Flex Spoon

I got advice from someone who knows to go slow on tuning the flex spoon. As a clarification, "tuning" the spoon is the process of sanding away material (resin and fiberglass) in a smooth feathering with the goal of allowing the spoon to flex under load. How much flex? How much load? These questions are more by feel than by rule. At the moment my spoon has little flex to it in the basic rocker plane, which I can test by putting the tail on something soft and pulling the nose. Torsional flex is as important, but I can't figure out how to load the board when dry, so it remains unknown. Bob McTavish recently made some spoons and tuned them with much more flex than where I'm at.

The classic image of a flex spoon is with a translucent deck highlighting the opaque foam rails. My spoon doesn't have any translucence because it has a layer of carbon fiber in it. According to George Greenough, a spoon should flex and rebound sharply, like a bow firing an arrow. Carbon fiber has more rebound than fiberglass, and that is the reason Stretch put the layer in.

I was in the yard admiring the spoon and wishing I could pretty it up a little.

 

The yellow and red color is pigment we added to the resin while layering additional fiberglass. The black background is the core layer of carbon. I thought that I am happy with the fin, so I could paint it if I wanted, which I do. As I was inspecting my work, I realized that the carbon layer was much closer to the deck than the bottom. I decided any further tuning/sanding would be on the bottom. This allowed my to also paint the deck and add the kneepad. I didn't take any process photos, and the work I did is clearly not sharp, but I think the spoon looks much better overall. (The bottom looks the same as above, except the fin is painted.)

 

 

I should add more knee pad, but I wanted to see if it even sticks. It's pretty old, like 15 years sitting in the garage old, and some of the adhesive stuck better to the paper than to the foam. I added some where I think my knees sit most often, but in the photo it looks too far forward to me.

One thing I really appreciate about the bright red color on the nose and fin is that it will stand out better in the ocean. Last week when I lost the board it took longer than I like to find it, partially because the colors didn't stand out. The flex spoon ended upside down most times, so only the fin stuck out of the water. It was soft blue, now it's Apple Red!

 

This was fun. I should photograph more of my boards and put them up. I found my GoPho, but can't find the charging cable. It's out there somewhere, and when I run across it I'll charge up the camera and get some more shots. Last time I had hours of footage but no good way to deal with it. This little netbook I use can barely handle blogging, and my desktop isn't much faster. Once I get a job I'll upgrade my computer? Does anyone have any suggestions on cheap and easier video editing software?