DESIGNDETAILS

Various parts of this site use design terminology that might be confusing to the average surfer, or that might be interpreted differently by various shapers, so we thought it would be helpful to provide brief descriptions of our meaning for these terms.

Hopefully, this will help the reader better understand what is being presented.

{{ Some of this falls into a brief discussion of some of our design philosophies in order to help readers understand where we are coming from with our designs!

TUCKED EDGE

A tucked edge is an edge that is shaped into the bottom of the board where the rail curvature intersects with the bottom plane. This edge can vary in hardness along the length of the rail, or might not be present in some parts of the rail.

Typically, all of our boards feature a full length tucked edge from nose to tail. In the nose and tail this edge is very hard and close to vertical. Through the majority of the rail the amount of tuck will increase from the nose to the wide point of the board and then decrease again towards the tail. The amount of tuck is the distance that the apex of the edge is located in from the apex of the rail.

The goal of the tucked edge is to provide release at the transition from the bottom to the rail. If this edge did not exist the water would have a tendency to wrap up off the bottom and around the rail, creating additional drag. By adding an edge the water can release cleanly off the bottom improving performance!

PARABOLIC NOSE

Sharp noses on a surfboard can cause serious injuries to a surfer should they be struck by the nose. To provide a safety nose on our boards we developed what we call a parabolic nose, where the tip of the nose is shaped into a parabola at the tip.

It results in a nose that is completely rounded and hence blunt, thus making the nose a lot safer. We incorporate this into the rail shape in the nose by adding a very slight beak to the nose that increases the thickness to add more safety!

BOWLED DOUBLE CONCAVE

Double concaves in the tail of modern surfboards are a common performance feature. They enhance speed and looseness in a board. All of our high performance boards have this feature but ours is shaped a little differently than the normal version. Ours features a rounded bowl at the center that is a little higher than the rails, this bowling effect pushes the bottom of the concaves out closer to the rails focusing them more towards the fins.

The fins sit down within the concaves on the face closest to the rail. The depth of the concaves varies based on the type of board and is most prominent on our quad designs, where the goal is to push the water flow towards the fins to enhance their performance!

The motive for the bowl is that it enhances the boards ability to transition from one rail to another by rolling on the bowl! Additionally, the bowl limits the tracking that could occur if the concaves had a sharper apex by eliminating the ridge running down the center of the board.

V-LAM

This is our name for the veneering technique that we use on some of our boards. It is very similar to the Timberflex® construction technique but differs in a couple of significant ways.

This construction technique has a layer of veneer vacuum bagged to the top and bottom of the board. Because all of our designs employ a tucked edge on the rail we have developed our own unique approach to applying the veneers to our boards. This technique allows us to preserve and enhance the tucked edge by having the veneer run right to the edge.

Our technique is more time consuming than T-flex but it guarantees us we will get the quality edges we care about. In most cases the decks have a layer of either 2-oz or 4-oz underneath the veneer with a single 4-oz over. The bottoms have the veneer applied directly to the foam and then covered with a single layer of 4-oz. Everything is laminated with Resin Research® Epoxy Systems resins.

Recently we have switched to primarily using this technique to apply deck patches to our boards. By using the technique for deck patches we can better control the flex characteristics of the board when using a polyurethane blank.

We have also started using a PVC foam instead of a veneer in this application. The foam allows us to make a deck patch that is very dent resistant and the foam absorbs less resin than the veneer making it a little lighter.

Typically, the foam is only an 1/8" thick but we have also been experimenting with thicker foams allowing us to add floatation to thinner more performance oriented boards.

V-Lam stands for Veneer LAMination!}}