Stretch shop tour

James and I went down to Santa Cruz to see William "Stretch" Reidel of Stretch Surfboards and we got a quick tour of the place. Stretch manufactures the DJJamesZ signature model wakesurf.

A dozen or so boards in the racks as you first enter.

A dozen or so shaped blanks on rolling racks ready for boxes.

Super clean shaping bays. Most of the boards that Stretch manufactures are CNC cut, so there is relatively little foam left over in the bays.

There were boards everywhere and of all dofferent flavors, this gun in the rafters.

Stretch admiring my handiwork...he'll probably copy my paint scheme and expert rattle can technique I think he referred to it as Ghetto, which I understand is ancient Latin for "most impressive artwork, ever".

I believe that there were 4 shaping bays, this one had a SUP.

Laminating room

Giant albino butt crack, just to see if anyone is reading. Actually a racing SUP.



(Message edited by surfdad on June 15, 2009)

Epoxy post cure oven

Two Stretch boards on the wall - that quad is 'circa 1980.

Hey jeff,his place is super clean,huh,stretch is a really nice guy.did you guys surf at all the swell was pumping today.

Yeah, William is a nice guy and funny - very organized and well laid out shop. We didn't get into the line up. We went from Stretch's across town to Roush's for a few hours. Then high-tailed it back home.

Cool pictures. Thanks for posting.

Did you get a new camera?

I'm amazed that the definition of 'ghetto' is far far different from what I've always thought in the past. I will post this new and true definition on wikipedia.

Excellent! Yes, I know that many folks are unaware of the history of this meaning of "ghetto". Stick with me dtw and I'll show you a whole new world of "correct" interpretation!

surfdad , is james getting a stretch board made to your spec.??

Hey brewkettle, yes, I may have to source William some materials, but given that, his shop is building for us to spec.

Thanks for sharing Jeff!!! Neat to see a shop that is that clean!

Thanx Jeff for nice factory tour with pic. Excellent as usual.

I guess that you want to collect boards and some know_how from all the best shaper in the states . Where are you heading next? Hawaii, Japan, Oz? Maybe you should make some video about it or write a book

Funny as I am just at the begining of my next project inspired by Strech board which I was designing last night.
You are AGAIN there where I looking at

(Message edited by hawaj on June 16, 2009)

I saw a couple of Stretch boards on Monday too.

Great shots Wardo, as usual. Where did you take those photos?

Prototype #2, on loan until the final is done. We saw the final in the lamination room and it looks great.

This prototype is a tad heavier than the final will be. The specifics are pretty impressive. It has fully wrapped carbon rails, the black on the outside is just paint. The Carbon is 6 oz UNI and is under the skin. The sandwich layer is 4 oz and the exterior layer is 4 oz. The high density skins and EPS core (which is 1 pound) are prepped before the sandwich layer is applied to maintain a uniform denisty or depth of adhesion.

The final currently weighs 3.25 pounds and is ready for the hotcoat and paint.

The rails are vertical at the tail and nicely blended from the nose to about mid way down the rail.

jeff did stretch make that board,and the paint job to.

Yes DJ. Stretch is teaching one of his employees this construction methodology and this board is the second prototype. The final one will be ready in 3 days, we'll probably get it next week.

Albino but crack, tough to get that one out of my head. Great pics.

Robert you read it!

We got a chance to ride the prototype today. We got the traction on funky, so didn't ride it long. It's a solid build tech. Down-the-line, this board is exceptionally fast...rail-to-rail, not so much. It was floaty enough for Dennis to ride and like I said - very fast down-the-line.

A 4'5" that a big can ride, that's interesting.

Seems like building a fast board that also works well rail to rail is the tricky part.

The original did both really well, this iteration of the protype is a substantial departure from the original. This method of construction is fairly difficult and Stretch has a ton of secrets that he is conveying to his people. I think this iteration wasn't really intended to be all that close to the original. We saw the final prototype and it's very close to the original.

Stretch does some unique things during his build, one is that he doesn't wet any of the fiberglass first. The resin is applied to the foam first and the fiberglass is then applied dry. What I found interesting in that, when using high density closed cell foams is the uniformity that results within the cell structures. Stretch uses a wicking agent to insure an appropriate level of resin uptake.

He explained it to me in his shop by illustration. Holding a large 12 oz cup upside down (the cup representing a void or cell in the closed cell foam) he asked: If I place this cup into a bucket of water how much water will get up inside the cup? The answer of course is not much as the air trapped inside won't allow the water to enter. This would be representative of the deck side skin being attached. He then went on to ask if the cup were upside down and several cups were placed next to each other and a bucket of water toss over all of them, what is the likelihood of uniformity of water level in each cup? Obviously it would tend to be random or concentrated more in the cups directly below the bucket, tapering off to the periphery. What Stretch does is prep both sides of the foam and uses a wicking agent to insure uniform resin uptake. It's that level of knowledge and detail that takes quite a bit of time to train someone on, hence the three iterations Stretch is doing to make our board and my guess is that second one was more in line with what this construction would look like in a normal ocean board, not a wakesurf.

Sounds good, let me know if you need any more beta testers.

If I'm not mistaken I think Stretch also designed the first prototypes for Double Up wakeboards.

We'll be returning this board to Stretch, I'm sure that he'll be looking for a home for it. You might give Dave or Stretch a shout if you're interested in it.

I know that the folks at Stretch have quite a bit of composites knowledge and have built prototypes for a number of manufacturers locally. It wouldn't surprise me if they did the D-up wakeboard proto's.

Veeeery intersting Jeff! Thanx all that info.
But I think that I will stay with more traditional technology.

SD ,
what speed and how thick is the board??

@ Petr - yeah, I've often repeated a phrase from one of the principals involved in Hydro Epic - the problem with really complicated builds is that simple builds ride really well. The construction of boards has been frozen in time back in the late 50's or early 60's because things like composite sandwich construction while offering improvement in peformance doesn't offer 3 times the improvement in performance and so the cost increase outweigh the performance increase for all but the highest competitive level.

@ jim beam We typically ride at 11 mph on our PP. That prototype has a flat deck, the original had a flat deck under the feet, but a drastically domed deck out towards the rails. I believe the prototype is 2" max thickness bottom of rail to top of deck. There is a single concave of about 1/4", so in effect the rails actually have more volume on the prototype, which made it hard to bury the rails. The original has a max thickness of 1 7/8 again bottom of rails to top of deck, with a concave of about 5/16". The rail thickness on the original at 3/4" inboard is about 1/2" while on the prototype is still almost the full 2". Lots of volume out at the rails on this prototype.

SD,
So what speeds does James ride at in events

I've only known James to have adjusted the speed in a contest on one occassion. The practice session and the contest session were significantly different so he had the boat speed up at the end of his first pass and I think they corrected it for the rest of the folks that day.

Typically he just rides at whatever the organizer sets up. He's pretty good at adjusting to whatever the conditions are.

Mostly these last two years the contests have been pulled by Enzo's. The Enzo's seem to need to run a bit faster than other boats to get rid of that secondary lip and also to firm of the lip. I'm guessing it's close to 12mph. It feels a tad bit faster than our 11mph.

That makes me feel better now , thinking that my board rides slow,. i think the next one i build will be 1.5 thick

I think there are very specific styles that evolve. DJJamesZ, I believe, rides around 14+ mph behind his boat with that massive wake. He would need a very different board than what the majority of folks ride. With contest speeds mostly fixed around 12mph, you don't need a board capable of 18mph - acceleration or squirt becomes the focus, I do believe.

1.5 is a good thickness, still allows you to shape rails just about anyway you want.

Yeah Jeff, youre right about the board I ride, but }}stretch has made dozens of boards for friends of mine, that havent ever surfed in the ocean , and they've been really pumped on how well made and easy to ride they are

mine is made pretty much like a little surfboard. we made it that way because Ive been surfing for 25 years, and with that board I can go from surfing my shortboard in the ocean- to riding my wakesurf board on the wake. it feels really comfortable.

Most of my friends ride at 12,I like to ride at 14,because ive been surfing point breaks since I was a little kid and the wake when its drawn out at 14 is like a mini point break,it blows me away that you can have a wave like that on the lake,Heres a picture of my friend that has never surfed before and is 50 years old .He had stretch make him a board for his stlye and ,his size ,he has a size 15 foot,and he kills it back there.

Nice pic's DJ - yeah and Stretch is making us a 4 pound composite sandwich board at 4'5" LOA. I don't know of any other shop in NorCal, or anywhere else for that matter, that has a broader capability than the folks at Stretch

yeah, You should tell him what speed you like to go behind the boat, and tell him what you guys what to do and show him a picture of your wake,he helped me by looking at the way my wake forms and moves,and just give him all the feed back you can about the way the board rode,we came up with my board by just all the feed back.For me I dont think I could come up with a better board. My board will do stuff I never even thought I could do, it just responds to every turn.

does stretch wakesurf?
what kind of boat does he have?

No,he studies my wave ,his been shaping boards for along time for some of the best surfers in the world.Stretch took my wakesurfing to where it is today .His boards have helped me push myself pretty hard.

I picked up the final prototype and returned the second prototype. Under the paint is composite sandwich, carbon wrapped rails and a 4'ish pound board.

Nice! It looks like the tail of the board is fairly thin. Is this one of the parameters you had him play around with, or has it been that same thickness the whole time?

c5's look farther up as well

@ Jon, the tail is a bit thinner than what James normally rides. His TWP has a 1" thick tail, the Stretch is 3/4"...overall the board is about 1/4" thinner starting from about 1" off the nose.

@ brewkettle - sharp eye - the C-5's were respositioned on this board.

have been studying the placement on your c-5 boards, and is this board concaved??

Yes - single through the full length.

We've given it a pretty thorough testing. Bre indicates it doesn't have enough "pop" off the lip. The rocker is a bit too flat for James, he tends to stuff the nose in the flats a little too frequently...but that's my design as opposed to the construction. It seems to work well for me, so I guess it's now MINE! I am able to ride it in all four orientations easily.

We put Dennis on it and it's definately too small for him, but he can ride it at 250+. I've been able to land several surface 3's, I'm not consistent by any stretch of the imagination, but I still landed them!

Dennis posted one of my 3's:

http://www.youtube.com/user/wakesurfer44#play/all/uploads-all/0/Sj10XuVshHU

The rest of the pictures from yesterday.

I guess its the goldilocks story , just right for you.

@ Surfdad,

So do you like the .750 tail thickness??