Where it all began with fong

At the very beginning a close friend of mine called fong had a old snapped board that we decided to try to do something with, he came over to my place and he drew up some simple curves, brought his jigsaw over and attacked the plank,  it came out okay and I was left to strip the glass and see what I could do with her,  also we laid down my 6.6 quad on a bed sheet, copied the outline and came up with my very first template, crude, but effective.  I dont have that template anymore but it was a good day, lots of fun, and the addiction began from here.  What should be noticed in these pics is the rabbitos cap fong is wearing, if ever there was a rabbitos supporter it is him.  I lost my passion for league when the bears got kicked out of the comp a long time ago, but I know have a soft spot for the rabbits.

So what did become of that board of fongs, I think I ended up cutting channels all over it, thanks to that blank I learnt how to cut in a straight channel, use a tool to get a nice cut and worked out the best way to get a nice even channel.  Dont need to much more pratice on cutting channels, I can tweak my method a bit more and will pratice again soon, ive got plenty of snapped boards under the house to pratice on, its the glassing that will be the trick to learn.  But I cant wait to do a 8 channel single, one day, one day soon, watch this space.

Thanks for the day fong, and fot the kick off on a life time hobby

Day off today

Im feeling pretty under the weather today, sore joints, bit of a temp, I reckon its just bad hayfever, back to bed to get more rest and early night tonight.  I popped down to yorkies to say gday and it was great to see him.   I need to just think a bit on gareths board and visualise how im going to remove some foam from mid point to nose, and how much foam to remove.  Step at a time a board build is, and with a backyard for a mate there is no hurry, each step takes time and care.

I checked the board this morning and it actually looks better the second time around, sometimes Im just to hard on myself.

Brians grandsons board

I made a egg for a 10 year old kid.  Its for the boss's grandson.  I really enjoyed this process and learning curve, the board is not perfect, but pretty bloody good.  The laminating turn out well and only had to cut out two air bubbles.

What I learnt on this board was you need to be more aggressive with the glass when tucking under the rails, you really need to stretch it, no mucking about with it, rather stretch the glass till you can see the resin coming up through the glass.   This will leave no hope of air bubbles and give a nice tight glass job, cant wait to do my next one and apply what I learnt.

Also when I glassed on the fin I took to many precautions in trying to keep the board covered and neat, next time I will cover half the board in plastic and do my set up there rather than the whole board with a circle cut around the fin to work on.

With the rovings when you apply them, you need to continually push them down to the base of the fin and not let them rise up when you lay glass over the top of them, this was much better than my first job, I swore I would never glass on another fin after this one, but now since its been a while I wouldnt mind applying what I have learnt so I can it do better.

Im also keen to try to do a fin box under the glass and this is the next step for me I believe, I really want to aim for a 8 channel single fin one day, but I think that is at least 20 boards away yet.

Enjoy the photos of my first customers board.

Let me tell me you a little bit about this board I made, it has soft rails all the way around the board, very forgiving and good for a beginner.  The tail is nice and fat and the plan shape which was designed by Huei is absolutely beautiful.  The rocker on the board has a nice even flow.  Its a single fin, why a single fin one might say, because i reckon that is the best sort of board to learn on, easy to paddle and catch waves on and will help the guy riding it seek the nicest line, thereby helping him understand waves a bit better..  Then he will need to make a step up, but not yet, not yet.

Friday night at Porkies, oops, I mean yorkies

Drop over at yorkies factory a few months ago on a friday night.  I use to go there regulary just to watch and learn.  Ive been very lucky that I have been able to watch and pick up tips from yorky just by watching him shape and glass.  The guy is very humble and I consider myself lucky to be able to call him a friend.  I hope to catch up with him soon for a surf or a beer.

In one of the photos you can see me sitting down in his bay, in the dust.  Funny thing was that yorky asked me to sit down there with the calculator to do some some math and to have a better look at the board from a different angle.  Bloody hell, im still gullible even though Im 45, it was a great night.

Thanks Yorky for the laughs

Saturdays work on gareths board

Today I worked on the deckline of gareths board, from the mid point to the nose is not up to what I want it to be yet.  Im trying to flow from the bottom rocker to the deckline, remove unwanted foam around the nose area and mid point of board, get a nice deckline that is smooth and pleasing to the eye.

Ive got enough volume to do a slight single to double gareth, which is what i was aiming for.  I checked it out again 5 minutes ago and am a bit more happy with it, but its not perfect.  I could have got it cut out on a machine but stuff that, handshaping is where I am at and its a skill I want to learn. 

To all those out there, please dont take for granted your surfboard shaper, it is a very hard thing and they do it so easy and skillfully, they are worth every penny and worthy of our respect.

gareths surfboard

Ive actually started on a new project, actually started on the 12/11.  Ive already cut out the outline, again its a roundtail, for gareth its gonna be a 6'4 and a bit, Im aiming at 2 and 3/4 volume but its a low volume blank so may struggle with that, if I dont get the right volume on the board then will just sell it and get a blank that will more suit what we are both after.  Ive already done the bottom rocker, looks the goods and think she will be a real little pocket rocket.  Im really excited about this build.  Gareth already owns a fish so aiming at making this a quad, for down the line days, very shallow single leading into shallow double.  Its gonna be only 19 wide so will be so different from what he is use to, cant wait to finish, but am worried about getting right volume out of the blank.

Photos posted later tonight.  Check it out and tell me what you think, should have photos up by 10.30.  

Ok, photos uploaded, sorry bout the sideways pics, oops.  Gareth, I have lined up another blank just in case we cant get the right volume for her, if I cant will just sell it and make you another straight away.  Im skimming the deck this weekend and working on the deck line, will take as little as possible off the top.

spray painting.

After finishing the above surfboard, I went out and brought a compressor, air gun and a few spray guns, got some paint and decided to give it a crack.  heres the end result.  My wife and kids painted their hands and then placed em on the blank, looks pretty cool I reckon.

My work still wasnt where I want it to be, but it was improving dramitically the more I praticed.  At this stage the area I really needed to work on was removing foam the most efficent way from up near the nose and improving my work on the deck area,  Not as easy as it looks, want to make it look like it flows from the bottom of the board, up around the rails and up onto the deckline in one smooth line that is pleasing to the eye.

another training project

Roy, a good mate from sydney, saw a blank in a skip outside a house in his street, he scooped it out and sent it up to me, what a ledgend.  it was a oldl old blank, bit twisted, thickest skin I have ever seen on a blank with a thick stringer.  I decided to use it for pratice and thought for ages on what to make, at the moment I have a love affair with a good round tail, nothing like em I reckon so I shaped another one out of the shape, here are a few pics

In the pics you can see I havent yet finished the deck line and removing some unwanted foam, I took my time with removing it and really enjoyed the process.

Side Projects

In between surfboards I have gathered quite a few snapped boards that I can strip the glass and then started praticing channels, as I love channels and one day intend to shape and glass a channel board for myself.  I started off with six channels, gave them a purple colour for fun.  Then I did 8 on another blank, I can imagine 8 on a beautiful single fin, I want to do one one day.  I have cut into a stack more channels on blanks, im getting close to getting them right, I just have to pratice some more to get the entry perfect. 

Enjoy the pics

The Hot Coat

I did the filler coat in my garden shed, taped off the rails as you can see so the drips just hit the floor, the blank in the background with channels cut into it was a side project that im going to discuss a little bit later in the blog.  I let this settle a while to let the wax raise to the top, I use normal resin, mix with some cat and wax/styrene.  I love doing the filler coat, the next job was to sand it and this was all done by hand.  I have not completed this fully yet as I now have a sander polisher so will give her another filler coat then sand, then wet and dry then its fully completed, this board has now been sitting in my boys room for 6 months waiting for me to give her the finished touches

Laminating

After painting and covering paint in clear laquer it was time to glass the board, I used laminating resin mixed with uv powder,  it took me a lot of time to pysch myself up to do this and I found myself putting it off for a while and doing side projects, but I will get into that later

Lessons I can pass on is to make sure you mix in the powder well with your resin, think about 10 minutes worth of mixing, because if you dont it doesnt kick off in the sun like it should and it makes the job just that much harder to do, so for goodness sake please mix your powder in bloody well, on my first one I didnt and paid the price.

I free laped the foam, had a friend come up from sydney, Roy Putansuu and he has done it before, so he sat on the sidelines, helped me in parts and generally guided me for my first time, it was a great help, plus I watched heaps of you tube stuff and talked to my teacher a lot about it, so I didnt go into this just blind.  Do your research people and you will be fine.

Enjoy the photos

Second part of spray job, flames

flames painted on finally, piniky job and dont think I will do that agian for a while, just need to spray the board so it doesnt bleed with the glass and resin.

My first paint job

I think the pitures tell the story, I just used tape and spray cans, came out well.   First part of spray job done.  Time for beers and then the next step, flames

My Boys Board

I finally got around to making enough surfboards from one blank that it was time to shape the last one, a 5'4 egg for my lad Noah.  He wanted flanes on his board so flames he got.  The challenge of this board was getting the rocker good with what I had left of the blank.  I did have assistance in this from Huei, but every board I have done I have learnt lots from and am able to put it into my memory bank for the next one.  By this stage I have well and truly fallen in love with shaping, here are some pics of the progress

My Lad also got into the spirit of shaping, I got the board just about finished and then asked if he would like to do the final sand and get the board flat.  He counted his strokes, moved his stands around to the other side and did excatly the same, then put the level on the board and sanded her dead flat, what a champion, he is only six.  So proud of my little boy.