A Fool and His Fin

    Had a good surf on Thursday morning. It was my second time out on the mini-Simmons, and this swell was much more powerful than last week, the lines at WJ were connecting for so long, w/ the best rides, at least for me, coming just outside of the Rockpile and heading south. Was having tons of fun, but then, for some reason, I went to take off on a pretty nice wave, and the tail just slid right out from under my feet. I knew right away: a fin's gone. And it was. That's the second time I've made box fins that they have gone missing during a surf, which is discouraging. The first time I knew the reason, they were cedar-core, which is a soft wood, but I thought the glass would help it. This time, they were all fiberglass, so I thought they'd last, but something must have given, because the set screws were still set, so the glass must have broken. Real bummer, because even though I planned on trying out different fins in the future, I would have liked to test these a bit more. Plus, I liked the yellow/blue color scheme. Oh well, I've got some FCS FK-2's coming, which I think might be a little small, with only a 7" base, but they were cheap (used) and if they don't work for this they'll work for future projects. That's it for now.

Ayler  - Omega is Alpha
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      One of  my favorite jazz musicians, Albert Ayler, playing one of my favorite songs of his, "Omega is the Alpha," off of his Live from the Village Vanguard album. Really wild stuff, it can suck you in.

      Another one of my favorites of his, "Spirits Rejoice." However, this version isn't as good as others I've heard, but I can't find any others, and it's 9 AM on a beautiful Saturday morning, so I'm not going to sit on the computer any longer. TAKE IT EASY.

Technical Difficulties

     Apologies for the technical difficulties with the previous posts. For some reason on my computer, I can't see certain images on blogger, both on my site and others. And when I go to post, sometimes the image I add doesn't show up. I thought these images were just lost, but for some reason they were there, but didn't shrink down. So that's what happened. I found out when I was showing my Mom how to use the internet and showed her this blog, and discovered the disaster. If anyone knows what is wrong with my blogger interface, please let me know.

     Rain day on Wednesday, so I worked on the board a while. Attached some more foam to fill in areas that needed it. The shaping is almost finished, and the "blank" has foam from five (5) different sources at this point. Also layed up the fin panel, above, to make the keels out of. I'm not going to make the "traditional" Mini-Simmons "half-moon" keels, and I'm not going to make traditional keels, like the Gepharts that are on my fish, but I'm going to make keels that are more rounded over, like a lot of the mini-Simmons boards are getting. I figure in the future I might make the half-moon keels, just to see how they feel.

     After blowing over 30 from the South all day long, the storm blew through around 3:00 PM and the wind switched hard West, so Frank and I headed over. It was big, definitely overhead, but mostly closeouts. Still, I saw some that were rideable. Frank didn't, he had the sense to stay on shore. So at around 3:45 I paddled out and Frank stuck around to take pictures and make sure I didn't get trounced (too badly).

     I had my 5'7" Quad, and knew once I was out that I was under-boarded. I would've liked my 6'0 Cannibal to be able to get into the waves a little earlier, because I just couldn't get into them in time to make the sections.

     The drift was unbelievable and soon, after a couple of good wipeouts and being caught inside for a massive five-wave set, I was in a section where none of the waves were makeable, just big walls of water. Didn't get a ride before it got dark, which bummed me because I can't remember the last time I got no waves during a session. Still, pretty amazing sky with the storm blowing out to sea and the clouds looking like a time-lapse film. Worth it? I think so...

     Oh yeah! Also, Jeannine and I got engaged during that gap of time when I didn't post much. That's her finger with the ring on it, not mine. Now the planning, which everyone claims is hard but I think is probably pretty. We'll see.


     Well, it's December, which means it's the Christmas season. Which means, it's the Christmas music season. I love Christmas music, and you should too. So, it's kind of ironic that the first Christmas song of the season I post isn't technically a Christmas song, although it is found on Phil Spector's A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector, which, it could be argued, is the best Christmas album. I don't make top 10 lists or anything, but it would definitely be in my top 10. Anyway, this song, Bob B. Soxx & the Blue Jeans' "The Bells of St. Mary," is the third track on said album. Enjoy it, because you really can't help but do so. Expect more from this album throughout the Holiday season.

004 Completed!

     Well, I just finished SF 004 about 20 minutes ago. Actually, that's kind of false, I still have to grind little notches in the fins to serve as landings for the screws to push against, but 1 AM is kind of late for that kind of noise. Otherwise, it's done.

     It was nice not doing a gloss this time. It saved a lot of work, a lot of weight, and not to mention I think a shortboard sometimes just feels nicer with a sanded hotcoat finish instead of a gloss. I sanded it down to 320. I was going to go further, but then I didn't.

     I'm really excited to try this board out and see how it goes. I think it will catch waves really well and ride them even better. I'm really siked about that wide tail, and the adjustable fins.

      And speaking of the fins, here they are. I'm really pleased with how they came out, even if they did take forever. They could have been better, but of course the whole board could have been better, but I'm satisfied. Well, maybe I speak too soon, I haven't ridden it yet....
     Bu yeah, so it's late, and I'm off to bed. Hopefully we'll be getting some swell this weekend, it looks like Saturday might be good. Can't wait to try the board out. Next up on the build list is Mark's board, and fortunately I just got the five gallons of resin and 25 yards of cloth I ordered today, so the sky's the limit (acually, time is the limit). Alright, goodnight.

Soon No. 2

 

     So, it's been a while. The board is coming along. The fin boxes are in, the bottom is sanded, and the leash cup is in. I've been working on the fins, as seen above (also, see below).

     Here is one of them, foiled w/ the lam coat on them. I've since notched the base out for the screws, so all that they're waiting on is a touching up, then a hotcoat, then a final sanding, then a gloss/sealer (which I'll probably do with Krylon acrylic gloss spray paint, because A) it's easier and B) it still looks really good and C) did I mention it will be easier?). Making these fins has been really fun, but it has also been really, really time consuming. I think it's taken as much time to make these fins as it has taken me to do the whole board. Maybe. Part of it is my fault: when I milled the rough panels with the surface planer, I didn't make them thin enough to fin in the boxes when they had a few layers of glass on them (three layers on the inside, two on the outside), so I had to do extra work to get them down to the right thickness. Even so, it's a time consuming process. But it's way cheaper (the wood was free, the cloth is cutoffs, and there isn't that much resin to a fin) not too mention I learn more about fin design by doing it than by buying a set of $75.00 fins. Still, if I had bought fins I'd be surfing this board tomorrow.

     But I'm not, so oh well. It will without a doubt be ready by the supposed small swell forecast for this Saturday. Either way, I'll take it in the Ocean, waves or no waves.

      And for music today, a little bit of a downer, but a beautiful song nonetheless. "Please Stay," the ninth track from Warren Zevon's 2003 (and final) album, The Wind. The album was recorded as Zevon knew he was dying of throat cancer, which when kept in mind makes this song, and the entire album, all the more poignant. There are many softer songs in which the devastatingly heartbreaking reality of death rings through every word and wrenches at the listener: the oft-repeated phrase in the song "don't go, please stay" really tears at you when you consider that at that point in his life the going was forever, and the staying was impossible. This album is full of songs that make you confront death and the goodbyes that come with it. Zevon's version of "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" stands out among the countless artists who have previously covered this song, because he really was.
     But there are also some of the finest and rawest rock and roll songs of Zevon's career on this album, with which he achieves the perfect balance between the crushingly necessary contemplation on one's mortality and the viewpoint that yeah, we're going to die, but so what? Zevon always had a sardonic rebellious streak to his music, especially in his more rocking songs, and they are at their peak here.

     "Disorder in the House," a scathingly satirical stab at the government and all that comes with it. Bruce Springsteen does back-up vocals on this one, as well as a phenomenal lead guitar, and it sounds like they may have practiced it once before recording. The song comes off so raucously raw, with each banged and bent string sending the signal: "Yeah, maybe everything's gone to Hell, maybe everything's corrupt and falling apart, but who cares? As long as we've got tube amps and telecasters and rock and roll."
     So, yeah, I've got to wake up in less than five hours to surf (hopefully), so time for bed. But before I sign off I've got recommend one thing: Listen to Warren Zevon's The Wind, and listen to every track not only with the fact that he knew he was dying in mind, but the fact that you are dying too. The experience will be that much more enriching, and you'll be the better for it.

 

That's one upset little toad.

A new home, a new board, and no waves!

     As most of you probably already know, this past week Jeannine and I bought the above house. It is blue and located in Tuckerton. In the bottom left you can get a glimpse of the future headquarters of Strange Flora, not too mention whatever projects I'm in the midst of. So I've been busy with the house stuff for the most part, which is pretty fun. Rebuilding the old wooden windows that need it should be interesting, and fixing up the shed to be a shaping/glassing room on one side and a wood shop on the other will a nice challenge, as far as getting the most out of the space provided.

     BUT just because I haven't been posting, don't assume there hasn't been any activity on the surfboard construction front. On Thursday night, I glassed the flats of the fin panels, as the are going to be single-foil. They're looking pretty nice, I can't wait to start foiling them.

     Also, tonight I decided to do the first lam coat. I was just intending to get the board ready for glassing tomorrow morning, but as I did that, I got an energy boost, so I did it. It came out not bad. I'm excited to get this board done, of course I don't see the point since we don't get any waves anymore.

     Yeah, so it's been an exciting couple of days, with a lot more excitement to come as we move into our new home. Hopefully I'll get to do the other lam tomorrow morning, and then maybe, just maybe, the first hotcoat tomorrow evening. But I don't know about that. What I do know is that it's 2:52 in the AM, it's raining outside, and I'm tired. Good night.

oh oh four

     Basically finished shaping 004 this evening. There are some minor adjustments that need to be made, but I'm going to wait and do the final final sanding right before I glass, because I know I'll just keep on messing with it if I go near it with a piece of sandpaper before then. I already started to go at it too much today, but I refrained and called it quits for the night.

     It should be a fun board, definitely a lot of foam. I picked up the fin boxes from Greenlight in Philly on Saturday, along with two (2) blanks: one for Mark's board, and one for Ryan's. It'll be cool making theirs (hopefully) very soon after I finish this one, instead of there being a couple months in between.

     I've also been up to this the past couple days: four cedar panels for four wood fins. I laid up the panels out of seven 3/4" strips, and then I surface planed them today. They came out really flat and it should be fun making the fins for the Probox system. I'm really excited to be able to experiment with fin placement without having to make a whole new board. Plus, these will be pretty cheap, and I've got plenty more cedar if I want to experiment further (double foiled fronts and/or rears, smaller rear trailers, a Canard Quad Cutaway setup, etc.). I hope to begin glassing this week. I've just got to finalize the decal for the board, which I think I'm going to do right now.

     P.S. - There is a type of bird I've been hearing a lot lately, and it has the most sing-songy carefree birdsong I think I've ever heard. I laugh every time I hear it. Once I am able to identify said bird, I'll share it with all you bird-lovers out there.

Some Fins

 

     Glassed some fins last night and hotcoated one side, the other side still has to be hotcoated. I also glassed the flats of the two rear quad fins for the 002 experiment, but they still have to be cut out and foiled. I'm not sure how these fins will hold up because they are made of plywood. I mean, plywood is pretty strong when it comes down to it, and these have two layers of 6 oz. on each side, but still. I'm not so concerned with the Spitfire type fin, because that's the full 9-ply, but with the Future Hatchet fin I had to sand it down to about 5-ply, which should still be good. I'm wondering about the attachment points of the Hatchet because it gets so thin there, and there is a lot of force on those points, but I cut the notches bigger than they needed to be, and I'm going to fill it in solid with resin and little bits of glass, that way it's something stronger than plywood that the screw is pushing against and the bar of the box fits into. It's funny, after I started making the Hatchet fin, a set of Future Scimitar fins with the 450 Hatchet were posted to Craigslist, brand new, for $30 bucks. Still, these plywood fins are cheap to make. The 24" x 30" piece of marine ply I am using cost $11.99, and I think I can probably get at least 30 fins out of one panel, so that's about 40 cents a fin. The cloth I used for these are all scraps, and I think I've used less than five ounces of resin so far. So they're real cheap. A little more time consuming than going out and buying them, but it's fun and I feel like I learn a lot by making them. When you handle something and sand down all the curves, it kind of gives you a sense of how the water will flow over the surface. Trying to envision that as I make it kind of gives me a better understanding of the way all this stuff works. Not to mention, with the Probox finboxes I plan on using on my next board, I can make all three fins, since all the bases are straight (unlike Futures, which have the cant built into the fins), so then I'll be having even more fun. Did I mention it's cheaper too?

     

     In other (and pretty huge) news, this large shed will probably be the future home of  Strange Flora surfboards. Stay tuned for more details. 

     I was listening to the radio while glassing this stuff last night at around 3 AM, and my buddy Alice Cooper told me he was about to play a song so deep from the archives that I wouldn't believe I was hearing it on the radio. "Try me, Alice," I thought. Then, after he told me that he used to live off the song he was about to play, he introduced it: "Astronomy Domine," the 1st track from Pink Floyd's 1967 debut LP The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. Now, if your familiar with me or this blog, then you know that I kind of love Pink Floyd. Sometimes their first album is my absolute favorite of theirs, and without a doubt this early time in the life of the band is my favorite. Their live experimentation was phenomenal in the years leading up to Dark Side of the Moon. Don't get me wrong, I love Dark Side..., but live during that time they'd play pretty much the same sets, the album through followed by a couple older gems, which is understandable because it's an amazing album that should be heard straight through every time and they were touring to support it. But early on in their career, their live shows were like a blank canvas that they spattered with songs, noises, and sound effects blended to perfection. Some of the bootlegs I have are really amazing, you can just get lost in them.  

     Yeah, so this video is from probably '67 or '68, and starts off with "Astronomy Domine," followed by "Flaming" and "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun." While there's not that much experimentation here based on the fact that the songs are pretty similar to the album versions, it's cool to see them make the music live that they achieved in the studio. Enjoy.

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.