And some other pics...
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Flat Daze
Ugh. I think we're on track for one of the lamest hurricane seasons in many years. I passed some time the other day waxing my new board in hopes of one day actually being able to use it. This is what a wax job looks like when you've gotten a new board and boredom takes over...
And some other pics...
And some other pics...
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Tool Porn
Keeping dust to a minimum...not easy. I only have one room to create my magic, and it has to accommodate all my shaping, glassing, and sanding activities. Well after my first batch of boards, the dust was overwhelming. It was very discouraging (not to mention unhealthy) and I considered giving up on glassing/sanding altogether and paying a local glasser to do the dirty work. That is, until I laid my eyes upon this baby...
Its a Random Orbit Sander with vacuum exhaust. Most major tool brands have some version of this thing. A while back my woodworking guru friend, Jon, recommended that I invest in one of these...but since I already had a Milwaukee rotary sander I hesitated. What I didn't realize is that, unlike my Milwaukee, this thing has an exhaust! As luck would have it, I have an exhaust system for my planer and something like this would plug in perfectly!
Still, there will be times when I'll need to revert back to my good ol' dusty Milwaukee. Well all is not lost, I can still use a DustMuzzle to keep the air dust-free and under control.
Of course, I stumbled upon all this info at Swaylocks....look HERE and HERE.
Mmm...Random Orbit Sanders. Mmm...Dust Muzzles.
Mmmust buy.
kc
Its a Random Orbit Sander with vacuum exhaust. Most major tool brands have some version of this thing. A while back my woodworking guru friend, Jon, recommended that I invest in one of these...but since I already had a Milwaukee rotary sander I hesitated. What I didn't realize is that, unlike my Milwaukee, this thing has an exhaust! As luck would have it, I have an exhaust system for my planer and something like this would plug in perfectly!Still, there will be times when I'll need to revert back to my good ol' dusty Milwaukee. Well all is not lost, I can still use a DustMuzzle to keep the air dust-free and under control.
Of course, I stumbled upon all this info at Swaylocks....look HERE and HERE.
Mmm...Random Orbit Sanders. Mmm...Dust Muzzles.
Mmmust buy.
kc
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Riddle Me This...
Question: What makes a hurricane-less flat-spell surf season even more painful and torturous?
Answer: A shiny new Mandala in the mail...
Unexpected surprise. We didn't discuss this on the phone when I ordered the board, but it came with a groovy tapered stringer for more twang in the tail (in theory).
The area under the nose has a slight vee/belly, at the fins is double (see pic), and at the swallowtail its single concave. I like.
Another unexpected surprise: A concave deck...
Thanks to Manny, Moonlight, and even Fedex for making my day.
C'mon waves!
kc
Friday, September 14, 2007
Monday, September 10, 2007
Useful Nugget for Novice Shapers
For novice shapers like me, starting out can be intimidating and frustrating. The good news is, just about all of the information you could ever need to get started is out there floating around in cyberspace. The not so good news is, you have to run around collecting these nuggets of information as if on an online scavenger hunt. Searching through forums, googling keywords, and rummaging through old posts can take lots of time and energy.
Well, here's a page that I stumbled upon over at Greenlight (providers of environmentally friendly surfboard building supplies). Click HERE. There's lots of great information about stands, templates, and railbands....you know, all the stuff we novice shapers are unsure of and always have questions about (well, at least I did).
Would be nice if they added a little something regarding fin placement. One can always hope...
Adios amigos,
kc
Well, here's a page that I stumbled upon over at Greenlight (providers of environmentally friendly surfboard building supplies). Click HERE. There's lots of great information about stands, templates, and railbands....you know, all the stuff we novice shapers are unsure of and always have questions about (well, at least I did).
Would be nice if they added a little something regarding fin placement. One can always hope...
Adios amigos,
kc
Friday, September 7, 2007
#2 and #3, Part 3 (Finished!)
I guess the good news is, I'm done with #2 and a few steps away from finishing #3. The bad news is there still haven't been any good waves 'round here so I have yet to take #1 on her maiden voyage. Friggin' summer flat spell is driving me crazy!
Anyways, get ready for lots of eye candy (not necessarily 'pretty' eye candy, but something to look at nonetheless). I've been collecting pics of #2 and #3 progress for some time now and figured it was about time to dump them.
In Part 2, I'd finished my cutlaps and hotcoating. Figure, I'm ready to start working on the finbox installs, right? Uh, not so fast. Dunno how I missed it, but after reading up on finbox installations, I found that its recommended to have an extra patch/layer of glass where the finboxes will be installed. Too late to put the patches under my lamination, so no choice but to stick 'em on top of my hotcoat (according to Swaylocks). First cut the patches, then prep the area by rough sanding where the patches will go, and then laminate the patches on. Ugly, but relatively painless.
Ok, back to business. Routing the holes for my Probox install was a breeze. Used some spray adhesive to stick the jigs onto the board, then slowly routed out the hole with a trim router. The Probox install kit comes with the bit and bearing for the router which makes the process a cinch. Still, on my first hole, I screwed up and accidentally routed the hole too deep. (Complications from this mistake to come later...)
As a side note, when setting the leash plug on one of the boards a few days earlier, I failed to completely top off the hole with resin. So, I took an extra minute to tape off the plug's opening and topped off the resin. Hmm, guess I should've taped off the area better, but it all sands off in the end. No big deal.
Ok, back to my finboxes. I've already poured the resin/pigment/milled fiber mixture into the holes and squished the finboxes in. Remember that one finbox hole that I routed too deep? Well, extra resin pooled in the bottom due to the extra depth and the whole thing got pretty hot. I panicked and dumped water onto it to avoid a meltout of the foam (wrong move btw, you should use a soaked rag or paper towel instead). I paced back and forth wondering if foam was melting underneath. Talk about nervewracking. All went well though, no meltout, whew! Now proceed to let the resin gel, peel off the jigs, and we're ready for sanding...
Ok, I must admit I slacked off on the sanding pics. Just picture me with an electric sander running around the board a thousand times in a big white dust cloud burning through here 'n there. Took some 80 grit to grind down the boxes and leash plug, then moved on to 120, 150, and 220.
Fast forward to some pinlines. Laying the tape here, not easy as they make it look on videos, but after some trial and error I got some (barely) acceptable results.
Paint on some pigmented hotcoat resin, and begin my favorite pastime: watching the resin cure...oh yeah.
Ok, enough watching, lets pull the tape...
The tape, post-pull. Hey, kinda looks like a tertiary protein structure!......uh, what?
Thick, then thin, then thick, then thin...the story of my first pinline. But hey, at least I didn't use cheater tape (and it shows, doh!).
Almost home now. I decided to do a polished sanded finish instead of a gloss coat. Took it down to (or up to?) 800 grit, then compounded, and polished. The finbox reinforcement patches can be seen if you look closely. I tried my best to feather the edges of the patches and blend them in, but you can see some weave and whatnot. Not perfect, but I couldn't be bothered to get too obsessed at this point. Polished with some super duty compound and surfboard polish. Ends up looking almost like a fresh hotcoat. Stuck in the fins for effect, and voila!...#2 is done.
Looks like a board Santa would ride...
Still have to lay the pinlines on #3 (the yellow board), but should be done by the end of this weekend. After that, and some sweeping, I can start shaping again and try my first attempt at a fish shape. Can't wait!
kc
Anyways, get ready for lots of eye candy (not necessarily 'pretty' eye candy, but something to look at nonetheless). I've been collecting pics of #2 and #3 progress for some time now and figured it was about time to dump them.
In Part 2, I'd finished my cutlaps and hotcoating. Figure, I'm ready to start working on the finbox installs, right? Uh, not so fast. Dunno how I missed it, but after reading up on finbox installations, I found that its recommended to have an extra patch/layer of glass where the finboxes will be installed. Too late to put the patches under my lamination, so no choice but to stick 'em on top of my hotcoat (according to Swaylocks). First cut the patches, then prep the area by rough sanding where the patches will go, and then laminate the patches on. Ugly, but relatively painless.
Ok, back to business. Routing the holes for my Probox install was a breeze. Used some spray adhesive to stick the jigs onto the board, then slowly routed out the hole with a trim router. The Probox install kit comes with the bit and bearing for the router which makes the process a cinch. Still, on my first hole, I screwed up and accidentally routed the hole too deep. (Complications from this mistake to come later...)
As a side note, when setting the leash plug on one of the boards a few days earlier, I failed to completely top off the hole with resin. So, I took an extra minute to tape off the plug's opening and topped off the resin. Hmm, guess I should've taped off the area better, but it all sands off in the end. No big deal.
Ok, back to my finboxes. I've already poured the resin/pigment/milled fiber mixture into the holes and squished the finboxes in. Remember that one finbox hole that I routed too deep? Well, extra resin pooled in the bottom due to the extra depth and the whole thing got pretty hot. I panicked and dumped water onto it to avoid a meltout of the foam (wrong move btw, you should use a soaked rag or paper towel instead). I paced back and forth wondering if foam was melting underneath. Talk about nervewracking. All went well though, no meltout, whew! Now proceed to let the resin gel, peel off the jigs, and we're ready for sanding...
Ok, I must admit I slacked off on the sanding pics. Just picture me with an electric sander running around the board a thousand times in a big white dust cloud burning through here 'n there. Took some 80 grit to grind down the boxes and leash plug, then moved on to 120, 150, and 220.
Fast forward to some pinlines. Laying the tape here, not easy as they make it look on videos, but after some trial and error I got some (barely) acceptable results.
Paint on some pigmented hotcoat resin, and begin my favorite pastime: watching the resin cure...oh yeah.
Ok, enough watching, lets pull the tape...
The tape, post-pull. Hey, kinda looks like a tertiary protein structure!......uh, what?
Thick, then thin, then thick, then thin...the story of my first pinline. But hey, at least I didn't use cheater tape (and it shows, doh!).
Almost home now. I decided to do a polished sanded finish instead of a gloss coat. Took it down to (or up to?) 800 grit, then compounded, and polished. The finbox reinforcement patches can be seen if you look closely. I tried my best to feather the edges of the patches and blend them in, but you can see some weave and whatnot. Not perfect, but I couldn't be bothered to get too obsessed at this point. Polished with some super duty compound and surfboard polish. Ends up looking almost like a fresh hotcoat. Stuck in the fins for effect, and voila!...#2 is done.
Looks like a board Santa would ride...
Still have to lay the pinlines on #3 (the yellow board), but should be done by the end of this weekend. After that, and some sweeping, I can start shaping again and try my first attempt at a fish shape. Can't wait!
kc
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