Surfing Board 2

I have tried the board twice at Ocean Beach, which it was built for. First time was waist high but well shaped, the second time wobbly head high surf. Impressions so far: The volume is slightly lower than I expected, so it may not be good for the bigger days. But the volume seems very well distributed. I had deliberately moved it forward with respect my main shortboard, making this one more comfortable to paddle. Overall the board duckdives, paddles, and catches waves well. It feels fast, somehow "slick" on the bottom. I haven't gotten in many turns yet, so I will write more after I get to try it in better surf.

I built this board to replace my T&C shortboard that I just love, but that broke twice, and is completely dented in on the deck after a few years of use. It's pretty silly - shortboards are normally glassed so lightly that they only last a few seasons. So I tried to build a board that will last longer, and used double 6 ounce S-glass and epoxy resin. The board weighs exactly 8 pounds including fins, wax, everything. It feels light for the glass job. It's lighter than my OB semi gun, and a bit heavier than the good old T&C. There are no heal dents after the first two sessions, so far so good... It feels different than the typical 4 oz-glass-job polyester board, but it's a hard to say exactly what the difference is. It's not too stiff, and it's not bad, just different somehow. More testing is needed - I'll report back after more surfing!

Below are a few more pics from the construction.

My low tech backyard cleanroom, where I did the the hotcoating.



Detail of the leash plug - color matched!

Board #2 Finished

I didn't have the time and patience to properly polish the board, so two weeks ago I sanded it well after glassing, applied a hotcoat, and left it at that. This time I used less resin for the hotcoat - about 9 ounces per side, and it was enough. For the hotcoat I built a tent out of dripcloth to reduce dust, and for the bottom side I also filtered the resin. These things really helped - the hotcoat came out smooth and nice. Some things that went wrong: On the bottom side I machine sanded for the first time, and it went much faster than hand sanding, but it's not 100% even. I also tried my first resin dam when hotcoating the bottom, but it came out just so so.

Last Glass Layer

Last night I laminated the last layer of 6 oz glass over the deck and rails. Clear resin, no tint. I freelapped the rails onto the bottom. The board looks nicer now, much closer to the deep tinted look I was hoping for. Try clicking the top picture to see it up close.

Hopefully it will look even better after hotcoat and polishing, if I have the patience for that. The only thing that bothers me a bit now is that the laps are not that even - I taped and cut them freehand, instead of using a tool. If it still bothers me after the hotcoat then I might add some pinlines to get a cleaner look. Maybe white pinlines?

Used 30 oz of resin this time, which was still more than needed, but made it real easy to wet out the laps. I think it was below 70F in the evening when I mixed up the resin, and there was plenty of time to tuck the laps, even with fast hardener.

The board is very light, despite using 6 oz glass. I should weigh it before I hotcoat and gloss, to see how much weight is added by each step. Currently it feels like a real high performance shortboard... especially compared to board #1 - the tank.

Tinting Trouble, but Good Surf

The glassing is now 2/3rds done. This was my first time doing resin tints, and I screwed up twice.
The bottom was supposed to be a transparent, soft but glowing orange, which I had carefully arrived at by doing test panels (see previous posts for pictures.) I knew exactly how many drops of yellow and red to use per ounce of resin to get that color. But it would have involved counting ~ 150 drops of pigment, and I was too impatient... So I just added the color by feel, and ended up adding way too much yellow pigment. As a result, the resin ended up opaque, and brownish red instead of orange. Argh... I contemplated throwing away the mixed resin, and making a new batch, but decided that was too much waste. So I glassed with this (literally) shitty color.


In the picture above you see that color on the rails and on the floor, but the whole bottom of the board has that color, too. Argh.

My clever wife recommended too "Embrace the Brown", and to match it with a "Sea-greenish Blue" on the deck. Since she is much better with colors than me, I went for it. Of course, I made the mistake of improvising with the color mixture again, but this time I went wrong the other way, and added too little pigment. So the deck color is too transparent, and the color is pretty un-even.


So that's the status. I also trimmed the laps. The next steps are some sanding, and adding a second clear layer of glass that extend over the deck and rails. So hopefully the board will end up with that nice, deep, tinted look in the end... It's a shame that the colors didn't come out better, as I was very happy with the shape.

I glassed with fast hardener this time, and it was a hot weekend (85F?), so I had to work fast. When I did the bottom + laps, I almost ran out of time with the laps. I mixed up too much resin, as I read that it's better to have too much than too little when working with color, and because I didn't know how much extra to add when going from 4oz to 6oz glass. I mixed 39 ounces for the bottom + laps (way too much), and 24 ounces for the deck (a bit too much, but OK for color work).

Despite the frustrating color problems, it's been a good weekend overall: Good surf each morning, and glassing the board each afternoon. Saturday morning the surf was almost like a small day in winter, overhead on the sets, glassy, and a peak to myself. Hard to complain.

In a few days my recent hedonistic surf lifestyle comes to an end, as I will join the rest of my family on vacation. That's good, I've started to miss them. This morning I spoke to my little son on the phone, and he just learned to say Daddy!

Finetuning the Shape: The Planer Knows Best

This weekend I finished shaping board number two, and glassed the first two layers. Here are four pictures from the end of the shaping process. Before these pictures were taken, the tail was domed, and I was planning to leave it like that. But the stringer was sticking up a bit, and I wanted to save some time by trimming it with the planer... Carefully... Just a 1/32" of an inch... Chomp! The planer ate a piece of my tail - there was a huge gash. So then I was forced to reshape the tail, and now it's flat. Another way to put this, is that the planer knew better than me - There was no way it was gonna put up with that crazy domed tail!

Shaping Almost Done

Turned the rails today. Still have to clean up the bottom part a bit more, and fine sand the whole board. Should be ready to start the glassing tomorrow.

Power Planing Pleasures

Today I tried the power planer for the first time. What a difference to shaping by hand! At first I felt awkward and was very timid with the planer, but after a while I got more into it, and really mowed away at the foam.

At one point I noticed that there was a lot of dust in the air, like our own little private snowstorm in the backyard. I was surprised the vacuum system wasn't doing a better job. Then I realized that I'd forgotten to _turn on_ the vacuum... With the vacuum engaged, there was hardly any dust at all. The planer is pretty loud, however, so I suspect the neighbors may not be quite as thrilled about the planer as I am.


I planed the blank down to 2 & 6/8", a bit thicker than the target of 2 5/8". I figure the last 1/8" will be removed during final sanding after I shape the rails. In the pictures you see the blank after I finished planing + a rough sand job with 50 grit to remove the worst planer marks. You can still see some marks here and there, which I will clean up when I blend the rails.

This is going much faster than I expected. Later this week I will need to shape and blend the rails, sand smooth, and that's it for the shaping.

I hope to do the glassing this weekend, using 6 oz S glass for durability, with orange resin tint. I ordered epoxy and glass last night, so with some luck all the supplies will be here by the weekend.

Stoked!