is anyone using boardcad?

i started mucking around with it in win7 and it works really well. very impressed.
it's free, will calc volume, deals with 4d cnc etc.....

http://www.boardcad.com/news.php?sid=223bc45fa6f9b17459b6117eab00996e&cat=10&lang=eng

i can do you a board mate. no worries, am working up a 100lt freewave currently that's early planning based on my freestyle board but smaller and with a little more tail and nose kick and it's a single/tri fin. can easily make it a few litres less. rocker is very good for qld


hehe,.

i did a graphic with that brief a few years ago. yes, that is an 80's leopard print. with 80's cure eyeballs.



p.s. you were asking about my current voodoo.... here is the review i wrote with pics.
http://www.kiteboarder.com.au/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=59469

ooooooddddddoooooooV

he has them for around $1890 on his website, but please don't quote me as i don't know what retail is.

the hand shaped versus machine cut is a bit of a myth. it stems from when boards were polyester and built from preshaped blanks like surfboards. because preshaped blanks were used all boards were done from start to finish by eye which meant tolerences weren't as accurate.

boards are not built that way anymore. they are cut from a block of foam with a hot wire run along a template. so the rocker and outline is the same from board to board. rails are measured with stencils and shaped also. then the board is hand finished.

the only area i can see where cnc is more accurate is where the deck curves down to the rail and if the board has complicated concaves. however an experienced shaper will not struggle with this at all. at the end of the day even cnc boards need to be hand finished and if the finisher isn't an experienced shaper you will get a dodgey outcome.

where cnc is very benificial is speed. a cnc machine will shape a board faster than a master shaper ready for hand finishing. also when designing, 3d is easier as you can calc volume and get a better understanding of volume distribution prior to construction.

graphics can be whatever i guess. i've spent a lot of time talking to pete about ways to get my designs onto his boards the easiest way possible. he sprays all of his boards so i provide him with laser cut templates that i produce in cad after tracing my coloured designs. we have also tried printed thin vynil but that is expensive. can easily add a couple of hundred dollars for the small quanitity needed. recently i found a company in the us that will do a board size graphic for a good price but i am yet to get anything happening.

you could always paint your own graphics if you are artistic or get a mate to do it for you if they are artistic. skies the limit, other than that you can design it and give it to the shaper to spray.

edit* i forgot to answer your question about ride.

i like them. he has very good rockers. materials wise i get mine in timber veneer so they have a bit of flex which i like. you could get them in full carbon or whatever if you like light and stiff.

2nd edit** i forgot to say also. yes he has cnc cut boards. there is a local guy who also has years of experience with windsurfers who has a cnc mill for sups/windsurfers etc.

currently petes boards are being measured. my voodoo has been measured so can be cnc milled. as has his slalom and speed boards. with the boards i am tinkering with for myself, once built they would be measured to if they work.

KenHo said...

UggggggHH !! No 80's please !! The 80's blew chunks when I lived through them, and they are worse now.
Saying "the best of the 80's style" is an oxymoron.

Have to agree, a board with Bill Crosby knitted sweater style graphics would not be cool.

how did u save the pics of the board your designing?

@choco - the program has an export spec sheet function that gives the template views i uploaded. it also allows you to reduce the templates by the thickness of the layup prior to export as well as template export features for hot wire cuts. the 3d image i had to do a printscreen.

@vando - cheers mate.

i downloaded the program but gave up as soon as i saw it open, to much grey! .. ive been playing with AKU shaper previously linked somewhere on seabreeze, just vector curves with tags (similar to adobe illustrator), calculates volume and gives out measurements for any point, it seems to work best to use as little guide points as possible, just lets the maths make the nice curves... (but thats as far as i got!)..

anyway, Get salt.

is it just me or does your new board have a really loooong flat section,.. then loads of nose kick.. im no board shaping expert but all the new boards, even waveboards seem to be very flat without much extra kick at the nose.. just a gradually increasing rocker. (my survey consisted of my twinser and flare)

and the deck is pretty flat, i used to own a tabou freestyle 80 (for the windier days) and it had a flat deck which was very uncomfortable and burned the legs trying to keep it flat, because there was nothing to bank my heel on..

i realise thats the whole idea of a custom, to do something different.. but like evolution, the greater the board mutation, the greater the chance the mutation will be injurious. to quote darwin himself.

just a thought, feel free to correct..



speaking of mutations unfavourable to selection

hahaha yeah ill strap an outboard to it, stay tuned..

@barn,

well i can't confirm or deny. you could be right.

it's a lightwind wave board so i gave it some nose kick but kept the entry rocker down. there isn't a flat area as such though, it's a continuous rocker. it will have a 300mm flat in it between the rear and front strap once shaped. i also have this thing about thin boards so at 110mm thick it becomes an exercise on where to place the volume to achieve 110 lt.

tail kick is 30mm so it has a fairly flatish rocker for a wave board but i need it to get up and go in light winds and crap surf.

i am concerned there is a little to much volume in the rails.

i'm going for thin and flat because i'm hoping it makes the board feel more like a surfboard and thin feels more lively under the feet. flat decks don't bother me so much. my current board has a flat deck. just makes it easier to get around in light winds.

i had a look at akushaper. there are a couple of features in boardcad that i think give it the edge. first is that you can pan along the board and the sections change so you can do it in realtime to see the flow of the rails and the other thing is that boardcad has a volume distribution graph it overlays on the outline so you can see what the volume is doing. the other items is that boardcad overlays flowlines on the sections and outlines so you can see the relationship of your rail/deck apex points. plus it shows the tuck under line on the outline so you can check rail details. all of these things really help keep the lines flowing. at the end of the day though, you can just change the background colour.

so 1 session in 4 weeks had me dreaming of light wind alternatives.

the fatbat formula! avec secret tail shape

are you shaping for patrik d

sweet, sounds like fun. i've never been that good on the tools myself but have helped build a few boards in the past.

there's some thruster surfboards floating around somewhere with my sweat on them as well. of course i did all of the numptie jobs.

whenever i go to a mates place the first thing we do is head to the shaping room and check out all the boards.

Hi Icesurf.

that is the one thing that worries me about the software. exporting to cnc seems a bit grey. if it doesn't work my fall back is templates which it does very well. then the proto can be scanned for reproduction. at the end of the day though the cnc mill is owned by a company that produces boards already and uses it's own cnc software. we will be able to check the data in the their software prior to cutting to see that all is ok. so it isn't boardcad that i intend to use to send the model to the mill.

a couple of questions....

were you using version 1.1a? in version 1.1a i've found it very quick to form the shape, check volume distribution etc as you say. the time consuming part is adjusting the curves via the curvature controls which analyse the mesh/curvatures. i'm not sure if early version had this but like rhino it gives a graphical representation of the relationships of the curves for the rail/rocker/outline so that you can adjust the radii and make sure the shape flows and has no bumps etc.

i also wondered what format you sent to the cnc machine? was it gcode or nurbs? nurbs seem inaccurate and require additional 3d editting and additional 3d points to be added beyond the default to ensure a more accurate 3d shape. the gcode 3d models are meant to be an accurate reflection of the design. i am yet to test this but reading through the manual and the boardcad website it suggests gcode for exporting and they have re written the cutter profiles to get better flow also.

the items that i really don't trust boardcad with is the concaves. there is no way of making sure that a doble concave is flat along the length of the board from start to finish points as the concave controls are done in cross section. it is also impossible to do a single concave as you can't adjust the centreline curve. the work around is to pull the rail rocker down to achieve a single concave but this is not how boards are shaped. i was thinking all concaves would need to be hand shaped.

longwinded said...

KenHo said...

UggggggHH !! No 80's please !! The 80's blew chunks when I lived through them, and they are worse now.
Saying "the best of the 80's style" is an oxymoron.

Have to agree, a board with Bill Crosby knitted sweater style graphics would not be cool.

Okay fellas, that's quite enough blasphemy for one day, thank you

mr love said...

Noice - reminds me of....................