Congratulations!

To my friend! She said yes!

What else can I say other than I knew it from the start.

Some confluences are felt deep within our hearts.

Seen to those who are our best of chums.

Fill our spinnakers, spill the doldrums!

Well wishes given, but not needed.

The future of soulmates is well seeded!

Now, who's got my airfare? LOL

Interlude

I apologize for the interlude between my posts once again. Sigh. I wish I could spend more time talking to you all in this forum. Your comments mean a lot to me as do your blogs. I am proud to have such good freinds (dod dammut I can never spell that right!)!

I wish my writings more poetic. My technical style pathetic.

Words from my mind do not flow as easy as some we are proud to know.

Bonfires on the beach seem so far from my reach.

Netarts seemed boring and empty, Philly's its nemesis, crazy.

Love what you have Oregon, keep it before the glory's gone.

Like the cedar be strong and weed out the throngs.

Fall is starting here. Trees are starting to change. I greet the seasons with longing. As wonderful as Oregon is, the seasons are not as apparent. Nights are cooler although the days still hot and muggy. I hear of the melting Arctic and look around me at the culprits. They are also more apparent here. Unfortunately, one cannot go canoeing without hearing a car in the distance.

But still, the trees change, the nights get cooler and one can reminisce of the Hallow's Eve when it snowed, or the year I dressed up as an astronaut with the kazoo fronted helmet. I remember the torn grocery bag that my candy spilled out of and how the next year I donned a pillowcase. More durable. I was serious about my candy. Almost as serious as the few quarters we might gleen at Christmas time singing carols that we forgot the words to!

This season I'm looking forward to a few go outs in 3 foot ground swells and a backpacking trip in November, then December, then January. I get lots of vacation time now. Jewish and Christian holidays. If there is any argument for religion.......that is certainly a teachers'.

Thanks Slim, thanks sspider, thanks Mr. Zero.

Perhaps I can save up a little sumtin sumtin for a fare in the future.

The trip begins

Packed and not ready to go. Pops sure is photogenic! ha ha hah
A person could NOT ask for better friends! This is a good picture! Thanks for dropping by to see me off Dave! Chad, get in touch my man!
Wyoming! Beautiful, mellow Wyoming! Of course this wasn't the first state that we crossed! We didn't take many pictures of Oregon as our start was late in the day and it was raining. Idaho was awesome the next day, but pictures where on the back burner as the weather was our main concern. It snowed mostly. And it snowed hard! Visibility at times slowed traffic to 25 MPH. The roads were fine as there wasn't much on them, but it sure was fun!

Utah, well, I'd just rather forget Utah along with Ohio. We'll get to that later, but Utah was commercial, high stressed, and just this really weird vibe, especially in Salt Lake (Which was no longer visible from the road). The word "gross" may be used to describe the vibe there. Of course once on the road from Salt Lake city the Geology is awesome! But if you are traveling at rush hour the Mormons like to flip the bird more than a NYC cabbie! So, no pics. They aren't worthy!

Wyoming!
What the landscape lacked in beauty (which wasn't much in Wyoming) the sky made up for! There were scenes like this stretched all across this whole state, some with Black Angus, some with horses and most without. At one point on a bluff along side the road my Pop and I viewed a lone rider on his horse trotting down to a little stream about 2 foot wide. We waved, he did not. Perhaps his land was divided by the highway that we traveled. Maybe we just interrupted his meditative stroll. Maybe he just didn't see us. Or maybe he was awestruck as many are by my beautiful truck! :-)
It's a shame that I had the trip map on the dashboard when this picture was taken as it really captures that "big sky" feeling that you get when you are 10000 feet above sea level. Pops and I were both totally taken aback by the enormity of the sky and clouds! I swear you could have touched them! What a beautiful day that was! It made the whole trip worth it!
A lone Wyoming "watchtower" as Tolkien may have called it. There's a house and stables at it's base. I'd be in awe of mother nature everyday looking out my bedroom window at such a sight! I might be wary of a little rockslide here and there as well!
Some of Wyoming's beautiful stratified Geology! What an awesome spectacle! Those different color layers were set down on the bottom of a body of water millions of years ago. The different colors come from different rocks eroded from some far off mountain top, then buried over time and compacted into rock ultimately to be later uplifted like this! This spire must have had a more durable layer of caprock on top to help it maintain the castle-like shape. How majestic!
This is just one of the best pics Pop took! Imagine if only that were a steam locomotive! I live in a wrong era! I suppose I should be dreaming that that locomotive were powered by Biodiesel. Still, it's just a classic photo from inside the cab of Moby through the window.
Pops and I had a little joke running once we got into Wyoming that we would only see a house every 75 miles or so. Usually a fellas' property was bisected by the road as the house and stables would be on one side of the road and the prairie on the other. We surmised that there was once an angry landowner. Anyway, the joke backfired on us as we were going to send my Uncle Rich "one of the only houses in Wyoming" as there were no more houses left but this utility shed before we got to Nebraska.
It was difficult to capture the feeling of the sky and clouds being so low and perhaps this isn't the best picture of that, but the landscape...
One of the last sights from Wyoming. I bet this is breathtaking with more snow on it!

Some trip pics and stuff.

Just had to post this picture of said unnamed spot. Right Slim?
Mark refused to be seen with the human slug for fear of incrimination.
A beautiful North coast view. Not much of a swell at this spot today. A cove just up the road called Shorties is a popular spot for good reason.
This is the view from Tom and Lavelle's place in Lil' Utopia aka Netarts Bay.
This is my Pop and I in front of Moby the white whale at Tom and Lavelle's in Netarts, OR.

These pics are from a little diversion that I took my Pop on at the Oregon coast. It was his first time out there. Not the last. I'm gonna pull a trailer out in a year or two and let him tag along. We hiked Cape lookout and checked out a lighthouse at Cape Meares. Then traveled north after a nice night with Lavelle who made us a great lunch and dinner.

We stopped in Cannon Beach at one of the best surf shops in the US. Free beer, need I say more? Well if that ain't enough for ya, he's got teenage girls at the register.

After that we headed to P-Town for dinner at the Horsebrass Pub for a little swaree' with good freinds, fine dining and the best beer selection in the World!!!!!!!!!!!! I don't know if I have any pics of that event. Maybe some of the readers do?

UV Varnish Alert.

I just got the low-down from an epoxy manufacturer NOT to use Minwax spars on top of epoxy. I suppose the wax part has repelling properties to it and makes "fisheyes" in the finish as I had seen a lot of in my coats.

Sanding Techniques

I've recently delved into Swaylocks and have been reading up on sanding techniques and OH MY GAWD there are a ton of tidbits to remember! I need to make like a diary of stuff! One of the most important ideas that struck home was NOT TO USE DULL SANDPAPER because it will burn your resin. I've been doing this as I am broke as no joke and noticed that this has been the case. So no more. I'm looking into the best ways of doing so.

If anyone has any tips on sandpaper quality and costs, please feel free to help me out here.

I've been rebuilding (when a board has two broken fins and 20 plus dings, that's what I'm calling it) two boards. I did the first one (a 7'8" "longboard" ((as my bro calls it)) ) quickly and sloppily using.....ahem...........bondo auto resin and the second one, well is pretty much the same. On the second one (7'2" thruster fun board...........7"2"x 21 1/8 x 2 7/8) I employed Q Cell for the first time to fill holes and actually took a little more time sanding. I took on these projects just to get my ears wet with the whole sanding thing again. I didn't make them pretty, or polish them up (as the rubbing compounds and paper is too expensive for me know), but I did go out of my way to strengthen the rails as these boards are from the 1980's and made extra thin to begin with but on top of that, the res has browned and turned brittle. K Man should be able to get a few more years out of them now and hopefully the tail rails (a real bitch to repair) will be a bit stronger than they were.

I've got a couple of pics from the garage for your entertainment.

The last pic is a pic of the bridge to NYC on the way up to Mystic Conn. My pop has better pics. I'll try and share them.

The first pic should be labeled "stuff"...........the second pic as well!

I'm a blog bum

I didn't realize that I had some readers.

It's like my college radio show that was run through the town's cable TV system. I used to just go in on Friday nights and lay out some mellow jams, some party toons, and some psychedelia. Some friends would join me and we'd light some incense (until the fire marshal intervened) and go in the elevator to stop in between floors and blow cigarette smoke into the elevator fan.

It was a good time. We were just there to have a party and maybe spread the word about and eco event or a cool class trip that was coming up, maybe play a "McGruff the Crime Dog" short about the dangers of narcotics (the name of the show was Peyote Radio). We had this theory that if we said the word enough, some may someday magically show up in our laps and we'd be puking happy monkeys! It never happened. We gave up on it too soon or something, because where there's a will there's a way.

What I'm getting at, is that with all of our desperate pleas to have someone call in and make a request, it never happened. I thought that I had no listeners. The other DJ's would listen out of respect for their fellow DJ I knew, but otherwise nada.

One night at the end of a 4 hour show that I'd been laying out a mood mix (bring the audience up and down and up and down gradually) I got a call at the end of the show praising the show. It seems that there was a huge houseparty where the entire crowd was trippin and I had been effing with their heads the whole time, making them laugh, then making them ponder what is soul (P-Funk Allstars will do that to you). They loved my show! Weird, I thought. I was made aware that evening that I had an audience all along. My show was one of their favorites because I didn't play any commercials (to the deep annoyance of my producer who constantly threatened me with termination) except for "taking a bite out of crime' sound bites. I landed the time slot because no one wanted to work Friday 8 to midnight, but I wound up having a pretty groovy show and even did my own weather and interview slots. The band Primus was having a tour of the east coast with their Sailing the SEas of Cheese promo that they were deluging the college campuses with and I had those lads in for a laugh or two. It was pretty dang cool! But the most rewarding thing about it all, was finding out that I had listeners. I did that for three years. It was a good run.

To all those who read this blog: I know I've strayed for woodcraft on this thread and some others, but I wanted to say "Hey". "Can I crash on your couch?"

Funny how things haven't changed much since college for me! Hee hee hee hee hee

Take it light! Enjoy your summer! Go to bonfires in Crescent City, California and to ones in Pacific City, Oregon. Those are some real people.

Some pics from travels etc

Hey all,

sorry, I havn't been on here. I'm lame.

been fishing.

Up and running again!

Hey everyone, I have finally gotten back on the net after my move across the country!

I apologize for just dropping off the face of the net.

I'm still not unpacked as my new "condo" (as I am telling all the ladies it is) is still not finished. I had a few walls to rebuild after I lifted the roof up with my truck's jack because the roof sagged as a house built in 1877 didn't have the roof joices sitting on top of the front truss, just nailed to the side. I'm just waiting on a rug now and then I can move in my leather chair and TV and I am set!

I'm still not totally finished my board. It needs to be polished and the pressure valve needs to be put in place yet. I'm gonna do that after I polish.

One note, don't use the UV varnish that I used. Go with more coats of Epoxy. It works soooo much better than the varnish as it doesn't set as fast or streak as much. Spend the extra 75 bucks, you'll be thankful.

In september I am going to the PHiladelphia Wooden Boat Factory to school. I haven't fully scouted out schools, but this one is high on the list. I'm not sure on the curriculum yet, but I'll be going for at least a year. It's an internship in Maritime construction. I have never been more stoked. I'm going to try and get a job with Whole Foods so I can get medical benefits as the school won't accept anyone without medical bennies.

Well, ya'all, there is a south swell tomorrow (Wed) possible and the wind is gonna go offshore at 15 to 20mph, I'm not set up for it totally, but my bro and I are gonna try and hit it. He's not surfed in 7 years, hes getting to use the fish and me the con. then me on the fish!

I want to take out the Rainstick, but it's not polished and ready to go here. If I took it out in this sun it would pop!

the sun here is NOT like I remembered! I'm fried from 5 fishing trips. Yesterday, I took off my shirt............MISTAKE even with 50 spf sunblock.

So far I have caught 5 catfish (blues and bullheads), 2 small mouth bass, 3 striped bass, countless perch for bait, one walleye and a little neato rock bass which I may go recatch and put in a 60 gallon fishtank because it is an incredibly beautiful little fish under 5 inches.

I hope that you all haven't given up on this blog because my next projects in woodworking are going to be up on here!

And what is even more RAD is that the boat building school that I am thinking of has a wood surfboard class that they build GRAIN SURFBOARDS at!!!! I have an erection !!!!

Fin Box

The router jig. Thanks to Cedar for lending me his router! I'm sure I could have done it (rout out my fin box) with my chisel but the router was much nicer and made really nice lines. I first made up a jig that guided the router with two pieces of strapping parrallel to the center line and fin box (at this point in the boards construction, the centerline is more like a grey area and it's like a roll of the dice, so use your eyes and have an overabundance of lighting!). Basically how I did this was to line the 1/2 inch wide bit up with the traced fin box lines and drew a point at the radius of the routers outside. Since the bit was only 1/2 inch and the cut needed to be 1 inch, I drew two points at both the front and back of the fin box so I can do a cut, then move the guides over and do the other cut. The cuts were done in five or six shallow passes. The red tape in the picture is holding two peices of cardboard in place because on either side of the fin box is a concave, so the cardboard filled in the concave so I could keep the router level. This router has a spot for a bubble level, so I put one in there (in red) to keep the walls even. It worked pretty well. It dug a bit into the hull planks nearer the tail, but only like a millimeter.

Ah, the camera sees more than the eye does. Before gluing, I eyed up the box with a fin in it several times with a level and a square. Another grey area is the level because at different poings in the board it varies slightly as nothing is perfectly flat as well as none of the concaves are perfect either. I did however have a good feeling that everything is mostly level. In the pic it looks like the fin is off a bit. But we must realize that the T-square is the only variable in that picture that is exact. The level is not exactly on and the T-Square may not be sitting totally perpendicular to the level either. It is just a general idea. But damn if it don't look off a bit. Put it to your eye though and it looks perpendicular to the gneral shape of the board. Personally, I think this was the hardest part of doing the board as it could make it or break it. I'm confident that it is on straight. If it is not, c'es la vie. Who cares really? I may never know the performance difference unless it hums like a hooker on Saturday night!
I put my Con's fin in the box, mixed up 3 toobs of epoxy bought at the hardware store with some fine sawdust and slopped it on the walls of the surfboard (which I deeply scoured with a dremel tool bit for the epoxy to fill into and add more support) and all over the fin box. I should have taped around the fin box before doing so, but I didn't. It's a little messy, but who cares.

Side view of the fin being held in place with tape. I'll let it dry two hours before even removing the fin.
There is a top edge to the finbox that will need to be sanded flush and I thought my board was finally shaped, but upon relaxing with my board and a few beers, I noticed that the rails just back from the nose were not egged enough which may not allow enough freedom of movement in the nose creating a suction sort of thing like I did with the first board I shaped when I was a lad. I also want to round the rails more just before the fin box freeing up some more of the boards movement.
I tried to egg the top of the rails towards the tail as to allow water to flow over the deck some for nose riding. This board is thin at the nose and tail and doesn't allow for much rounding of the rails.
So far the boards dimensions are 9'1" and 22 7/8" wide. I don't have calipers for thickness, but it looks around 3".
When the board is ready for glassing, I will tally up hours and money for the construction and shaping part of the board.
Later gang! Enjoy the surf if you are getting any today or tomorrow.

Bottom contours

Hello Blogworld,

After about 8 hours of sanding with my Craftsman 5" orbital sander and 4 sheets of 80 grit sandpaper I have the board ready for fine tuned sanding with a block sander to eliminate some of the humping that the orbital left behind. Although I'd have to say that the way it is now I'd be happy with as the hull turned out pretty damn flat where it was supposed to be and nicely concave in the nose and the dual concave at the tail. The rails will need the fine tuning mostly. Especially in the tail. I'm considering a slight vee and may have to take more off of the hull at the rails. It needs a little of that anyway, maybe I shouldn't go overboard.

No pics right now. It would be very difficult to show the concaves with my camera.

I'm starting to plan for the fin box and glassing now.

Anyone have tips on putting in the fin box before glassing?

Anyone have resources for more glass and epoxy?

thanks y'all!

Have a great day!

sanding start

Photo by the esteemed Wilbur Kookmeyer.

{{{Toots and the Maytals, Funky Kingston.}}} (cheers Steve Thornley!)

I'm doing much of what's in the above picture so I haven't made many posts.

After I got the nose and tail blocks good and dry I cut a rough outline of the rail with my jigsaw. My tail block extends back about 3/4" further than what I think is supposed to be the original length. With this in mind, I'm going to make it a rounded squash giving it a little more meat on the end. Why? Just for experimentings sake really. I mean, it's only a half to threequarters an inch and isn't going to drastically change the outline. I'm thinking that if I'm making a little sharper of a rail at the tail for those kind of skating maneuverings that will eliminate some longboarding style surfing, and if I give that style of tail (squash) I can add a little rounded volume to it, and I can recover a small element of the longboarding style that I have giving up with the sharper rails. I think that with this small modification and with a hatchet fin, I can recover noseridability lost with it's larger rocker, sharper rails and squash tail. Personally, I think this shape a great candidate for side bites too. It has a distinctly thruster tail. What is good about that for me is that the thruster tail is the one that I am most familiar with and is a loth easier for me to tackle than a swallow or rounded pin.

There are a few soft spots on the deck. Totally minor one on the nose seam about two inches long. And a soft spot at the tail. I am considering two layers of 6 pound glass on the deck with even maybe a deck patch at the tail and one 6 pound layer for the hull. I guess I better go shop for resin and glass!

Back to more sanding! Thanks for dropping by!

NoseBlocks

{{Grateful Dead, First Evers (first time live songs)}}

Good Day!

I went to my favorite store in Portland ever called Woodcrafters. Love that place! I had to buy more Titebond III as I like to over use it. I also bought those "pony" clamps pictured above. I'm a clamp whore now. Made in USA and look like they can suit many a future purpose.

Over the last few days I took some small steps on the board with sawing off the tail and gluing on the tail block. Sorry, forgot to take a pic. But I took pics of the nose block so it's pretty much the same.

Between figuring the angles that I wanted for the nose blocks, cutting it with a jigsaw (fine toothed blade by bosch), sanding (I found a six inch piece of one of my battens as a sanding block to be the best for getting a good flat sanded surface to be better than the orbital) and gluing the nose blocks on this morning took about 2 hours total, 3 hours including the tail block as that one was easier.

{{Jerry Garcia and David Grisman}}

and

{{Warlocks}}

I'm digging this project. Have I said that yet?

So lets add another $5.00 for 8oz. Titebond III (total 32 oz. for the project)

4 hours for gluing the tail and nose blocks on

Tail block

Hey, that's not like a cock block is it?

I got the tail block glued on. They better kill another horse because I am all out of glue. AND I am broke and out of money. Wilbur kindly donated me with about 30 pounds of seafood to keep me going. Thanks Bro! I hope your move is going well. All your hard work is going to pay off someday in the shape of a 32 foot sailing vessel I'm sure. I'll be there for that long trip around the horn making stops along the way all the way to Hatteras with quite a long furlo in the Caribbean!

Not much time to spend on the board until Thursday anyway. Maybe I'll try and fit in some nose block glueing before then so i can just chip away at them and not have to wait for the glue to dry.

And then Shaping! I'm stoked because I was worried that the frame being tweeked a bit when I first glued it to the bottom planks would mess with the shape, but the lines are looking smooth and no unexpected twists in her or anything so far! I got lucky!

Well, I'm thinking that one cross member that was a bit off by an eigth of an inch or so did not mess with the overall shape because I didn't push the cove and bead strips up against the one side of it that had the gap and I filled that gap in with little wedges of wood and glue filling the gap. Ultimately the board may be slightly wider at that X member before shaping, but it won't be anything that I can notice at this point or for a long time. Besides, the board being a quarter inch wider will be THAT much more stable for my low center of gravity surface assault upon the unsuspecting ocean gods. Is there a local PNW ocean god like how European waters have Lir and the Mediterannean has Neptune?

Shaping!

{{Simon and Garfunkle's Greatest Hits}}
I started some shaping preliminaries on this lovely Friday the 13th. First on the list was to pull out the flower print trunks in which to shape in as all the good shapers wear them my close freind and partner in crime Surfmaster Dave told me. Well, I'm too fat and had to go with the tartan plaid boxers and moccasins look. No shirt of course.

The above pic is the board just off of the rocker table.

First thing I did in my boxers was to anchor the saw horses to the concrete, so I bought concrete anchors and a drill bit from HOME DESPOT (unfortunately) and secured the perimeter. 30 minutes and 15 more bucks.
{{Peter Gabriel, Biko}}

The above pic is just the rough shaping of the rails done with a Stanley Plane. Worked really well. On downward curves plane down, if you plane up you go against the grain. I brought the edge right up to the outside of the first cove and bead strip. I ripped through this pretty quick at 30 minutes.
In this pic you can see how much rocker the board has. It is a bit more high performance than a log and not a likely nose rider as the tail has a double concave on either side of the fin box so I'm basically going to shape my rails soft and rounded up at the nose and bring it back to a fairly hard and sharp rail at the tail. Not overly hard though. There is a concave in the nose and may be nose ridable So I'm thinking to make the rail gradually get harder at about 2 foot from the tail. Round most of the way forward.

{{Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band}}
Here I glued up some nose and tail blocks. No one every accused me of knowing what I was doing, but I think I got it down. I was going to make the nose blocks rather large (about 4" at their thickest point) but that may prove to be too heavy. We'll see, I glued up plenty of leftover scraps and redwood shingles to give it sort of wedgy kind of look. This took an hour and a half.
Here you can see a triangle that I squared off the nose and was thinking of cutting all that off forward of the hypothenuse (Pythagreous would kill me for such slander). Well you can see that it is a rather beefy portion of the board, but I was hoping to cover up a mistake on the deck at the nose where I cut too much of the top blanks off. But this might look like even worse crap AND weigh too much. We'll see...

2.5 hours today
and 15 bucks more.

Kurt Vonnegut passes on

This NY Times story is a nice tribute to one hell of a writer!

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/11/books/11cnd-vonnegut.html?_r=4&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Lighting

Brad brought up the process of "tomming" or using wood rods, sticks, broomhandles (whatever) to pin in place the frame when gluing it to the bottom planks and in my situation I can't really do that because of my lighting along the ceiling joice, but in future projects, it might be prudent for me to remember this when I set up my lighting.

On the topic of lighting, I cannot stress how important it is! I have four flourescent "shop light" fixtures. That's 8 four foot tubes. Really it's fine, but personally, I would like more so I can see angles, flats, curves, hills and valleys better. The point that I am at now with shaping the rails and such is going to be really tough withougt enough lighting. When I used to dabble in shaping living with the folks back in Philly I used to hang whatever flourescent lights that I could find from the ceiling down low at rail level or attach them to the walls at rail height just like most shapers do in their shacks. You really can see any deformities much easier with a lot of lighting. Of course the hippie in me suggests flourescent as after they have warmed up are tons more effiecient than incandescents. You're wallet will thank you too.

Personally, I like flourescents better for this sort of thing. If I'm at home reading or on the PC, I like the color of incandescents as they are warmer, but for working, I like cool or warm white flourescents. Cool whites are slightly blue and for scientific reasons unknown to me preferred by shapers as well as blue as a backdrop for eyeing up the rails, etc...

I have some experience with varnish, laquer, polyester resins of all kinds and polishing them up. Usually I've always done them in a semi dusty environment, but the environment that I am going to do this in now is extremely dusty and I have a dark forboding about having to wire wool out a million dust particles.

One tip I received somewhere on dust is lighting related. I understand that flourescents emit electromagnetic radiation in the form of negative ions and that they attract the positive ion dust particles, so if one is glassing (etc...) to leave the lights on so those particles don't drop off the lights on to your work.

Maybe I'll clean up those tubes beforehand so they have some extra attraction to the dust. Maybe it will work better.

Does anyone have any more dust elimination ideas?

Shaping Stands

these took about an hour to throw together. Pretty shoddy, but they'll suffice.

I can just clamp them to my saw horses and hopefully there won't be too much movement. If so, I'll throw some corner angles on there.

Happy Easter!

Top Planks Glued On

4/6

{{ Skatellites, Greetings from Skamania}}

Ah, the journey is one step closer to being at an end! The board reallylooks like a surfboard now!

So far this weekend I sanded the bead and cove strips flat using a chisel, a disc sander attachment on my drill with coarse sandpaper and then used the orbital sander to flatten out any peaks and valleys. This part was pretty straight forward and time consuming. three hours.

The next step was tto put support blocks for the fin, the leashplug, and the bleeder valve. I should note that having a good idea of where they will go from the beginning will save you a lot of time chiseling out the marine adhesive along the frame. With making the blocks, cleaning, and gluing them in, it took two hours.

I then had to cut the boards' outline on the top planks. Basically, I just layed it on top, centered it and traced where I thought the cut should be between the cove n bead rails and the planks. then I cut the bastard on a table saw with a plywood blade. Let's just say that this is not the way to do it! It is incredibly difficult with just one person. But, I have the world's crappiest jigsaw and didn't want to risk splitting any more wood. The plywood blade on the table saw was very smooth and cut like a hot knife in butter. A little too good actually! Lets just say that I cut off too much in some spots, but luckily I was able to fit the top on for gluing just right. cutting the outline took two hours.

4/7

{{ Tom Petty, Full Moon Fever & Deadicated}}

Chiseled and sanded blocks with orbital sander to remove peaks and valleys. 0.5 hour

Lots of dust and debris accumulated over the while and I had to remove it all. Picking the board up, I noticed that it was extremely light in weight! YES!!!! I used canned air to blow out dust, but a good bit remained. No biggie, unless it clogs vents. Along the flattened cove and bead rail tops I used about 6 oz of Titebond III and squeegeend it and for the frame I used 3M Marine adhesive 5200, the 7 day drying time stuff. I meant to use the Fast cure, but opened the wrong tube and as it is 20 bucks a tube, I didn't want it going to waste. Caulked it on all the frame members and put the planks on top and in place. Some moving around occured and next time I think I want to put a line of caulk down the center line of the top planks too, just for the extra. I used the thin strapping in most of the X members and some thicker in others. This process used all of my clamps plus 6 more spring clamps that I bought today. It went exceptionally well.

I did notice that my light duty clamps are totally maxed out, even the good ones I got. There was also slight movement in the center 3 X members ( I could press down on them very slightly) So I piled about 100 pounds of oak 4x4's and tool boxes along the center keel line to help press it down as the flexible strapping mostly puts the pressure on the rails in the widest areas. Don't know if it will help. The 5200 could have dripped off the keel by then. We'll see. No worries, with glass and resin on it, it will surely stiffen up. I may inject glue in beforehand if it is a problem.

{{Infrared Roses}}

Gluing took about 2 hours

cleanup took an hour

I used 20 oz. Titebond so far

two caluk toobs of 5200

this weekend I put about 10 to 11 hours into the project.

Tomorrow I will make some padded surfbard racks that clamp on to the saw horses so I can work on the board on it's side, etc. the Use of the Rocker table is most likely at its end once I undo the clamps next week. I got heat on the board, but I don't want to touch anything for at least 3 days or more to let that 5200 dry completely.

I hope everyone is doing well!

Peace be with you brothers and sisters.

Cove and bead finished!

Good Day,

Been busy on my board with being laid up with the ear infections and all. I managed to get 11 cove and bead strips on there and some initial planing, but as my glue hasn't arrived yet, it's time to go to the beach and hang out with some freinds. NO surfing because of the ear infections... LOL, good one, yah? Hey, I was always coming up with good excuses why to miss school, I'm good at it. Truth is, I'm scared of dying. LOL Some unfortuanate soul lost his life in 20 foot plus surf last weekend in Newport, OR. I guess common sense flies out the door when you got a point to prove. Me, I like 3 foot surf just fine.

Anyway, I got a few pics taken. Add another 40 bucks for a battery recharger for this project.

One pic is a close up of two cove an bead strips to give you an idea of how they fit together for a better joint.

The others are just shots of the board with this stage finished. In the middle one, you can see how those PVC clamps are stretched to the limit on 11 rails, 12 might be possible but no more! All in all, it only took about ten hours to do all of them but spread out over 3 to 4 days. The glue has to dry and with a temperature of 50 in my basement, it doesn't dry so I had to add heat. The fastest drying time that I got now was 3.5 hours. First timers add a few more hours on this as you will be on a journey of discovery! One that may sound like Chinese New Year!

Cove and bead hours = 12

Money Battery charger = $40.00

Azithromycin and Benzocaine

Are my freinds! Dual ear infections mean pain, but all works out as I am not going to work this week! What's that mean? It means that I am up to cove and bead strip number 8 already and will go to ten or twelve before I go on to the next step.

3/25 to 3/27 I've been putting 2 to 3 c&b strips on a day. Wish I could go faster, but the shortest drying time for the Titebond I've gotten down to 4.5 hours with added heat because my basement is 50 degrees and humid (I love it!). I bought another 8 oz of titebond III and ordered another toob of fast cure 5200 since I used most of the other. That was 20 bucks and will take a few days to get here.

The c&b strips are averaging about an hour each layer.

On the two x-members that had 1/8 inch gaps due to the frame being off, I glued tiny little shims in so that the strips touched the frame. After the third or fourth strip, they weren't needed anymore.

OK OK those PVC rings suck totall ass!! I hate them. A freind (TO) here in Oregon told me that he drills lots of pilot holes in the PVC before cutting a line down the length and then slicing it because it holds better. Well after an unfortunate event on the third c&b strip where I was having lunch and wondering if all the PVC clamps were still in place and at that very moment I heard a hundred fire crackers going off in my basement where every single clamp popped off in a domino effect, I eventually (on the eighth strip, hey, I like the colourful explitives that I have been coming up with!) got out my Milwaukie drill with a 1/2 inch bit, clamped into a vise, and proceeded to clamp the clamps on to the bit making, in essence, a cove in the clamping facade.

DO THIS FROM THE GET GO! A COVE IN THE PVC CLAMP SURFACE IS A GODDAMM MIRACLE!!!!!!

I didn't take any pics yet as my batteried died again. Im adding that cost in. These steps are boring looking yet, but are really coming together and will soon be photo worthy.

Take care all, I'll be back in a day or two with an update.

8 cove strips = 8 hours
glues = $25.00
batteries = $10.00

Chine Strip and first Cove and Bead Strip

3/23 and 3/24/07

Chine Strip and first Cove and Bead Strip

Hey y’all internet freaks!

I started the beginning of building the rails this weekend and this is the first step for me that I really got the idea of the shape of the board because it really started taking on the look of a board with the chine strip as an outline.

All done to the sounds of UB 40's earliest music......nice!

I’m gonna make some recommendations before I talk about what I did. Firstly, it might be best to cut a rough outline of the board before or just after the chine strip stage. If you do, use a band saw if you can because the wood splits really easy with most handsaws that I have used. In doing this, I also recommend using good spring hand clamps. In fact, if you take on this project it would be best to have all the clamps necessary, it’s just easier and better. But the spring clamps wont reach in to clamp the first cove and bead strip to the bottom planks if you don’t cut some of the bottom planks off. I would leave an inch of bottom plank around the board’s outline (chine strip). You won’t need them for the chine strip as the cut out tabs in the cross members hold it down just fine.

Now, I left my whole gig on the rocker table with all the supports and shims still in place and haven’t taken it off of there as said to in my instruction sheet. I don’t know why you would, but it made sense to leave it on there to at least hold the form better. It’s not clamped to it and sprung up a bit from it, but if I laid it out on a flat surface I picture some spring loaded disaster with wood splinters flying like a nine pounder cannon shot fired from some frigate of old hitting a gunwale.

Also from the pics you’ll notice my wonderful glue job of the frame to the deck. It looks fucking ugly, but its as sound as a pound. You can tell that it started to dry before I got it all clamped and then got pressed out of its dried outer shell as it got squeezed, that’s why I slopped on the extra, which was difficult to do around all those strappings and clamps, hence the mess, but you are the only ones going to see it and the pictures will be the only evidence of the mess once the top planks go on. So, shhhhhhhhh! You can also get an idea of the kink in the chine and cove and bead at the first cross member. It’s not so bad and surely will sand off. Also, the joint at the tip of the nose is crap. It’s my first time and since I was working from the tail forward, the tip at the nose is the spot that had to be cut last done with a tiny little Japanese woodworking saw. No worries though, I might put a wood block on the nose anywhoo.

Steaming is difficult. What I did for the chine strips is stuck the front 3 feet in a plastic poster mailing tube with boiling water for about a ½ an hour and then steamed them after all but the front 8 inches had been clamped up. That might have made them too soft, hence the binding at the first cross member. But I still like the idea of soaking them in boiling water. It didn’t affect the glue at all. Just took longer to dry. I didn’t do it for the cove and bead strips, but might for the next set.

The Chine strip process took about 1.5 hours and aobut 8 to dry because of the wet strip. At a few cross members I had to “shoe horse” the strip under with a small chisel and had to chisel a tiny bit off of the strip at the second X member. This step also showed me how “off” a few of the X members were. But I don’t see that as a major impact on board shape at this point. As long as the chine strips look good a slight bend here and there can be sanded out a bit. I guess we’ll see with the finished product!

Cove and bead strip went well but needs to be clamped better to the bottom planks and that is why I was stressing the spring clamps as the PVC ones aren’t that strong to fully pull the strip against the planks.

Have a great weekend everyone, I’m off to yet another party. Unfortunately, I got green lung and don’t feel like partying, just feel like working on my board! So, I might not even go! Spanky will kill me though if I don’t show up!!!