Fearless

"Fearless," the third track off of Pink Floyd's 1971 pre-Dark Side masterpiece Meddle. The last track of said album, "Echoes," was used as the soundtrack to a short film, also called Echoes, which was shot and edited by George Greenough in 1973. It consists entirely of in-the-tube and in-the-wave shots, which Greenough was an early pioneer of. The film was put on the end of David Elficks's 1973 film Crystal Voyager, which is an amazing surf film that chronicles Greenough building a 37-foot sailboat and then sailing it around California, surfing uncrowded breaks. The film also has scenes of Greenough kneeboarding and his buddy Nat Young surfing, among others. I have it in .avi format if anyone wants it, I think it's tough to find on VHS or DVD. Here is the film Echoes, in three parts (due to YouTube's size limit).







The word is that Pink Floyd made a deal with Greenough allowing him to use the song for his film if they could use the film as a backdrop during live performances of the song. Amazing.

 

"Their ticket to freedom in a world of special fun is to catch a wave."

I've been reading Waves and Beaches by Willard Bascom, which is an excellent study, in layman's terms, about just what you'd glean it would be about from the title: waves and beaches, and how each are formed and how they interact and effect each other and all that. It's been really good, with some of the stuff relevant to surfing and some not, but all interesting nonetheless. Yesterday I got to a small section about surfing and I particularly enjoyed the description here:

That pretty much sums me up as a surfer, anyway. Especially the part about "a covey of adoring surf bunnies."  But yeah, check out the book if you want to learn more about the main things we deal with in surfing.

Heavy Metal Kids, by the one and only Kraftwerk, from a 1971 performance on Bremen Radio. Heavy. There's that word again....

It's An Absolute Dreamboat.

Quick update on the board before work. Took it out again on Tuesday morning. We went down to Holgate again. The waters were a little choppier, but the waves were still waist to chest and breaking in some pretty long lines between 1st Street and Wooden Jetty. We went out and had it to ourselves for almost the whole time. I got some great rides on the board, and then I had a string of nose dives that were extremely frustrating and almost made me quit surfing for good. But then I got a really nice one, a soaring left during which I regained my faith in surfing and life in general. One thing I noticed, and especially later on when it got choppier, was that the chop had no effect on the board. It just cut rate through it, since it's more in the water than on the water. It felt really smooth. I'm still getting used to it but so far the board feels like a success. Maybe I'll call this one the Dreamboat, and if I make a better version in the future, that will be the Absolute Dreamboat. Maybe.

Ride Report: 003 (For Real)

Sike! No, just kidding, I actually did get to ride the new board this afternoon. Got in the water about 1 or so down at Wooden Jetty, a number of guys out but not too many. The waves were about waist to chest high. They had cleaned up a lot and the sections were a lot longer than this morning, but there was still some texture in the water and there was a strong drift. The first ride I got I spun out, my rear foot was too far back, probably all my weight was, and it just skidded across the water. I knew at once I had to really make a concerted effort to jump up forward on the board, something I'm not so used to doing. So then I did it, and I got a pretty decent long ride, ending in a little barrel. But what really got me was the smoothness of the ride: it felt like my surfboard had shock absorbers. The board trimmed and just cut through the wave. It was a completely different feeling than what I'm used to. The sensation of glide was something else. Still, it felt like the tail was still pretty loose, I could feel it wanting to slide out sometimes, so I moved it back about an inch. It felt pretty good then, but I'd like to move it forward slowly until it feels like it's starting to slide out again, then move it back from that point just a little.

People have said hulls are terrible paddlers, and while I didn't notice any particular ease of pattern, I didn't feel like I had to try any harder than a shortboard or a fish. And catching waves wasn't too hard either. I still haven't caught any rights yet, so no backside tests.

Who's that lady? I'm talking about the board. Just kidding. So far, I'm really happy with the board, and I feel like I just need to ride it and get used to the different feel. Also, I got a number of compliments on the board, which is always nice, but the one that really made my day was the guy saying he saw me walking with it and knew it was a displacement hull and asked what kind it was. He was surprised when I told him I made it, he expected it to be a Cooper or something, not that I'm comparing my board or anything like that. But when I said I have never been able to ride a real hull, he said, "This is a real one, the lines are perfect." Made my day. Well, actually, the waves made my day. Actually, the seal made my day. Actually...my day was made when I woke up this morning.

 

But now, on to 004, whatever that may be. Actually, maybe first I should take care of the insanely loud noise that comes from the now-severed pipe right before the catalytic converter of my car. Real fun, especially when it breaks on top of the Bridge, and all of a sudden it sounds like the car is going to explode or the bridge is going to collapse or your wheels might fall off. But yeah, that's it for now, I'm going to go out again tomorrow morning, so expect another exciting update. Until then, be cool. 

Ride Report: 003

Sike! No ride report to speak of. Don and I went over first thing, but the waters were too wild to do anything with. The waves were good size, waist to chest, but they were all peaks, and the inside was tumultuous to say the least. It being so close to high (I think high is actually right now about, as I write this) there was too much water. We checked Wooden Jetty first and then went to Harvey Cedars. It looked the same there, except the inside was way more crazy because the sand dunes they've built up with the 'dozers has been washed away and now there are just sheer faces of sand that the waves hit, then reflect off of, without losing much energy, and make the inside a mess. So we didn't go out. But on the way home, we went checked 24th street in Surf City and here's what we saw:

While we checked the waves I said, "That looks like a carcass down there," half-jokingly. Then it moved. We went down and sure enough, it was what I believe to be a harbor seal, or some kind of seal at least, hanging on the beach. We got about three feet away, thinking that maybe it was hurt or something, but then it decided to split.

 

 

And that's the last we saw of him/her. Hopefully the little thing wasn't hurt. I've never seen a seal in the wild, so being that close to one on the beach definitely made the morning worthwhile. As far as surfing, I'm hoping that around 11 or noon or so, as the tide goes out a bit and the wind calms, the waves will be better, but if not tomorrow morning's looking good too.

It's All Over...

Strange Flora 003 is finally finished. I started it on Nov. 29, and just finished it yesterday. Yikes! That's a long time, but when I think about it, I waited over two weeks between shaping and glassing (something which I'd like to avoid in the future) and the holidays cut into time, plus there was a lot of learning and working things out to do with this board. But yeah, regardless of when the start date was, it's finished now.

I finished the board yesterday at around 8 or so. I spent a long time sanding it, going from 320 to 1000 grit, then I buffed it with a buffing compound, then I polished it with surfboard polish. The gloss came out really nice, and the dark color makes it look like a mirror. Of course, the glossy dark color also makes every bump and wave in the glassing job stick out sorely, but I think on this board it definitely came out nicer than the last. The bottom is very smooth, while the deck has some minor waves and ripples in it, which is really just due to poor sanding, or not enough time spent sanding. But it's not that bad. Es aceptable para mi ahora.

I really love the way the green Volan of the fin looks with the dark, almost eggplant color of the board. I can't wait to see it in the sunlight. Hopefully I'll be testing it out tomorrow, but it's looking like the forecast is a little better for Tuesday now. I'm really excited to try this thing out. If it works, I might bring it to Puerto Rico, along with 002, but I don't know. If the American Airlines luggage fee for surfboards is $100 per board instead of board bag, I might not bring any, and just buy a used one down there or something.

So, it's been quite a journey with this board. Learned a lot, some through trial and some through error, and put a lot of work into it, but in the end it's definitely worth it. One of the nice things about going through all the work to do a board is that when it's over, it's just beginning really, because that's when the real fun begins. Unless the board's a complete dog, but that's neither here nor there. Now to finish the next project....

...a Spitfire-type single-fin to try with the Dewey Weber. Seems like an interesting idea for a fin, and I had all this Baltic Birch plywood sitting around, so a couple weeks ago, at a lull in 003's  construction, I started it. It was pretty fun foiling it out and trying to get both sides even. Now it's just waiting for glass.

Tom Waits - "San Diego Serenade," the second track of his 1974 album The Heart of Saturday Night.

I've seen the future, brother, and it's murder.

Murder of the breaks in Harvey Cedars, anyway. Above is a picture of a beach a six or seven beaches up from Hudson Ave. This is the sand replenishment thing they're doing to try to combat nature and build up the quickly waning Harvey Cedars shoreline. The only problem is that the it looks like the new beach reaches out almost to where the lineup is in Harvey Cedars. So what will happen to the waves? I had spoken to a bulldozing guy on the beach and he told me they were going to build it out to way past the jetties, but now that I actually saw it, it's much more obvious that this is going to screw up the breaks. Oh well, for now, dig the Big Bopper....

The Big Bopper - Chantilly Lace Rock

Sometimes, All I Need Is The Air That I Breathe...

I was able to sand down the rails today. They blended very nicely into the rest of the board. I just ran into two problems: 1. I ran out of 320 grit sandpaper. I just got a whole bunch of sandpaper with my last order from Fiberglass Supply, but for some reason I just ordered two sheets of 320, and 2. As I was sanding and blending the new with the old, I feared hitting other thin spots around the rails on the deck, and guess what? I did. But only two little spots towards the back (you can see the tape in the picture). So, I brushed some more on, hopefully the last time I'll have to put any resin on this board until a catastrophic ding or something. And hopefully that won't be for a long while.

It looks like this coming Monday - Tuesday looks pretty good for swell, and I'll definitely have this board done by then, and it's a Nor'easter so we should get some good lefts down at Wooden Jetty. Sounds like a good setup for a board test.

 

Mastodon - "The Last Baron," the last track off of their 2009 album Crack The Skye. I had the ipod on shuffle today, and while a lot of good stuff got played (including some straggling Christmas songs that I haven't deleted yet), I found this one especially post-worthy. It's a long song, 12 minutes and change, but it's definitely worth it.

So close, yet...

Leonard Cohen - "Leaving Greensleeves," the last track off his 1974 album New Skin For An Old Ceremony.

I sanded the hotcoat today, it went OK. As you can see above, some of it did not go OK. The deck and bottom were both fine, even the problem areas from before just flattened right out look fine unless you look closely and notice the different shade on the foam beneath.

But I did run into problems on the deck half of the rails. It seems the gloss got too thin on the rails because it took so long for it to gel, and as I was hand sanding the rails it went through to the paint. It only took one pass with 320 grit to do this, which means they must have been very, very thin.

This is the port-stern corner of the diamond, the only spot I noticed being a problem prior to sanding and the one which was definitely the worst. The paint poked through in a number of places, a lot of them small but enough to warrant redoing the whole rail. So that's what I decided to do.

First I roughed up the whole edge of the board, and about an inch up onto the deck. I then brushed gloss on, trying to simulate how you would do a gloss coat for the whole board, running the board lengthwise and crosswise, and I tried to fan it up onto the deck so it will (hopefully) blend when I sand it. Right as it gelled (which this gloss did in almost perfect time, a little long but nothing like the original) I pulled the tape on the underneath so it would hopefully run a little bit, so as to smooth out the hard edge left usually left by tape and hopefully make it blend better. I've found that making boards, for me and these first few anyway, is good practice for ding repair because I frequently find myself trying to make some mess-up look like it should.

Neutral Milk Hotel - "In The Aeroplane Over The Sea," the third track from the album of the same name. I love this album, and have probably listened to it about a thousand times, literally. But I hadn't listened to it in a while, at least a month and a half, and like always it blew me away. I thought about putting the whole album up here, but refrained. I don't know why I chose this song, maybe because I covered it as SotRM one time. But maybe I'll put more on sometime. OK, I think I will right now.

Neutral Milk Hotel - "Ghost," track number nine off In The Aeroplane Over The Sea. I love the drums in this song.

Es Aceptable Para Mi

Did the gloss coat yesterday. Did the deck first, as planned, and didn't seal it with anything. I did rough it up with a green scrubby pad, like the kind of sponges. I can't think of the stupid name right now. I figured it would help to rough it up a little bit. All went well on the deck, although it did take way longer than the ten minutes it's supposed to take. I didn't use straight gloss, I used a mix of lam resin and gloss resin with more surfacing agent added. I did this on 002 at the recommendation of someone on Swaylock's, it supposedly makes the gloss coat, which is very sensitive, a little more stable. It seemed to work really well, so I did it again. That's the only reason I can think of that it took so long, because I used the right amount of catalyst for the temp. But yeah, so it took about a half hour to gel, during which time I was worried that the gloss would get too thin as it stretch across the board. It turned out fine.

Originally, I signed on the foam with a white charcoal pencil, figuring it would look cool on the dark color. It did, but then when I glassed it, it basically disappeared. It wouldn't matter anyway since I ended up painting again over the hotcoat. So I got the bright idea to sign it again on the paint, but right before I was going to gloss, as I was wiping the board down, I decided that it might be a good idea to remove that, as the pencil could cause the gloss to not adhere properly in that area. I had thought of sealing just that with clear acrylic, and I should have because that would have solved it. But instead, I just decided to wipe it off with a sponge and the green scrubby pad. But the paint must have been thin there, so instead of just wiping the pencil off I wiped the paint off as well, which wasn't so much of a problem because of the painted blank, but the result after gloss was this:

And this just because a futile act of vanity? Not really (besides, I still have my name on the stringer). I think it won't look so bad after I sand it and the resin is even, because then you'll just see the messed up paint. Something similar happened towards the nose on the bottom.

Kind of a bummer, it looks like the paint might have gotten too thin, and maybe when I roughed it up I went too thin. Still, it's good that the blank is painted, or else those spots would be white, which would really look bad. I think when sanded it will look OK. So, lesson learned: If I would have sprayed a clear coat over the paint, this wouldn't have happened. Still, since it went well on the deck I didn't think it would be necessary, but that's what I'll do from now on. Still, it's acceptable for me this time, as long as I learn from it.

I usually listen to music when I'm working in the shop. I've got a stereo amplifier in there that I hook the ipod to when glassing or doing things that aren't noisy, and I put headphones under my earmuffs when I need ear protection but still want to hear the music. Music definitely makes things go easier, except when I accidentally put on a Boris album that is not the one I thought it was but a half hour droning feedback slow-explosion that just keeps building and intensifying and grinding your brain, and all this while doing my first lam coat ever. Or when I put on the Dreamies album, which is an amazing album and you should check it out, but also another one that can make the listener uncomfortable at times,  especially when you are doing the hotcoat and time time is of the essence, as they say, and all then the music blends into a mix of repetitively plodding acoustic guitar strumming, loud clock ticking, and popcorn popping more and more until it sounds like machine gun fire. Mix that with some samples of sirens and tidbits from Beatles songs and you've got a very disconcerting listen while doing your first hotcoat. So it's wise to choose not only music you like, but music that won't drive you crazy during an already tense situation. Now that I've gotten a bit more comfortable with glassing and I'm not quite as tense as that first time, I can listen to a wide variety of tunes while doing this stuff, but it's still good to choose wisely.

So yeah, without further ado, I've decided I'm going to post a song or two from now on that I listened to while working in their and found worthy. So, without further ado, music to gloss by.

Boris - "Heavy Friends," the first track off their 2002 album entitled Heavy Rocks. Dig it.

Haven't I Been Here Before?

In a way, yes, I have. This is round two of airbrushing this board. With the hotcoat sanded you can really see all the crystallization areas, and it looks really ugly. So on Friday I painted it again.

There it is with the first coat. The paint covers so much better on a non porous surface like the fiberglass, as opposed to the extremely porous surface of the foam. I mixed up a lot less paint this time, and had a lot more left over. If there are no problems with the gloss because of this method, either in the glossing process or with delam in the future, this may be the way to go for full color boards, as it was quicker, cheaper, and you don't have to worry about nicking the colored foam.

I got the color pretty close to the other one, but it didn't matter so much because it's going completely over it. The match looked pretty good once on the board.

Here's the painted board. Painting over the hotcoat really gets a deep color. I'm curious to see how the gloss takes to the paint. I was considering a number of methods of doing the next coat: A) Using the acrylic surfboard sealer and polish I bought from Fiberglass Supply. It brushes on, has UV inhibitor in it, dries clear, and saves the weight of a gloss coat. While this seems like a pretty good idea, I read on, you guessed it, Swaylock's that it really doesn't last as long as a gloss. Some people say that within three months of regular use one will start to notice problems. On one hand, it might be good for this board, since it's not designed for everyday New Jersey waves, it won't be getting used all the time. Or maybe it will. Who knows. Also, the fact that it's acrylic means I probably wouldn't have any problems bonding with the acrylic paint. On the other hand, saving weight on this board isn't as crucial as on, say, a regular shortboard, so why not just use gloss? B) Seal the paint with a light spray of Acrylic Future Floor Polish before gloss. This has its benefits, but if there are no problems, then I'll never know if just the gloss alone would have been fine, and that brings me to C) just a gloss coat straight over the paint. I have decided I am going to do this on the deck first, where if there are any problems at least there is the possibility of wax coverage. Then, if that works, I'll do it on the bottom, but if there are problems then I'll probably seal the bottom with the Future before I gloss it.

So, with that said, I think I'm going to take the board out of the curing room in a few, get the temperature up in the garage, and gloss it. Even if things get messed up, it looks like I still have some time before the next swell, because that bump in the surf forecast, which as of last night showed 5-6 foot building Saturday night, has since flatlined and now the weekend forecast looks the same as it has been and will be forever.

 

 

 

The Barnegat Bay in the Winter, or, why I love this place so much. 

This just in...

Don just sent me this photo of the beach entrance between First Street Jetty and Wooden Jetty in Holgate. The photo was taken on 12/20/2009. The significance? Don and I were the first ones out that glorious day, and there was a guy who was taking pictures of us walking up to the beach (with our permission, of course. We were about to clobber him for watching us for a while until he stated his intentions). It's a shame there aren't any more pictures of us cool guys, but at least our footprints are famous. You can check out more from that beautiful day HERE. Ah, memories of amazing waves, and with no swell on the horizon. At least there's a snowboard trip at the end of the month, and the distant-but-not-too-distant trip to Puerto Rico.Almost done this board, now if only there were some waves to test it on.

FIN BOX TIME

After the hotcoat, but before the sanding, comes the fin box. I made up this jig with some thin plywood, and taped in place for ease of use. I then routered out for the box, starting shallow and going through about four different depth changes so as not to blow out the stringer.

After the routering out of the box was complete, I scuffed the area around it with some 80 grit. Then it was time to install.

 

Give me all of your yogurt containers! They are the best for fiberglass jobs where you don't need a lot, only a couple ounces, and since I've got a plethora of them, I don't need to worry about cleaning them out or anything (although I do occasionally get two or three uses out of them).

And there it is, all glassed and taped in place. When I first opened the box I was surprised to see the Fins Unlimited fin box:  I didn't know they came with a 1/4" lip on top to stop resin from overflowing into the box and tabs on the side that need to be ground down after glassing. There's also a little bit of plastic in the center of the box bridging the gap to keep it from spreading. But yeah, so that little bit of plastic stops the fin from going all the way down, so I just wedged it in there best I could.

You can see how much it sticks up here. It's a lot, but at least no resin got inside.

Ground it down then sanded both sides to 100 grit, which would be where I'd stop if I were going to do a gloss coat over it, but since I'm painting it I'll probably go to 220 or 400. I just did to 100 to prep for the patch I'm going to put over the fin.

I sanded a little extra around it, to kind of make room for the patch of six ounce glass. The single fin box goes pretty deep, and takes out a good portion of the stringer on a pretty thin part of the board, so even though I've got a fin patch under this, I still wanted to do another little oval one over it.

And there it is, all taped off and glassed over. Now I just need to sand this down, blend it in with the board, then sand it all down, then paint, then gloss (maybe, I might just use an acrylic sealer of some kind). It doesn't matter anyway, because we'll never have waves again.

On another note, just finished Cormac McCarthy's The Road. If you haven't read it, read it. Such an overwhelmingly dark book, really makes you thankful for the sun. And a lot of other things we take for granted. Like food, water, air, and not being chased by cannibals. Oh, and not having to move constantly in cold, wet, frozen rags of shoes with all your belongings on your back or a broken down shopping cart. Really makes you thankful.