new bort

I will not like this post based on principle... But I like it

 

I like Asians of the female variety

 

#9/12

 

Btw, have you SEEN the ravioli starfish?

 

Starfish are banned until further notice

 

It's cool that some dudes on here know alot about all the different shapes, channels etc. I also like to discuss design.

With that being said, for me, it comes down to feel. Over the years I've learned that form rarely equates to intention. As such, I keep what works and sell what doesnt. I cant explain the subtleties of the shape.

 

I'm more interested in down the line speed in a twin keel fish than looseness. I feel like these boards come alive in fast lined up stomach to shoulder high surf that call for drawn out turns and easy board speed. I want a normal squash tail shortboard to be loose to whip around, not so much a twin keel fish.

With speed in mind, the channels make some sense to me on that kind of board.

 

Hahahahaha!! Another good one. Surgeons took out the kidney that was chock full of drug remains from my youth!!

 

Maybe the gall bladder is next to dial you back down to normal levels.

Glad you are getting better Mr Cuda.

 

And that's one of the big draws for me, as a board builder.

When I ran a board building course, I used to tell my students, "All boards work... they just may not work the way you intended them to work." As a board designer and builder, you know you've reached a degree of proficiency when you begin to consistently design and build boards that work as intended. But there's a difference between being proficient, and being a "master shaper"...

Let's say you like the way a board responds when you shift your weight slightly to the front foot... but you don't like the way the rail engages in the tube. So on your next board, you tweak the rail to do what you think you want, and the rail does, indeed, do what you wanted it to now. But unexpectedly... you lost some down the line speed when you move your weight forward. Why? What does changing the shape or volume of the rail have to do with how the board accelerates when your weight shifts forward? The connection between the two might not be direct... it might be indirect, and have something to do with rocker... or volume... or foil.

You might be a good board designer/builder and get a lot of pleasure out of riding your own boards, have fun learning as you go, and stoking your friends and family with new sticks. But until you start to see all of the different design elements as one interconnected system - the whole board as a single entity of compound curves and interactive forces - do you really become a master shaper. Some of us will NEVER get there. Some of us think we're there, but we're really not. And some of us... very few of us... ever achieve that level of mastery.

But it sure is fun trying...

 

Reminds me of Organic Chemistry. In laboratory, when you prepare to do something like an Frieden-Crafts alkylation, for instance, you need to go first with the "Theoretical Yield" (ie do the math to calculate outcome) , then, you do the lab work itself and come up with the "Actual Yield".

 

O Barry, you triggered some memories .. i.e., knowing the limiting reagent and the reagent in excess .. It used to drive my lab partner crazy when I'd rough measure the latter, knowing if we had our measurements/calculations accurate on the former, our results / yield would be correct.

 

My wife is a pastry chef - it's almost the same thing, precise measurements, prerequisite temperatures, properre blending of air to liquid, etc. But then like smitty517 sez, to get the best results, ultimately it comes down to feel. She always said you gotta break a few eggs to make an omelette.