Chris and his Speedster....

Last December I built NorCal surfer, Chris, this 9-6 Nova Speedster for Ocean Beach in San Francisco. Chris found his way down south during the last swell, and sent me this photo

Chris wrote, "Love this Board!! This was at T street on 10-5-2014. I rode this on double OH at San O earlier in the week when the locals were pulling out their guns.Thanks so much for a killer board."

Need a longboard to ride "steep and deep"? Feeling a "need for speed"? The Nova Speedster has what you're looking for. Contact me now, winter is just around the corner...

Pure custom...

Believe it or not, this shape started out as a 7-10 Widget 3yrs ago. Customer Phil didn't like how it fit, so I took it back and we put our heads together and came up with this shape. Phil loved this board, and then recently a friend rode it and insisted on buying it. Phil came back to me, wanting the same shape, but with some tweaks, most notably EPS/Epoxy construction. Here's the result:

If forced to name it, I'd call it a double bump-wing swallow-tail Nova Speedster, but you can call it a "custom". Isn't it time you had a custom board built?

Need for Speed....

I'm pretty excited about this new iteration of the Nova Speedster. This particular board has the same rocker as Chris' blue Speedster, but with a slightly fuller outline and extra thickness to accommodate my weight and age.

Dimensions are 9'6"  17-1/2" x 23" x 14" 3-1/4". I had the opportunity to surf it recently in chest-high waves, which is really at the lower end of the wave-range for the Speedster. Normally, this board wouldn't come out until wave size hit shoulder-high or better, but you all now how it goes with new boards. 

I had a hard time shooting photos of this board because of the stellar polish job provided my master sander-polisher James at the shop. Anyway, this board is fast, as in blazing fast. I managed to blow by the SUPer who dropped in on me on my first wave. But, after "sharing" a couple of more waves, I decided to call it a sesh. (I hate it when a wave drought ends with a swell on the weekend. Waaay too much desperation in the water.) This session left me very excited about the promise of this board's performance in better waves,

When ordering the blank for this board, I chose a T-Band of two 1/8" basswood stringers. Glued side-to-side with opposing grain, this t-band adds a little more structural strength to the shape. I selected red glue color for aesthetic reasons, knowing that I would be using a red pinline on the deck. My glasser thought a dual pinline would look really nice, so we added the blue. Lamination was done with light-yellow opaque

resin on bottom and rails, with double 6oz cloth on deck and single 6oz cloth on bottom. Finished off with the superior gloss and polish already mentioned, the board looks as good as it performs. For fins I chose a 7" Smith/Parrish full-base center fin, with a set of 4" LB side-bites, all from True Ames.

Wanting more hold, I opted for the larger SBs, and then dropped the depth of the center fin down from my usual 7.5" to 7" in an effort to maintain the same total fin area. Price for this board, including fins, is $872 + tax.

WARNING: Geeky Shaper Talk   The key to this board's performance is choice of blank selected to build it. When building a board, the shaper selects a blank that already has a bottom rocker curve that is close to the intended rocker of the finished board. This not only saves time, but helps to increase consistency of rocker between similar shapes.  Digging through an old Clark Foam Blank Catalogue I found a blank (9-8S) with rocker very close to the rocker I wanted for the Nova. Then I asked the guys at US Blanks, who have all of the old Clark Foam rockers, to apply this rocker curve to a newer blank, the USB 9-9B. After skinning the blank and shaping thickness and foil, I found that I only had to make minor rocker adjustments at nose and tail to get what I was looking for. 

Chris' Nova Speedster...

Customer Chris drove all day from San Francisco/Ocean Beach to pick up his new Nova Speedster.

The Nova Speedster is what some would call a longboard semi-gun. It features a pulled-in nose (17") and pulled-in tail (13-1/2"). Width at wide-point is 22-3/4". The board is 3-1/4" thick along the stringer, but the deck is crowned to maintain thinner rails. The bottom has a tucked rail edge, with low rocker throughout, slight belly in the nose, flat in the middle and moderate tail-V peaking in front of the 2+1 fin array. All the essential ingredients for pure speed in waves of consequence.

YIKES! SF Ocean Beach Winter - Photo N. Lawrence

A longboard semi-gun is not a board you'd find on the rack at your local surf shop. Contact me if you feel "the need for speed".

9-1 Speedster....

Here's the latest 9-1 x 22-3/4" x 3-1/8" Nova Speedster, finished in tri-color resin tint.

The Nova Speedster is built for surfing off the tail in quality waves, shoulder-high or better. The design features slight nose concave, flat mid-section and double concaves in the generous tail V. Wide-point is just behind center.

 Notice that  the thin brown stripe marks the spot where tail-V is at max depth and where the outline curve begins to pull into the pintail. A rocker photo would show the tail rocker starting to accelerate at this spot as well. This is also the spot where the tail concaves start. It is this combination of compound curves that creates ball-bearing-like turns and high-speed carves.

Don't be left out when the next big swell hits. Order yours today!

A new longboard...finally

After doing way too many SUPs and Mini-Simmons boards, I have the opportunity to do a cool little LB. This one will be a 9-1 Nova Speedster 2+1 with some trick rocker and bottom contours. The customer selected the cool T-Band using 1/16" Cedar-1/8" Basswood-1/16" Cedar.

Here where I left off. The blanks has been skinned and about 90% foiled. i still need to tweak the rocker in the nose and tail, and then adjust thickness at both ends as well. At this point, I'll  lay out and cut the template. After that I finish the bottom contours, do the aforementioned tweaks and then  turn the rails.

Winter swell dreamin'...

Late Fall is a time to put away the noserider and break out the “winter board”. In this case, a 9-6 blue tint, reverse-lap, pinlined Nova Speedster Pintail, sporting TA side-bites and a 7” Wayne Rich Classic center fin, all in red (of course!). Dimensions are: 17-1/2” x 22-3/4” x 13-3/4” 3”

What's unique about this board is that I used a “red” density USBlanks blank. This is the density that most PU shortboards use. To counteract the lower density (and to prevent excessive heel denting) I used the more expensive, but stronger Silane cloth, instead of E-cloth. End result is a relatively lightweight longboard, which will resist excessive denting (or so I hope)

I kept the rocker at just over 4” in the nose and just under 4” in the tail, and used more of a continuous curve throughout. There's slight concave in the nose and a fair amount of V in the tail.

Like all of my "Shop" boards (wink, wink, nod, nod) this one's for sale. Shoot me an email if interested.