1. Your Name: David Gordon
2. Your Brand name: Eros
3. How did you hear about us? ordered some supplies from you. Will probably be ordering more soon.
4. How was your initial experience at Foam E-Z? Good.
5. Why did you want to build your own board? Always wanted to ...thought it might be a fun addiction. (It is)
6. Shape of finished board? Very similar to a Walden mini magic.
7. Size of finished board: Length 7'3" Nose 18.5" Width 21.75" Tail 15" Thickness 2.585"
8. What blank did you use? EPS
9. How was your board building experience? Awesome. Gave me a new appreciation for the price tag on a board. But be careful...It's more addicting than any video game. I was lost in a time warp. Girlfriend standing at the garage door whining about going to dinner...me standing there covered in dust and telling her five more min...and an hour later...
10. Did you use videos, books, web, other? yes. WEB mostly. video, e-books
11. What videos, books, web, other did you use? Youtube was super helpful actually. ehow.com, Swaylocks, and an e-book. (best advice...learn to walk away...stop trying to "even the table legs" before you ruin it.
Perfection is unattainable...but a great ride is completely doable!
12. Do you recommend these resources? yes.
13. What do you wish you knew going into this project? More about rails and how glassing and rails must be thought of. I know a lot about rails...but I didn't know how the glasser needs to work them. How to bring down the stringer properly.
14. What would you recommend to someone else for their first time? Get a good spoke shave for bringing down the stringer Home depot won't have a good one.
15. What tools did you find most useful? My E-Z Square was good. Also
the side lights I built and the Surform. (the planer is scary at first) A real surfboard planer is different than the one you get at Home Depot. They can "feather" in the depth better. But not to worry. The Surform can do that too once the heavy lifting is done with your planer. I almost think a serious power sander (the kind auto body car detailers use ) would be a great investment for shaping foam. Then again that might make for some interesting gouges too.
16. Where did you run into trouble? my garage. bumping the foam on things moving it from the shaping racks to holding racks and through the door. (clean your space)
17. What kind of fin system did you use and why? 2+1 center box and FCS Fusion System. I like center boxes because moving the fin back and forth can make a HUGE difference. It can be the difference between crap and magic. The Fusion system finally allows a touch of this back and forth. But I still like Lokbox. I went with FCS because my cousins a rep for them and got me the plugs for free. Also my glasser does them.
18. Did you glass the board and what was that experience like? No it's EPS. I am having Mark Schneider of Schneider Surfboards (San Diego CA) glass it. I don't need that kind of hassle in my garage.
19. Where did you shape and glass your board? San Diego, CA
20. What type of board do you want to make next? A hybrid version of a Larry Mabile Twinzer Fish with a different tail. Might end up looking a bit like a Von Sol Shadow...
21. Feel free to add any other input or interesting information you’d like… About templating: I used my AutoCAD program to print out a full scale sheet of paper for my template. Just cut out the board shape...laid it out on the board and painted off the edges. (I used a square block EPS blank. Only the rocker was built in.) It worked really well. Don't feel like you have to have Masonite templates and 15 different tail shapes. Cut it out of paper. Use your eye and square to even things up. If the board is a perfect ride...then template it. If not...you didn't waste tons of time transferring a dud onto masonite.
