average cheap kook starting out in the sport. They are the plastic bag/single use water bottle of the surf industry. They also sell out of costco and had at one time a free replacement scheme and at one time jamie obrien was taking them to pipe snapping them and going back to costco for another.

That pretty much sums up everything I detest about society at large...and given they are the best selling boards in the world and I see as many of them with surfers as I do other boards (completely supplanting bodyboards in SoCal)...do the math. Getting hard not to detest "surfing". I don't know what things are like in other surfing countries any more, but in Southern California there are just so many people on boards now it really isn't funny. You see these Costco boards on cars, the side of the road as people get ready, and in the water nearly everywhere. I was stuck in northbound traffic for about 40 minutes from Santa Monica to Malibu that August 24 Hurricane Marie swell 3-4 years ago, right next to a car with a girl who had a Wavestorm on top...like it was the south swell of a generation and she was going to paddle that pig out somewhere, Stupid, and scary, and stupid.

And worse, up my way at least, Zuma to say Rincon with side trips "further north", for the past three or four years I've seen Wavestorms show up with solid recreational surfers, people who can actually surf on short or long boards. They get a Wavestorm for the ubiquitous friends or family who want to "surf", and sometimes the crowd situation is so nuts they just take their thrasher Wavestorm out so they can still get wet and ride a few without the struggle and worry of their more performance-oriented surfcraft. You can almost see a "progression"...pretty soon rather than have a "good" board that needs babysitting they just bring the Wavestorm when the surf is junk. I suspect a lot of new surfers see no reason to progress off a Wavestorm; surfing isn't as big a thing to them as it was to many from earlier times.

I think these boards might literally be changing the surfing culture, if not now, in the coming years. Somebody around here, maybe Jon from Cornwall who has been quiet for a long time, or maybe Eff, mentioned "lowering the bar", and I think Wavestorms are doing just that for standup surfing. Sort of like those "governors" that limit top speed in race cars. If it cools the insane competitiveness in the troubled waters that might actually be a good thing, but like any tool, it depends on who uses it...

[Uncle Grumpy]

In 2016 alone, Costco sold 100,000 of those abominations.

11243873_998535433491854_1674031707_n.jpg (11.72 KiB) Viewed 19127 times

[nomastomas]

Just curious Uncle G...do you feel the same way about the the foam paipo a.k.a. Morey Boogie Board?

[krusher74]

Just curious Uncle G...do you feel the same way about the the foam paipo a.k.a. Morey Boogie Board?

The boogie/bodyboard industry have their own wave storm, its the sub $50 bought by the inlanders one week a year beach holiday for the the kids.

Here are 600 snapped one left on just a few southern English beaches this summer

[GeoffreyLevens]

The boogie/bodyboard industry have their own wave storm, its the sub $50 bought by the inlanders one week a year beach holiday for the the kids.

Here are 600 snapped one left on just a few southern English beaches this summer

That certainly highlights the enviro disaster that is surfing except for wood boards and body surfing... Three toots for roots!

[Uncle Grumpy]

Just curious Uncle G...do you feel the same way about the the foam paipo a.k.a. Morey Boogie Board?

No.
Only those shitty ones made from really cheap EPS like the ones Krusher mentioned.

FWIW I love Tom Morey and his creations..

[GeoffreyLevens]

To amend my post above, I think Morey's creation of the bb is one of the most brilliant ideas in surfing and have greatly enjoyed riding them. Materials is the problem. Once they die, and everything dies, what happens to it. Also, what resources are used to create it in the first place. We now have so many people on the planet, and we 1st worlders are sucking up resources and spewing waste at such a ferocious rate, that those issues need to be front and center always.

[rodndtube]

My boards never die. I still have my original paipo board from 50 years ago, created from a broken Holmsey Sidewinder during a ride on a 4 ft wave at Bridges, Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. I've sold a couple of my former boards over the years, one is with a third owner and continues to live on and ridden regularly.

Board in the century plant.

[krusher74]

To amend my post above, I think Morey's creation of the bb is one of the most brilliant ideas in surfing and have greatly enjoyed riding them. Materials is the problem. Once they die, and everything dies, what happens to it. Also, what resources are used to create it in the first place. We now have so many people on the planet, and we 1st worlders are sucking up resources and spewing waste at such a ferocious rate, that those issues need to be front and center always.

The problem is we want what we don't need

i'n 5 years i think i have nailed down my paipo design to something i think i could ride for the rest of my days, as I feel the weakest link now is my skill, the board will do what ever I want with out and fight back. So I think now if i constructed one from light enough paulowina (and dont get fat) i could probably see out my surfing days on it.