Board is finished

So here is the finished board. Lots of mistakes. Poor advice taken and lots of lessons learned for the next one. Her she is waxed up and waiting to hit the water...

Of all the posts that board builders put up about building a board and catching the first wave was so satisfying, that wasn't what did it for me. It was paddling out to the line up and creating a board that was such an easy paddle. It has turned out (appart from all the blemishes) exactly like I wanted it to. Easy paddle. Very fast and responsive, and gets you into the waves early... I love it...

The Deck

The laminate coat on the deck turned out very well. Mistakes which I had made on the bottom of the board, including jagged cut cloth which made the laps pretty untidy looking all turned out much better. I have since hot coated the deck and it turned out very well. I am well impressed.

I also fitted the twin fins. I created my own jig and bought a cheap router but didn't have the right bits so ended up doing it by hand with a scalpel. For my first time ever using Lokbox it wasn't too bad I suppose but I could have been a bit more tidy to be honest.

The hot coat on the bottom could have been a lot better. I don't know whether it was the tacky Laminate coat that caused all the problems, but I ended up with loads of small holes in the hot coat. Some of which I managed to sand out but I felt I was getting too close to the weave. So Instead I mixed up another small batch of hot coat with a bit of extra styrene and tried squeegeein' it into the holes. It seemed to have worked still one or two small "pores" in the board, but nuttin major.

Picture shows the board after the first hot coat on the bottom with all the holes..

I counted my chickens!!

I've had trouble doing my first laminate coat. I either didn't mix enough catalyst in and the room temp was too low (@18 degrees celsius). Either way it has taken about 5 days now for it to start to cure. In the mean time, whilst I was away at work, Clare had its heaviest rainfall all summer and the shed I was working in proved it wasn't water tight!! I don't know whether it was humidity or some actual rain drops but I now have 3 very small areas of delamination (approx 1 euro coin in size) on the bottom. Is this a sign of things to come with the rest of this laminate coat?? Time to call the experts me thinks!!

Pics of Almost finished blank & Laminating

Shaping the Blank

I've finished shaping the blank and put the first laminate coat on last night with the help of a friend.
Bought a relatively inexpensive electric planer which decided to croak just as I was about to start shaping the deck side of the rails, so switched to the sure form to finish off that job.

Made a few tools for the shaping process. Quickly whipped together a calipers from some ply and double sided sanding block as well as a tool for shaping the rails with. I'm very happy with how the blank has taken shape, in fact the whole shaping process was a lot quicker and easier than I thought it was going to be. I say this now, but the board will probably surf like a drowned trout. I did however have some trouble with the stringer inside the fish tail, but it wasn't anything overly difficult to deal with. For anyone who is interested I'll do up a complete list of tools that I used to complete the job.

Also completed the first laminate coat last night. A stress full venture indeed. It certainly is a wee bit tricky to get all the cloth saturated and rails wrapped in such a short time frame, but got it done none the less. Tis looking pretty sweet, apart from the odd paw mark, flies and dirt that I some how managed to pick up on the scraper. Not too obvious though. So I am looking forward to tackling the deck tonight. Will post pics as soon as I can find the usb cable to transfer em!!

Sorted....

Drove to Mallow on Monday just gone. Met Paul from Glide Surfboards who hooked me up with everything I needed to make the board and was full of helpful advice and tips.... (cheers Paul - will hopefully be down again soon to collect more materials when this one works out!!)

I made up my template, on a piece of 1/4 inch ply and transfered it to my 6'9" blank and have cut it out. So length currently stands at 6'7 1/2". Forgotten Width but will update with that.

Paul has recommended that I shouldn't do the glassing in the attic, to which I am inclined to agree as I haven't even opened the resin yet and its starting to stink out the house. So I have to find somewhere else to work ...

Shaping Stands

I have got in touch with Paul from Glide Surfboards (www.glidesurfboards.net) and have arranged to head to Mallow early next week and pick up materials. Really looking forward to it now. So getting myself ready. Have picked up a few basic tools and threw together a set of shaping stands. A bit rough I know but it is far better than using the backs of chairs that fall over when you least want em to!! I have set the stands in a small bit of concrete in some buckets so they are mobile. (I plan to do my shaping in a shed nearby and to do the glassing upstairs in my attic). I just need to trim the "handles" on em and stick on some foam. Made the racks from 3 x 15ft lengths of 3x2 timber plus two metre lengths of M10 threaded bar and bolts. Total cost 22 euro. I'm sure it'll do the job??