Yo!
Hope all of you are having a nice summer! Second day into summer and the weather is freaking great for varnishing the canoe! I managed to squeeze that into my schedule yesterday and today in between epoxying the surfboard and such. I'm on my 3rd 16 hour work day with like an average of 4 hours of sleep a night trying to get "the Piney" ready for Mystic. It seems that there is always something to hold me up. Yesterday it was the fin. The fin that I want to use is from Geoff McKonly. He made it from a Schmidts beer barrel and it looks really cool as well as a piece of history. Well I started prepping it yesterday and fiberlassing it, but it was foiled a bit wide at the nose and was too round, so I sanded it today and am going to make it into more of a "D" shaped fin. I don't know if it will be finished in time for the show. Another hitch is that when I was fiberglassing the board today, the second coat, the "fill coat" (one that fills all the gaps in the fiberglass weave) left a bunch of the weave standing on end. I have never seen that happen before! And just as I did the fill coat on the fin, the same thing happened. Anyone know what this is? On both occasions there was ample time for the epoxy to set as I am pretty anal about the chemical bonding between layers. It just means an extra coat and more sanding. TIME
After work last night I decided to do a taste test of porters. My favorite style of dark beer. Or one of them. Well, a good style of beer. ha ha ha
I started off with a Dominion Baltic Porter. It was good. I liked it. It's a lager style porter with supposed tastes of licorice and toffee. A little of the chocolate came out, the dark specialty malts and the rye were most apparent to me. It was kind of dry.
And then I had my love.......Deschuttes Black Butte Porter. OMG I fancy that beer over the Dominion any day. All I gotta say is CREAMY. I'm all about anything creamy. From what I understand I have Philly Beer Week to thank for Deschuttes now being in the local refridgerators! NICE ONE PHILLY!
Surfboard Pics:
The Nose (after final shaping)
Pretty crisp lines, could have been better.
Prepping the fin the first go around. Was too round on leading edge.
Two layers of 6oz. weave. Heavy, but I figured I had lots of sanding anyway.
"Swingin' from the Gallows Pole"
Lots of cosmetics needed to be addressed by filling with epoxy and sawdust.
6 oz. weave deck pad to strengthen the deck.
6 oz. weave full deck cover. Hole cut out for taped over leash plug.
Taped off just below the bottom edge of the rail. I was experimenting.
Lamination coat. LOOKS GREAT!
Nose looks good.
Hot coat, after the fill coat. See how rough it is? WTF??? I did a "Mesingw" design with pigmented epoxy using contact lens solution bottles to squirt it on. Mesingw is the Lenape "Keeper of the Game". His duties are to see that there is a balance in nature and enough game for the people to eat. He is like the first environmentalist in Philly. So I did the design after the fill coat was settling in. The colors ran into the weave. I knew it would happen. I'm not happy with my drawing, not the bleeding. That I can fix with painted outlines later.
Reshaped fin. Leading edge is less round.
I have a feeling that the tape that I used to dam up the epoxy is going to be a real pain in the arse to remove. F@ck! Wax paper sucks too! The visqueen is best to use as a cover.
And tonight I am enjoying a Dogfish Head Aprihop! Dogfish Head is by far my favorite brewery. It's not about the beer. I have only had a few, really. I'm jiving with the attitude. They are big. But they behave like a homebrewer. That is what I like.
Aprihop is a fine beer. I do get a sense of apricot AND mild side hops. It is one of the more mild IPA's and along my lines of drinkability. Many IPA's I will stop after the first one to recover from the bitter. I can deal with Aprihop!
Everyone, have a great Saturday night!
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