There's no such thing...

Got to work on the board a lot today. The more I watch video clips and read about displacement hulls, the more I wish this board was done and I was riding it, or trying to. Supposedly they are a whole different breed of surfboard, and take some getting used to. I can't wait to start to try to get used to it. Not that my board will definitely behave like they are supposed to, but I've read a lot about these boards and I think at least it will give me a taste. The more I research, it sounds like Greg Liddle is the master of these boards; he's been doing it for 40 plus years and his boards are beautiful. I would love to buy one some day, or at least try one for a while to see how it feels. I know these boards are not the best for a lot of the waves we get around here, but I don't really care. If it goes like it's supposed to, the days when it works will be worth the wait.

Posting that link to Swaylock's above reminded me of something I forgot to do: to mention Swaylock's before this. Swaylock's is a surfboard building forum in which there is probably a collected million years worth of surfboard shaping, glassing, and designing experience. Maybe not a million, but probably close. It really is an indispensable resource. I can't imagine what people did for years before that, lots and lots of trial and error I imagine. Still, that's kind of why doing the hull I'm doing now is so fun, because even though I've got tons of information about it (mostly thanks to Swaylock's), it's still a design that I've never seen and held in my hands. It's pretty exciting. So yeah, huge thanks to Swaylock's, and even if you never plan on building surfboards, it is still worth checking out. I know a lot of the stuff I've learned from there has made me more aware of certain things when I surf.

I love the look of the knifey rails on these boards, and the foiled deck and the way all these curves just come together. When you see pictures of these boards done by the pros, it really is something else.

There's the side profile (not a great picture). I'm almost done shaping, although I think I've got some more deck foiling to do. 

I also love the thin, tapered tail. Supposedly the tail design not only helps cut through sections of whitewater, but it helps to propel the board forward. As water goes up the rail off the back, it kind of pushes the board forward, like when you squeeze a wet watermelon seed between your fingertips.

All the glassing stuff is on the way. I also bought a airbrush from Harbor Freight (on sale for $12.99). I think I'm going to tape off the stringer, and spray the whole blank a solid color. I'm thinking some sort of maroon/burgundy type color.

 

Went out for a surf this afternoon when the wind switched more offshore and lightened up around 2 PM. There were some really long, glassy rights coming in at a nice angle from the south. I took the Dewey Weber out first, and wasn't having the best time on that, so I grabbed 002 and took that out, and still wasn't having a great time. One of those days where there are good waves coming in, you see guys catching them and riding them, but they never seem to come to you. And I felt really hot in my 5 mm Xcel (I'm not gonna be complaining about that in a month or so). Just like on land, sometimes you have good days, and sometimes you have bad days. But you know what they say about a bad day of surfing....

SF 003

And so begins another journey. With 002 not a week completed, I began my next board today. I had a blank I planned on using for a longer single-fin, not that long, around 6'5" or so. The problem is is that "single-fin" is very broad, I wasn't sure if I wanted to make a gun-type board or an egg or what. This is what I decided on.

Not very informative, I know. It's a 6'3" (although I may make it smaller) very full-template with a diamond tail. I think it's going to end up being around 20 1/2" wide or so, and 2 3/4" thick. I'm kind of taking a some stuff I've read about hulls, Greenough and Liddles and things like that, and am going to try to incorporate them the best I can to get a fast board down the line that can still perform with some long carving turns. I'm hoping to get a board like the ones from Morning of the Earth or The Innermost Limits of Pure Fun. Having never seen any boards like these in person, I'm just going off descriptions and pictures and stuff, but I'll give it a shot and make something of my own.

I skin the bottom and flatten it out, then I trace the template onto the blank. After this I carefully cut out the shape. Before I cut out about 1/8 to 1/16 outside the line, but this time, for some reason, my mind blanked and I cut right on the line. It made a few lumps that I had to get out. 

After I got it cut out and started to check to see if things were symmetrical, I realized the stringer on this blank was also really bowed, and I mean really bowed. And these were U.S. Blank Firsts! I don't know, from what I've heard no blank is perfect, but it really seems like this is excessive. But fortunately I realized it before I lost my mind trying to figure out why measurements weren't figuring out the same on both sides, and then I just eyed it. I've got a pretty good eye from construction work, so I think it will be alright.

After I got it cut out, I decided I didn't like how the tail looked - it looked way to wide. So I pulled it in a little bit. I liked it when I left it, but we'll see how much I like it when I look at it tomorrow. I'm thinking I might take an inch off the nose and make it more rounded. Who knows.... I hope to take a lot of pictures of the making of this board, so stay tuned.

'Tis pleasant, through the loopholes of retreat

To peep at such a world; to see the stir

Of the great Babel, and not feel the crowd;

To hear the roar she sends through all her gates

At a safe distance where the dying sound

Falls a soft murmur on the uninjur'd ear.

SF 002

Here's Strange Flora 002 - 5'10" x 19 1/4" x 2 1/4". I'm pretty proud of this board, as it's my first original template. At first, though, I wasn't too happy with how it came out. It seems the stringer is pretty bowed, and the blank was twisted but I only realized it was twisted after I had a lot of it shaped - I was rushing (I really wanted a new board). So after I finished, while the glass job came out beautifully - I did a gloss even though shortboards don't usually have them (I love how they look and I wanted the practice) - I wasn't too pleased with it...until I took it for a test ride Thanksgiving morning in some waist to chest high surf. It was a nice November morning, and though the waves weren't bad, the sections were lining up as well as I would have liked them. But still, I could feel the looseness, as soon as I step on the tail to whip it up the lip, it would go.

It wasn't until the next day, however, that I really got to test it out. Hard offshore winds, almost straight offshore, which really hollowed out the waist to head high waves. There were decent size barrels with nice mellow faces and the waves were really lining up. It was a perfect test-track. The board is definitely loose and has some nice drive to it. I can really feel when I step on the back it just takes off up the face. Shift my weight forward, it trims nicely. I can't wait to try it out again, but already I feel myself surfing differently on it than I ever have on a shortboard before. It's a great feeling.

I really like how the lam came out this time - Last time with the yellow over the lam it didn't come out so clearly, but this is clear and solid black and looks like it could be professional. Although when you eye the board you can tell it's not. Whatever, I ride it and love how it rides and someday I'll make another that's not twisted. But, for now, let's do the twist....

My Second Foray into Fiberglass

I bought this old Dewey Weber DNT Series single-fin off of craigslist for $125. It needed some work as there were some gouges in the rails which turned into deep gouges as I started picking at them, but there wasn't really any signs of major water invasion in any of them, so I figure they must have happened mostly in storage. I fixed them, which was my first attempt at actually fixing dings to look good. I definitely helped having built a board - it gave me such a good understanding of what I was deconstructing and reconstructing.

So the dings came out very nice, but when I tried the board out, a few things happened. The first time the waves were easy, just really gentle faces and not much power to them, it felt too slow - I could feel it holding back. So, I shelved it for that session, went and grabbed my fish, and had a blast. Then I took it out on waist to stomach day, some chest high sets - but really fast rights- a low tide combined with offshore winds and they were just steep peaks peeling down the line. The board spun out big time. So I put it back again. I was just about to give up hope on the board when I thought more about the single fin: it was definitely home-made, and it was really thickly foiled, with a wide base and I think about 7 inches or so. So I figured I'd make a fin for it. So I did...

...and this was the result. It's 8 3/4 (it was supposed to be 9", but I think something happened along the way) with a fairly narrow base, which I forget the measurement of right now, and some nice rake to it, but not too much. To make it I laid up a fin panel with I think about 48 layers of 6 oz. cloth. It was pretty fun, and cheaper than buying a fin. I tried it out on some nice hollow little waves, probably waist high maybe stomach to chest on set, and the fin worked really well. I could control the board when I dropped in on the bottom turn, and it helped me just hook in the pocket and drop back in the barrel, or I could step on the board and it would really fly - it's got a wide, flat bottom with very little tail rocker - and a lot of nose rocker for late take-offs and steep faces.

Here it is, on the bottom of the rack, with the fin installed. I really like this board. It's got an interesting foil to the deck, almost like an s-deck you see on Liddles or the Simmons boards. This board is thick - 3 3/8" - the thickest board I think I've ever ridden, long or short.

                      

SF 001

This is SF 001, my first board. The template is from the book Surfboard Design and Construction, and 5'5" Steve Lis fish. The outline is the same as the book, but I changed the rails and fin placement. I went with a fish design because I had never ridden one but had always wanted to: I really liked all I had read and seen on them. I used the Lis design because it was one of the originals, and it seemed like a good place to start. One thing I've enjoyed (and look forward to) that has come as a result of making my own boards is that I can personally experience surfboard evolution by investigating older templates and designs.

Here it is finished, in its natural environment. Not really, but it looks nice. I was, and still am, so happy with how the glass job came out. I had never worked with fiberglass before, and I was expecting it to come out worse than this, but one thing I discovered is that not much is really final with fiberglass - if something gets messed up (which many somethings did) it can most likely be fixed. So after a lot more work than it should have taken, I think the finished product was worth it. I finished polishing it at midnight on a Saturday...

...just in time to test it on some nice 4-5 foot long, glassy lefts off the wooden jetty in Holgate in the swell we got from Tropical Storm Danny. I couldn't have been happier with how it rode. Fast and smooth with nice wide arcs. It definitely made it worth all the work. Those are Gephart twin keel fins on the board. I think next time I'll make my own and save some money, but I didn't want to tackle too much at first. 

By the way, the yellow is resin pigment, and the pinstripes are resin. I love the slightly raised feel of resin pinstripes. And so Strange Flora was born....

...and the tide was way out.

This is the first post for the Strange Flora blog, in which I will chronicle my adventures in surfboard construction, and probably include whatever pictures/ramblings/art/whatever that I deem fit. I hope you enjoy. Even though there is no "you" yet.