SUP deck trimming

The Sea State SUP has a wood strip deck that sits upon a fiberglass hull.  This is very similar to a modern boats hull deck joint.  The inside of the hull has a flange so there is room for a bead of 3M 5200.
The deck edge extends past the hull by 3/16ths of an inch.  This provides an nice trim appearance as well as giving the rider ability to grip the board easily.
In the first round of classes we scribed this gentle curve on the underside of the deck as we where fitting it.  Then, using a jig saw followed by a sander, we smoothed it out.
To speed up the process and achieve better uniformity, we purchased a "Flush Trim" bit for our router and added an over sized guide bearing (7/8ths).  The bearing rides on the hull surface and guides the bit.
This makes quick work of cutting a uniform edge.  In future classes we will jig saw the edge to about 5/16th and then follow with the router.
Come to the St. Louis Boat Show February 7 - 10 and check out our boards.

The next sup deck

We are working on a new kit board that will be on display/for sale at the St. Louis Boat show.
The hull and glass decks are ready to be bonded and we did the strip deck glue up last night.
Here is a photo of the glue up.  The shop is full of glass projects so we did this one next to the furnace in the basement.  It's cold out.

The wood is walnut, cedar and bass wood.

New SUP hull

This weekend we formed a new kit board hull.
Though the original design has a nice stiff deck, we are redesigning the stringer system to keep the strength and reduce weight.  The change involves reducing the deck thickness by a 1/16th and instead of using only longitudinal stringers, we are incorporating one full length stringer and crosswise bridge stringers.
The glass laminate has additional glass where these stringers will sit.  They can be seen in this photo.

Rear hull interior showing fin box

Maiden Voyage

We took one of the Sea State Kit Board SUPs over the Creve Coeur lake for a shake down cruise.
It performed as it was designed to.  It is stable and tracks well.
There was quite a bit of wind which makes paddle boarding difficult. After a brief paddle to windward our tester went with the wind and flew.  Most of the lake is covered with ice.  It was 34F degrees.  His dry suit helped a little.

Ice was actually building up on the bow deck.
When he was ready to come in, an ice flow was blocking the way so he had to chop his way through.
Take a look at the videos.  The Sea State Cahokia paddle is tougher than most paddles.
They are available for sale at St. Louis Sail and Paddle and also by contacting me directly at: dckreutz@gmail.com
This SUP is available as a kit or professionally built.  See the page link above.

Sup Handle attached

Today we stripped off the blue tape to check the deck bonding.  It is on nice and tight.  We needed some photos of a board for the next ad so we attached the handle and fin to one of the boards and took it out into the sunshine.
We will weigh it and try it out this weekend.
Here are the latest images:

Sea State Paddle Board

Bonding the decks to the hulls

For our last class before the holidays, we set out to bond the wood strip decks to the hulls of our SUPs.

The glass cloth had fully cured.  The prep work involved trimming the excess glass cloth with a razor knife.  We then gave the glass edge a light sanding to remove any sharp edges.

Once the deck panel was to this stage, we screwed in the access port ring.  This was fastened with 6 stainless screws and bedded in a small bead of 3M 5200.

The decks were then flipped so we could epoxy in the leash cups / tie downs.

We epoxied the mating surfaces and dropped them in making sure the cross bars in the cups aligned with the wood strips.

Next up was masking off the hull so we wouldn't make a mess with the 5200.

We applied a continuous bead around the perimeter of the hull and along the length of the 5 stringers.

Then, as a team, we carefully set the decks straight down into position and added weights, lots of blue tape and a trucker's strap in one area.

The 3M 5200 is the toughest bonding agent around.  The students signed and dated their hulls on the inside before we closed them up.  Hopefully they will never see their signatures again!

Here some photos: