The next Boat Show 9/10/2010

The next boat show was the next weekend. It was in Toms River, NJ on Sept. 10, 2010. It was a classic boat and classic car show and man did I ever try and pair up my boards with some of those Woodies! No bites though! In order to showcase the boards better and keep them from getting dinged up I stole a design from George Kerr at Sedge Island Skiffs (Gorgeous boats by the way check him out at sedgeislandskiffs@live.com) and built these racks from 3/4 plywood and some green flag material overtop pipe insulation.

The Rainstick was done in 2007 but I was never happy with the finish. Finally, I found Epiphanes Varnish and fell in love with it. The Rainstick got two coats before the show. But it takes a good 36 hours to cure and was a little gooey in the sun at the show. LOL you live and learn.




Love it's color!!!!








There is my Pop manning the fort while I go and browse.









A nice shot of the rainstick and the wormhole. I really like the yellow from the varnish on the rainstick. I'm curious what it would look like on the wormhole!!!

OK, that is it for these boards! I hope that you all liked reading about them. Not only does this blog keep things straight in my head, but I hope that it helps, or inspires or just entertains some of you along the way! Next up is details on my Dad's canoe and maybe along with that, my next board which will be a ten foot "Log" called Waterlog from Grain Surfboards. Good guys at Grain. Check them out if you can. They are also in the Chesapeake Light Craft catalog as well. Later Skaters!

3 Days till the Show! 8/31-9/3/2010

The Tuckerton, NJ Classic Wooden Boat Show is 3 days away. I had been working 16 hours a day over a period of like 4 weeks I beleive. Not sure. 220 hours plus invested into this puppy. I would be the first to exhibit a wooden surfboard at the show. They had just opened up a surfboard exhibit themselves at the museum so I was stoked to get the chance to get my boards to them and show them off!
Look closely, you will see major impact craters created by little particles of dust in my last hot coat for the board. If I didn't have those, I would have to do NO sanding. Look how shiny that coat is! Unfortuneately, I had to fill those pits in with epoxy and do more sanding to get them out. Mega-suckage!! I think that added another 12 hours on to the ordeal!!!!! It really pays to get a dust free room set aside for glassing so this doesn't happen!!!

*Those Raviolis are awesome by the way!* Blue is staring at me again begging for blood worms. He watches Stargate SG1 with me all the time.

The finishing touches, 3AM in the morning before the boat show. Im using wet/dry sandpaper. Starting with 300 grit moving to 1200 grit. Wet the board with water and sand away with your sanding pad! Laborious, but well worth the outcome!

My Mom and Dad have been extremely supportive of me since I moved back from Oregon. They mean so much to me and I hope they know how much I love them! The taller gent is my buddy Mike Visman. He and I grew up together and built surfboards back in the mid 1980's. His help with this board, as well as my Dad's, is so appreciated! Family and friends mean so much in life! Cheers Guys!!!


Me.
Sept. 3, 2010
Tuckerton, NJ
Tuckerton Classic Boat Show

There was a need for a better rack system, boards kept sliding.

My best friend Wade Donaway from LBI brought his family to the show so he could hang out and whatnot. I don't think I have a pic. Wade is one of my best buddies as well. His grandma and grandpa were the best people ever!

Fin Box August 30, 2010

*Tom Petty, First Flash of Freedom* on the radio. Second beer in hand. My Krazy krauzen Grand Crux. Well it's Georges recipe from Homesweet HOmebrew. Good stuff. I need to get some of this beer to my dad's co-workers. I will make them a package of brewskis.

OK, I won't give you the dimensions of the box that gets routered out for the fin box to be epoxied into it, but will go over the process. First the box is drawn out from the centerline of the board and then guide rails are placed around the box. The base of the router will guided by the rails keeping the bit from Dad's old trusty router inside of the box that you have drawn.

From there it is just a matter of getting the hole for the box done. I tilted the router when entering the cut so it eases into the wood on an angle until you have a good hole. The depth of the bit I kept at an eighth of an inch or so just so I don't burn the wood or epoxy. Here is what it looks like finished...




What was done next is that the fin is put in the box prior to expoxing it into the hole. This is so you can tell by whatever means that you have that the fin is at a 90 degree angle to the boards hull. Tape off the area around the hole so that you don't make a mess. Layer fiberglass in the hole and wet it with epoxy. With the hole and the glass all wet, set in the fin. Use masking tape and strap the fin from the top to the rails of the board to keep it straight like you want it. Pull down on it if you have to press down on the glass a bit. Hopefully you won't need to. don't stress this step, it's actually not that tough. Just make sure it is straight up and down or that baby will hum in the water and attract those big breaching great white sharks!!! Get your cool uncle to help you get a second opinion on its perpendicularity.

When it is dry, pull off your tape and sand it all flush. I used the orbital for most. I also didn't do my last hot coat. If you noticed the whole hull was sanded and ready for another hot coat. I taped off the finbox and left the edges exposed so I could cover them with epoxy in hence strengthening it and making it look better.

Annies Ravioli time. I need something to go with this beer!

Hot Coats!!! 8/28/2010

*Pearl Jam* Jammin on XPN!!!!

Shite, you can see some of the problems of epoxy when it comes in contact with dust or wax or whatever. Too much heat. So many variables can make it do what you see there. Some call it "orange peeling" of the epoxy, I call it lemon peeling because it leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. To tell the truth I don't know what caused this. I do know that it makes things much harder when you have to sand heavily between layers!!!

The deck looks pretty good here. I didn't get any peeling on this layer. I tape off half way up the rail all the way around the board, that way if drips start, they start on the tape and the area above the tape is mostly smooth. Pull the tape off about an hour into the drying so that you can get the tape off otherwise you will find yourself with a razor knife sweating and praying that you don't leave gouges in the glass leaving marks. That sucks so you gotta make time to be around to pull that tape off or your day will get much worse.

I took several pics of the only design that I put on the board with colored pencils. The best pic was in the shadow of my arm. The design faded in the sun. The epoxy was supposed to have UV protection in it. I don't believe that it does. I may have to go in and make a design with some permanent markers or paint and cover them with super clear box tape and give it another hot coat. maybe........

Deck hotcoat of "The Wormhole" 8/27/2010

The first hot coat of epoxy over top of the fiberglass layer. This is done with a 3 or 4 inch paint brush. Disposable of course.

*North Mississippi All Stars* playing. Good tune! Still working on that first Sam Adams on an empty stomach so it's all good!

You can see how the epoxy really makes the grains in the wood stand out and it becomes so colorful! Excellent! But along the nose, we see some more "ghosting". Sigh...

A Save worthy of Cliff Lee 2/26-2/27/2010

*Express Yourself* on XPN. Groovin tune...

So like I said in the last post, I totally fecked up the deck and had to sand that shite off. I went to my friend Brian Gagliana at Greenlight Surf Supply and grabbed more epoxy and more glass and did it over. This is what it looked like after glassing two layers of S-glass on the deck. If you look hard you can see the haze down the center, but that is going to be one "tuff as nails" board if I ever knew one! I actually have the bug to get out there and do another one. I have a ten foot log kit lined up from Grain that I am going to make out of Pacific Northwest Redwood. MMMM HMMMMMM!

After the deck dried, I flipped her over exposing her belly and sanding the laps down from the deck layers of glass. The orbital is totally cool doing this. Melted away the excess glass like butter and the next step was to hot coat the glass with more epoxy. I'm not sure if I sanded much in between these coats. I'd have to check my notes, but you risk sanding through the fibers in essence weakening the board.

THEE Mistake 8/25/2010

With the laps of fiberglass from the hull on the deck sanded down flush I went ahead and layed down two layers of S-glass down over the deck and went through the process of glassing the deck. Prepping the job and the job probably took 5 hours or so. I had no idea of the horror I would see the next day as I had anticipated that I would just be doing my hot coats of epoxy at this time.



Here is a result of the epoxy at the laps from the hull on the rails of the deck. Wetting out the epoxy on the hull the day before, the epoxy starts to set a little by time I get to the rails, at this point, the epoxy still wets the glass and it still adheres, but it is more viscous and my guess does not penetrate the wood as deep as fresh epoxy does leaving this "Ghost City Skyline" look on the rails. My heart sunk into my stomach. It looked terrible. It looked so bad that I had to take a belt sander to the board which was a grueling task indeed. And then, in another mistake, I didn't take out the middle section because it was taking too long to sand off. To my dismay, that center line about 8 inches wide running down the center of the deck clouded up later under my next coat of epoxy and fiber glass. I shake my head while I write this right now. It still kills me. I so fukked up this board. But it is passable as a surfboard, probably only because of the shape of the frame that Grain provided. To this day, it still kills me. No one at the boat shows noticed it, but I did.