Blondie rips

[thefreshpimpofbigair]

Finished my first board back during the lift sevice season...rode her hard and put her away wet. Had posted this over on graf, but thought i'd share the luv.
length:166
witdth 29.9 @ tips and tails
sidecut 9.25
aspen core
ptex sidewall
full wrap edge
VDS foil
fiberglass tipspacer
rice paper grafix
23hrs @-23in. hg
was thouroughly stoked on overall construction, however learned many valuable lessons on construction techniques, tipspacers hastily made out of fiberglass when i couldent get the ptex spacers to attach after steam bending tips and tails. should have glued my alignment inserts to base prior to steaming the tips, could have been more precise with the core flat aginst the base at the extremities.... should have mixed extra epoxy (i used a "kit" from snowboardmaterial, and used it all down to the last drop) next time i'll have extra.... wet out on the top layer was barely sufficient. came out slightly edge high... i didndnt rabbet out relief for edge teeth but certainly will next time. used clear base / topsheet so as to be able to observe imperfections easier and hopefully refine processes.
thanxs to everyone here and at skibuilders for all the great information. would not have come out so good without you.
pics at www.flickr.com/photos/rfa2009

Got the sidewalls chamfered, base ground and waxed, and have been test raging on her 4days solid. I just noticed a small 3in. delam between base and sidewall right between the feet. I will glue and clamp it tonight.
I designed the shape to be like my arbor a-frame, and wasnt too sure how thick to profile the core and just took a shot in the dark at 7.5 to 2.5ish at the tips. The sidecut was determined by using the a nice even number between the two numbers listed for their progressive sidecut.. My a-frame basically whoops my ass, but my ego wont let me ride anything smaller or flexier, but blondie rides great. Smooth even flex that is a bit softer than the arbor, but still will holds a super gs carve at mach, but not as well in the chunk. Its really comes into its own in the steeps popping off of and around bumps. nice carver on the groomers too...
The mold was covered whith a sheet of leaxan ala Dante(boardcrafter)(nuff raspect) After peel ply I laid a sheet of 1/8 hardboard as a platten over everything, then breather. I ended up breaking the lexan popping the board off, hastilly applied turtle wax didnt cut it. I went ahead and bought a tilt-base laminate trimmmer so i can do various chamfers ski/snizzboard stylee. I tried to freehand em on my shopsmith vertical with drill press table angled but f-ed up and gouged a bit deep (not to the wood thank goodness) so i stopped trying, built a moat, mixed epoxy w/ micro spheres and patched the hole and ordered the new router. Set me back a few days. Skis for the girlie come next.
-R

[plywood]

your mold is just ingenious! but where can we see the finished board? i somehow didn`t find it on flickr....

[thefreshpimpofbigair]

2nd page.
I'm a hick and dont know how to post pics.

[Yuki_otoko]

Nice looking board there.

[chuck]

Nice work. Looks great!

The mold looks similar to boardcrafter.com videos. Was this the basis? I agree with plywood, it looks very slick.

[thefreshpimpofbigair]

Thanks for the feedback!
Yes, the mold is patterned after the mold on boardcrafter. After drawing countless concept molds, I scratched em and copy - catted. my next move is to make flat (no camber ) rails, camber rails, and sets of shorter rocker wedges, as well as tip/tail radii blocks that will all slide back/forth in the mold. this will eliminate the need to create 4 new profile ribs with each design.
R

[Nick's Sticks]

Great new use for the ubiquitous orange therm-a-rest. Nice clean looking board, good work.