How to build a competitive 14 ft x 28" racing Paddleboard ( Stringerless)
Make your plan ( topview) of the board. The side view ( Rocker line) you have allready drawn. I made my board 28" wide
so it was easy to balance, you could go down to 22" to 24" if you feel you can manage it.Â
I bought this foam in Jewsons, 8ft x 4ft x 2" from memory and stuck them together with epoxy and glass bubbles mixed in. Dont ever let this glue be under your cut out as it will rip the foam when you try and saw it out
The template is put over your blank, drawn around and cut out with a saw. You MUST keep the saw vertical and go slightly outside your line as you will sand down to this .
This is your board now roughly cut out. You can now attack your blank with an electric plane if you have one but remember to tape a foam filter to your electric plane otherwise the foam will be sucked in and kill it!
This is the board roughly shaped. I now need to insert some high density foam where I stand because this white foam on its own is not strong enough to take my weight
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Here you can see my 'standing pad' glued into the deck
Here is the foam blank squared off and roughly shaped.Â
I made these templates and used a homemade hotwire cutter to cut the foam out with
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The blank is now sanded off, giving a layer of epoxy and glass bubbles to seal the foam. At this point you could then glass over the whole board but I tend to make a shell of this Glass bubbles mixture, sand it down and then glass. It helps stops the resin sinking into the board and avoiding pin holes.
The high density blue foam is glued in with epoxy mixed with glass bubbles to make a very lightweight glue and weighted down for 24 hours.
To give this board strength ( no stringer) I glassed up the sides of the board similar to how a fibreglass spar would be build in an aircraft wing. I wish I had taken photos of this. The whole board is glassed top and bottom with two layers of 200 gram bi directional glass cloth and epoxy.
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I wanted a higher bow so glued on an extra piece of film but tapered it in thickness to where I will stand on it
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