5-10 Mini Simms

Here is the start of my new simms style board.  The bigger simms is really fun, but it has so much rocker that it needs bigger/jucier waves to really work.  This smaller one will be flatter so that it will work better in smaller, crappy summer surf. 

Ingredients: (1) sheet of 1/4" sandeply, ripped in half, (1) 2x4x8 clear redwood ripped into stripps and two nice keel fins. 

Nose blocking going on.  I added a nice strip of hardwood to contrast with the soft wood ply.

 Bottom skin with the first rail strips in and the rough-cut ribs ready to shape.    

Outline.  

 The ribs are in and the rocker table is set up so next the rail strips go on.  

Blocking for the fins. At this point, I lay a batten across the top of the ribs and check for fairness of the deck line, especially near the nose. I'll make minor adjustments to the rib now before the rails go on. 

More Mule Mods

The reshaping of the nose had good results.  But the trim point where it would turn was still very small.  I think a small bit of rocker may help, but I can't add that.  What I could add for some stability were fins.  I make some small keels and tried them in a couple of places.

 I tried keels on the tail.  I put a bit of toe-in to the keels and that acted like brakes, really slowing the board down.  I could turn, but the board really wanted to go straight.   

 So I relocated them up to where they would be on my simms style board, without the toe-in.  The braking effect was gone, but I had to be up near the nose to get a turn out of it.  

Fine, so now I'm going to try a small single fin in the center.  I'm hoping it will give my just a tad bit of stability in the tail.  I think that with all that sharp rail, it does not need much of a fin at all.  In fact, the addition of a fin was really to allow me to get an idea of how the bottom shape performs and then remove the fin.  

Mule Mods

I knew the bottom shape of the Mule was not ideal and it was apparent when I rode it.  There was too much volume in the first third of the board and I felt that the rails were way too thick there too.  Because of this, I had to stand really forward to have any control on the board.  I had some directional control standing up, but not a lot.  I could bellyboard it just fine, but standing up was really tricky. As it is a prototype, I had no problem taking the planer to the bottom and reshaping it as I would a foam blank.  I reduced the volume and thinned out the rails, giving the entry a much more conventional shape.

 Big difference on new and old rail.  

I'm hoping this will improve it's behavior. Next time I try a radical shape, it is going to be in foam and not wood!

Ron's Alaia

I made this 5-11 alaia for a friend who had never ridden one but wanted one for the summer.  I tweaked my shape a little by widening the tail, narrowing the nose a bit and moving the wide point a little close to the mid point.  This one is cedar with three redwood stringers.

Redwood Mule

I'm going to call the new finless stick the Mule.  I started with hybrid, but that is too popular now and boring.  Mule is a synonym for hybrid so that works.  "I'm gonna go ride my mule" sounds good too.  Here are some more build pics.

Hollow Alaia Interim Curves

I could not resist posting a few pictures of the bottom planking for the new hollow alaia.  I love the curves that are starting to show up.

Sort of Alaia...

I've always liked the simplicity of the wood plank alaias.  The biggest problem is of course, they are hard to paddle and get into waves with.  I've always thought it would be fun to make a hollow wood alaia.  Not necessarily a kook box, but a board that has the same bottom contours and chines of an alaia.  I had forgotten about this idea for a couple of years until I saw what the wood board guru Tom Wegener was working on.  His brother Jon has been making very cool alaia-like boards with small twin fins (his Bluegills), but Tom shaped up some very cool foam alaias with enough thickness to be pretty easily ridden.  Tom calls them Seaglass.  Anyway, I got all excited when I saw pictures on the web and immediately started thinking how I'd do this in wood.  I've never shaped in foam, so I thought I'd give wood a go for this shape.  My shape is 6'6" long, 22" wide and about 2-7/8 thick, with slab sides, a chined bottom and a deep long center channel.  After making some preliminary drawings, I realized it kinda looks like Tom Morey's famous foam creation!

 The beginning of the channel.  The bottom will need to be planked in separate stages for the chines, channel and flat front entry.  

 One of the slab rails going on. 

 Obviously the deck is down, and I've kept it dead flat to simplify the build.  Besides, flat is fast.  

I replaced the conventional solid keel with a really simple stick truss beam which will be much lighter and just as stiff.  

More to come!