Part 5 - 6' MR - Hot coat

Got up fairly early and decided to do the bottom hot coat before taking the dog out etc.
Well I guess it was a little too early and I wasn't really thinking straight when I mixed up the Cat and resin and smacked the hot coat on went back inside to have my breakfast. Sat there eating my Crunchy Nut I was sure their was something wrong.....I forgot to add the wax in Styrene!!!!
I chucked my shitty clothes back on ran into the garage, checked to see if it had kicked and it was still wet so I just dumped a load of Acetone on it and ragged it off.
I only had 600ml of Iso left so I had to drive all the way down to Seabase to pick up another Kg to redo the hot coat, got back and put the hot coat on again with no probs.

While I was down Seabase I couldnt help but pick up another blank, its a 6'2" Parabolic shortboard blank, best thing about it was it only cost £19.90! Happy days!!
Dunno what I'm gonna do with it though, I'm not really bothered about surfing thruster shortboards anymore so this may be a new board for my nephew.

Part 4 - 6' MR - Instaling the fin boxes

Pretty happy with how the laminating went, I've sanded down the laps and I've just installed the fin boxes.
I'm going to use Lokbox RSC side fins with a RS2 trailer. I marked out the fin box placement and to be honest it looks pretty strange, very clumped together compared to thrusters but everything I have been told and I've read says thats just how they are supposed to look so I'm just going to run with that.
I've added 3/16" toe and 5 degrees cant.

A while ago I decided that the Lokbox system was the way to go and invested in the Lokbox jig. The big selling point for me was being able to move your fin placement forward or back which makes a huge difference to how the board rides. The fin boxs are really strong which means they wont get ripped out like FCS plugs.

Couple pics from before and after laminating.

Part 3 - 6" MR - Laminating

I just made a few finishing touches to the shaping today, just cleaned it up and took a bit more of the rails. My initial intentions was to have really hard sharp performance rails but even using a profile gauge I've found it really hard to know when I need to take more off and when to stop, guess that will come with a bit more experience though.

I'm using Iso X7 resin and glass both from Seabase. The resin is what I have left over from making my 5'5" and was already mixed with SunCure so I laminated the bottom THEN figured out I didnt have enough left for the deck lamination. My main reason for using Suncure so far is that it gives you plenty of time to play about and takes all the pressure off compared to using MEKP, I had about a litre of X7 left so I decided that it was time to do my first lamination with MEKP.

I've been timing myself when using Suncure and I did the bottom lam in 12 mins so I should of been fairly confident but I still had a rush of adrenalin as I added the catalyst to the resin but I suprised myself and everything went really well. I did the deck lam in 14 mins and did quite a good job!

Really happy with the way things have gone on this board so far, I've made a couple mistakes but nothing drastic.

Gonna instal the Lokbox fin boxes tomorrow. :)

Part 2 - 6' MR - Shaping

So far I've only used Xtra blanks from TriOcean. I'm using a 6'5" fish blank which is the 'Bunty' shape they sell which has alot less rocker than their standard fish blank.

The second pic show the outline cut with the edges squared up. As soon as I did this I could really see just how much different this board was going to be compared with the stubby fish style boards I have been using. Looks a nice shape though...well it was good enough for MR so its gotta be good enough for MM!

Next was putting the foil and rocker in, nothing too drastic with either really, rocker was kinda in between a standard shortboards and a fish.
Its foiled in the center of the board where its 2 3/8" thick.
I've put a Vee in the wings on the tail which really thins it out but thats only in the last 3 " of the board.
The shot of the boards foil is nose down! ;)

I was gonna stop for the day after putting the Vee in but just couldnt help cutting the rail bands and unleasing the shapers gauze, thats gotta be be the best part of shaping a surfboard!
The rails are pretty sharp and performance orientated, a profile gauge was used to copy some rails from a Simon Anderson shortboard.
I also added my concaves in, a single concave starts just after the entry rocker and that goes into a double concave between the fins, it all needs a good tidy with just a couple lumps and bumps to iron out but all in all I'm pretty stoked on how its gone.

May do a bit more tomorrow, looks like the North coast is gonna be pumping though so I may have to take a little drive. :)

Part 1 - 6' MR- From start to finish

The few surfs I've had on my 5'5" twinny have been amazing, really good but I need an all round board for surfing any decent swells over 3 foot.

I made this template up on AKU shaper (with a little help from Jimo), its taken from a MR Super Twin but I've just reduced the width and pinched it in in a few places. Its gonna be 6' x 19 1/2" x 2 3/8" with fairly hard performance rails, single to double concaves into a Vee in the last few inches of the tail. Its going to have Lokbox RSC twin fins with a trailing fin.

I've heard alot about these MR shapes, the people I know that have one really rate them but for me its a matter of finding a good balance of modern day performance without loosing that really nice twinny feel.

Work starts tomorrow!

Black and white...

Ben Howey paddling out early in the morning at Leven a couple years ago.