Spoon Basics

[flexspoon]

since there seems to be a building interest(thanks Man O' War and others) I thought I'd put down some basics about spoons based on my experiences.

I'm the other George. I bought my first spoon in 1969 and have never ridden anything else. Never even paddled a foam kneeboard.

In my experience there have been 3 types or categories of spoons.

1. The first board I bought was a Greek spoon in June 1969, much like the one on Ron Romonowsky's site:

<a href="http://www.romanoskykneeboards.com/html ... eboards</a>

This type board has a moderate hull, moderate belly, egg rails, not a huge fin and not much flex(at least mine). Mine was 4'9" X 20.5". Acouple of my friends bought boards from Greek back then. A narrow downrailer, a 5'6" huge downrailer and a pointed, wide-tailed downrailer. None really had any flex to speak of.

2. Velo - deep hull, lots of belly, flat bottom/rocker for rear 3', huge 10" fin, LOTS of flex and twist.




These are like the boards you may have seen Greenough riding in Children of the Sun and other movies. Get the DVD.

3. Triplane edge boards - a triplane bottom with chines and runners.
very flexible and twisty(especially in the tails and belly), much smaller fin than Velo.





I've owned 7 spoons and ridden 4 or 5 more. Even made 1. The last 4 boards were all from Paul Gross. The last board I just picked up last Dec. was from the Project Velo batch. It has never been ridden! Soon.

So there is a start on spoons.

Now some notes:

1. Flex - They flex in ways and for purposes that you would never imagine.
Not just variable rocker and snap out of turns. The boards twist and contort, flex is a shock absorber throughout the entire board(hint - don't try to limit flex), on the edge boards the entire bottom flexes into a concave tunnel, sometimes you push down on the nose to flatten the rocker to plane better over flat spots. You can even bend the board flatter to help catch waves.

2. Flotation - less is better - there is NO advantage to flotation.

3. Riding position - one hand GRIPPING the outside rail(this is your leash, your control and throttle hand). The other hand/arm is either dragging/grabbing the wave face or in the air like a bronco rider - YEEHAW!

More to come....

[Man O' War]

G2 - For the sake of comparison, what's the measurement in inches of the tail corner flex of your Gross velo, hand-bent? Some of us having been trying to get a handle on that.

Also, could you get the hind quarters of that thing flat on a table and measure the amount of kick in the nose? That always looked like a ton of hull to me.

Thanks for participating in this forum too.

[flexspoon]

Here are some pics I just took showing "static" flex. When riding a wave expect much, much more flex not just in the tail but throughout the entire board.

Nose dimension:



sandwich edge and velo:



Velo flex:






edge tail flex:





and more...



Big effort to flex Velo tail by hand. Edge board tail flexes many inches with very little effort. Think of a velo type board as a single large flex unit and an edge board as having multi-faceted flex areas that flex together and alone.

The spoon I made was SIMPLE and worked fantastically:

1. get blank and shape bottom - I used the orginal Greek spoon as a template and made it a little longer - 5', same width - 20.5", a little thinner and not quite as much belly.

2. Glass bottom - We did 2 layups of 3 layers of 6oz. cloth. took 2 days.

3. Dig out deck and shape rails - 1 day

4. glass top, rails and entire bottom 3 days

5. Glasss on fin

whole thing took a week - no tapering, no sanding, no tuning, no deck pad
Just build and ride.

The board was awesome at Malibu, Rincon, Cojo and Pt. Mugu.

If you have never ridden a spoon you couldn't know what it is like.

If you ridden a spoon that didn't flex much(like the original Greeks) you couldn't know.

If you've ridden a perfect spoon in lousy waves you couldn't know.

When you ride a perfect spoon in proper waves - Rincon, Malibu, Cojo or other point breaks - You'll know! It's the joy of BOING! You load the board by banking into a turn and then BOING - you get sprung forward. On the right wave you can string together a whole series of these, going progressively faster and faster - each BOING adding to your speed. This is where the gears that you hear Greenough talking about come from.

The edge boards don't give you that feeling, they just go fast. Velo, with the deep hull and belly combined with the huge fin will bend and twist, loading up with torque and then release it, propelling you forward.

The edge boards twist, contort, bend, conform with very little effort and very little stored energy. They go fast by providing very little resistence.
At least that is my experience.

More to come...hope this helps.

[Eric Carson]

Wow Flex, you sure know your spoons! I meeting up with Man-O-War this weekend to surf and discuss spoon building. Your post has made me rethink my idea of building a spoon with lots of float.
Please continue sharing with the rest of the class

[john -]

Hi flexspoon

I have never ridden a spoon! I dont see them around much and i am basically priced out of the market when ever i see one anyway. I would love of course to test them out! but i was interested in your comment that you have never been on a foam board...it would be interesting to read your comments after riding a cutting edge foam/glass board

ive only seen gg ride the spoon in a vid (crystal voyager) ive seen gigs (i think?) have a go at one at the end of "now and then"

my thoughts from reading about spoons here is that spoon surfing and foam/glass board surfing are different...like mountain bike riding and road racer riding

i surppose closing the gap between the two is mow et al's mission

can it be done? i think one would have to have experienced both boards to know

this post goes beyond your thread as it has been my developing thoughts that crystalised on reading yours


cheers

[markgnome]

e2u

[Flexman]

.

[Man O' War]

I can't get those fotos of the velo tail flex out of my mind. They just confirm something I read and rejected in an old McTavish article on building spoons:

...This means tapering those 16 layers in the tail down to three at the trailing edge--yes, three.

I followed most of the directions in his article, but that one seemed like a mistake. Now I'm a believer.

I'll post the entire article over on "Spoon Fed."

[flexspoon]

About the difference between spoons and foam/glass kneeboards.

My feeling is that the difference between a spoon and a foam/glass kneeboard is MANY times greater than the difference between a foam/glass kneeboard and a stand-up surfboard!

From my vantage point surfboards and foam/glass kneeboards are:

1. made the same way with the same materials
2. Same buoyancy and paddling(OK some kneeboarders wear fins)
3. almost the same size - what's up with that? I thought one of the advantages kneeboards had was their smaller size and manueverability?
When did they get so huge?
4 similar fins, number of fins and fin positioing?
5. Ridden basically the same.

Whereas spoons:

1. made completely differently, materials similar
2. little or no buoyancy, paddling completely different
3. shorter and narrower
4. Single fin only mounted farther back on board. Again Greenough started with twin fins and found thru experimentation that spoons worked better with a single fin. Just thinking about the complexities of 2 fins, never mind 3,4,5,? mixed with flex is a nighmare.
5. Riding style and wave positioning very different also. Riding a spoon takes much less effort. very subtle. A little lean ,a little tug on the rail and a little weighting and unweighting and the board does the rest. Also a lot more banking over and riding/turning on rails.

Closing the gap may not be possible - they are different directions.
A flex tail on a board is nothing like a spoon. A spoon is flexible in its entirety - it will flex in ways and places that you would never imagine. Think of it as a flexible creature - like any swimming creature in the ocean.
The flex is not just for thrust or turning or planning or twisting - its all that and more and all at the same time. The thing is alive.

[DrStrange]

...This means tapering those 16 layers in the tail down to three at the trailing edge--yes, three.

I followed most of the directions in his article, but that one seemed like a mistake. Now I'm a believer.

Seems like glassing tail/deck could precut glass to roughly shape of triangle flex pattern mentioned elsewhere, in progressively smaller sizes and laminate on the resulting flatish pyramid, a few layers at a time. Result would be most glass at knee pressure zone and down spine and taper to edges and tail without having to do much if any grinding?

Using 4 oz cloth more layers than 6 oz yields more glass less resin. Wouldn't this give better flex/weight ratio and more strength?[/list]

[flexspoon]

Just got the "Crystal Voyager" DVD yesterday. Greenough is riding edge boards.

Also got the "Children of the Sun" DVD last week where Greenough is riding Velo boards.

So here is a little twist and flex from the edge board:

-

Now I'm a fairly strong 5'11" 195lb guy and I'm putting pretty good pressure on the board to twist or flex it. Image the forces on the board on a good 6' wall with a 190 lb rider.




The board will do things you never imagined.

More soon...I'm in the mood. I spoke with Man O' War the other night and he made me realize that my little insight into Greenough spoons could really help others. Watching Greenough on his edge board and realizing that was the time in my life I have ever watched someone else ride an edge board really hammered home the point.

[ScottMac]

..

[flexspoon]

Crystal Voyager - Amazon UK thru a private seller located in FL, USA

Children of the Sun - Wetsand.com

They may not play on USA DVD player as they are set for a different zone or whatever it is. They play fine on the computer and many DVD players allow you to reset them to play all DVDs.

Interesting how the surfing is so dated - 25+ years ago - yet the spoon riding is timeless.

[Man O' War]

Dr S -- That mind is going...

Seems like glassing tail/deck could precut glass to roughly shape of triangle flex pattern mentioned elsewhere, in progressively smaller sizes and laminate on the resulting flatish pyramid, a few layers at a time. Result would be most glass at knee pressure zone and down spine and taper to edges and tail without having to do much if any grinding?

Saving grinding on a spoon is a worthy goal. I see one problem only with this suggestion. By doing it the old-fashioned way--glass the whole deck, then grind--you preserve the oneness of everything you haven't touched. Every deck layer is still one piece from the center out to the nose and rails and back to the tail, layer after layer after layer, except for the two "canyons" you've cut. But if you make the triangles separately and lay them on, you lose that. Would either way of doing it make any real difference? I'm not qualified to say. I do see this: you have to say, Do I feel lucky? Do I experiment with the integrity of my spoon and save myself the grinding, or, Do I preserve the integrity of my spoon and take five years off my lungs? I'd say the choice is clear.

Using 4 oz cloth more layers than 6 oz yields more glass less resin. Wouldn't this give better flex/weight ratio and more strength?

Yes, sir. I think you're right. I hope you're right. I went with 4 oz and all those layers for that very reason, but once again we have to depend on MTB, Flexman, and others to tell us whether or not we blew it.

[DrStrange]

you preserve the oneness of everything you haven't touched

Good point, however there are a number of references already made by folks saying they did X number of layers full lenght then shorter layers to build more glass in tail (did I really read that here?) Anyhoo, what I was thinking was about that "sacred triangle" (tantra?) and if you grind to get the foil in all directions, then you end up at the same place i.e. smaller and smaller outlines of glass (look at your foiled fin in the light!).

I am busy psychicing myself up to do this (though maybe hire someone to shape the bottom as I did in 1970-something--that one was like the one Mr. Flexspoon mentioned, glass all the way tip to tip both sides and no grinding and I couldn't turn it and didn't know why at the time but now can surely say not near enough flex). If I do, I will likely go for the layered look, sort of disco shag glassing. If the sides of each triangle are cut approx same curve as outline of the part of the board they are facing...voila! Brain first thinking smallest layer underneath so smoother like deck patch but then brain thinks "Hmmmm, thin bead of extra resin at edge of each layer that way. Not so good. So biggest patch on bottom then progressively smaller like a pyramid."

By the way found this http://www.shopmaninc.com/foam.html
Pretty good dealio on pour foam. Would love some estimates from the experienced as to how much volume likely needed and what density

Also, I seem to remember in these threads there being a back and forth for velo style as to length wise flexability. MTBarrels added lots of lengthwise stiffness w/ knee wells vs original style of just glass panel in center. What's most fine for spoon?

And while I'm in a questioning mode: Is the way to make a spoon for smaller/weaker wave while staying in the full spoon mode, basically just to make the hull less deep, instead of 1 1/2 to 2 inches mentioned in GG quote maybe 3/4 to 1 inch?