Q for Ryan

[BrianSB]

Hey Ryan (or anyone else),

Is there a formula for determing a completed surfboards volume?

Or would it be determined by submerging it in water and judging the displacement? I'm not sure if such a thing could be done in the standard household bathtub.

[Surferguy80]

Hey Ryan (or anyone else),

Is there a formula for determing a completed surfboards volume?

Or would it be determined by submerging it in water and judging the displacement? I'm not sure if such a thing could be done in the standard household bathtub.

board volume by displacement isn't reeeeally measured that often; some shaping machine programs have a measurement for it, but chatting w.other shapers and builders its not a number that is ever talked about or mulled over too often.
but, if i had to guess, displacing water and measuring that would be a good way to figure it out if you had a decent control/average water height set every time you did it!

[carpjaws]

back in the late 60's[67-69] morey/pope were making surfboards out of saticoy-behind ventura...a new, for the times, short board model 'the camel' was not only advertised by dimensions but by volume, too...tom morey having a scientific background thought that holding on to some flotation capability would aid the surfboard planning performance as we weened of those logs we grew up on...fast forward, today's boards are much different in that they rely on the surfers skill sets to bring reach max potential...oh, you can put anybody on a platform and they could ride but...so, to the point, submersion, is a standard lab test but impractical for the everyday board rider. todays comp. gen. shapes are already factored for volume...there BSB, down load any of the free comp gen surfboard programs and etch out a similar/generic out line, then extract volume in english or metric units and then use appropriate volume to weight ratio[of h20] for weight supported...good luck.

[GRINDER]

Carp,
I bought my first board from Morey&Pope in maybe 64 or 65 and they were located in the pacific iron works building on the ave.in ventura i think. My board was 8' 6" gordon and smith.(wish i still had it)

I used to get dropped off a pierpoint on sat mornings and we would surf the bathrooms about 500 yards south of the pier.
Between sessions we would go up to Tom Moreys shop behind the pier and ck out all his gadgets.
I think maybe the camel was one of his last boards that he made.
Tom Hale had a shop on main st. and he had some nice boards too.

[talcott]

Anyone ever taken volume measurements off surfboards? On sailboards all boards are classified by length and volume because of how it relates to wind strength. Seems like it would be good to know how the board would you before you bought it.

[BrianSB]

Seems like volume would be an important aspect because a 6'2 18 1/2 2 1/4 could have a different volume than a 6'2 18 1/2 2 1/4. I'd rather get a board with a same volume than one with the exact same dimensions but dif. volume. Obviously the goal would be to have = same volume + same dimensions.

Firewire has the volume for all the boards / sizes on their website somewhere.

[Surferguy80]

theres the line;
machine shaped boards (firewire, production boards and chips, etc etc) can be measured by for volume easily by the programs they are created on...
but; tell me how anyone would go about hand shaping any amount of cubic feet or inches into/out of a custom board...
to me the way the board will float and react to pressure changes underfoot is all readily available information as long as you can read the shape of the board, watch the deck foil, and the way the deck rolls rail to rail and so on.
the subtle changes that a board with the same dimensions as another will have are going to tell you how it will float and surf differently; thicker rails with the same middle thickness means it's got a flatter deck, meaning it wont roll rail to rail as well, but will plane faster on mushy sections and be more skatey, as opposed to twitchy underfoot.
a board with the thickness pushed forward as another with the same numbers will drive harder off of the front foot and trim forward better than the other, while the other will turn better off of your back foot and be more reactive to pumping.

.....its aaaaaaaall there
just go look for it :)