More pictures of the quad fish

Here are some more pictures. I've noticed that surfboard photos taken up close, such as the one with me standing, or the picture of the fin area, tend to distort the true shape. The last two pictures here, taken from far above the board, give a good impression of the actual outline and shape.




I tried the fish once more, this time at a mellower, walled-up wave with room to turn. The board seems to turn well, and holds well in the face of the waves. I had never tried a quad before, and was pleaseantly surprised. Overall I love this board.

So now I am glad I skipped a bunch of steps in the construction that I was considering and don't seem to have affected performance negatively at all; I didn't make concaves, skipped sanding the hotcoat, skipped the glosscoat, didn't make a resin-dam to create a really sharp rail edge in the tail.

What about drawbacks?

The board feels a little heavy on land because the hotcoat is so thick and I didn't sand it. But that doesn't seem to matter in the water. In the water, maybe the nose area of the board is on the big side. That's part of the fish concept, but it might feel better with less volume. I'll have to surf the board more to make up my mind.

The main problem with the fish might be the thickness of the deck lamination (about 8-9 ounces of glass). During the second test session the board unfortunately ended up with a crack in the deck. I've asked for some advice on Swaylocks.com about that. Probably I didn't glass the deck thick enough, considering the light foam I used. So there's a chance I will need to add another glass layer to ensure the board will last a long time.

It may be a while until the next update, as the surf is really great this time of year, and mostly too big for this board anyway. So I'll take my time fixing it, and will instead surf a lot and start planning my next board project. That project will involve some cool color experimentation for sure :)

It's been a long but fun process to build my own board. After many late nights I'm really glad it's done. At the same time, I'm also stoked to build many more in the future!

Board #1 is done!

Finally! Last week I finished the board! I hotcoated the bottom, sanded open the fin boxes, and added a bit more resin on around the boxes.



I finally took the board out at Ocean Beach on Saturday. In the morning the waves were a few feet overhead and rough, so I surfed a different board, but in the afternoon the waves softened and I gave the homemade fish a try. And to my big surprise - it surfed really well. I loved it!!! At first I didn't dare to duckdive it hard, and was affraid it would break any moment. But eventually I relaxed, made it out through the shorebreak. I only surfed 3 waves on it that day, but may main impression was that it was very fast, faster than the board I copied the template from! I think that may be because my copy ended up slighly bigger, since I shaped the foam to be the same size as laminated original, so that the lamination added extra volume. It seems that the extra volume works well for me. Also my bottom is more flat, while the original is double concave. Somehow it all adds up to a faster board, or at least that's how it feels. Amazing.

Board 1: Leashplug & Hotcoat

I just sanded and hotcoated the top of the board, the resin's still dripping away in the backyard. To prep the surface I sanded with #36 in a few places, then #60, #100 everywhere. At the last #100 pass I sanded away the edge of the round logo.. Oops! Tried to fix the worst with a zig pen. Then wiped off the board with denatured alcohol, taped the rails, mixed 15 ounces of resin (just enough), poured it on and spread with a brush. Can't wait to see the dry result tomorrow morning!


Last week I put in a leashplug, and patched the missing cloth in the butcrack of the fish. I decided to put the leashplug in the stringer. Used a holesaw to get a smooth hole through the fiberglass, followed by router to get out the stringer underneath. Set the plug with resin thickened with bamboo dust. The dust results in a neat redish color, but also tons of airbubbles, so I'm not sure I would use it again.