Board done and ridden at long last.

General Discussion
1

Here is my finished board at last. It took me over a year I recon.

The shaping only took 4 hours but the glassing and sanding took forever. The glass job is still very

bodgy but it’s my first one and I have learn’t a lot.

It is a stringerless, M grade EPS (about 1.5 lb I think), double 6 ounce top and single bottom with largish overlapping laps.

I used pumps to measure the Epoxy and mixed it in small plastic drinking cups. This worked well, I didn’t spill very much

and didn’t have much waste.

I didn’t heat the resin or heat the blank. I should have done this as I did get air a few air bubbles.

Leash loop was harder than I thought. Got glass and resin everywhere.

I did put a air vent in it. Not sure if I needed too but I thought I would put one in just in case.

All I did was spray some olive oil on a stainless steel screw then stick it in a blob of epoxy glue. When it hardened i just

undid the screw sanded back the blob a bit, drilled a hole in the board and glued the blob into the board.

I then put a O-ring under the screw. Pretty simple. It’s worked so far. No leeks as yet.

I glued the fins on with the same epoxy glue with a bit of a fillet around them. (This was a mistake).

I painted over the dodgy glass job with boat paint (which went on quite nice) and drew a picture with a permanant marker. Job done. (so I thought)

I have only surfed it a couple of times but I am very happy with it.

Everyone talks about how good a feeling it is to ride a board that you have made yourself.

This is true it’s great but what tops it off even more is that it rides like how I wanted it to ride when I was designing it.

All the research I’ve done on swaylocks has paid off. It may not have a pro finish glass job but it rides sweet.

I have never ridden a fish before and they do have a few quirks but I like em.

That smooth speedy cutback feeling is great. It’s like it has a motor on the back.

I was a bit concerned about the fins and if they were foiled ok but they went fine.

That is until one fell off. Yeah just gluing then on with epoxy is not strong enough. I knew it was a risk but I thought I would try it. At least it didn’t rip the glass off so it shouldn’t be too hard to fix. I lost the other fin so I’ll have to make another set. Not looking forward to sanding the paint off.

Thanks to everyone on Sways.

Cheers, JD

2

the fin fell off…that is classic.

board looks killer - paint job is a beaut!

3

nice art work

“but the fin fell off” thats classic

4

Hey how goes it …

Are you in Gymea Australia, as in the shire ???

If so … will look out for you and your board in the water

Happy dayzzzzzz

W

5

Yeah guys the fin fell off. I wasn’t riding it at the time. I gave one of my mates a go so I could get an unbiased opinion.

He said he felt it fall off while he was riding it. They felt pretty solid but it goes to show how much force is on the fins.

Yeah foamhead I’m in the shire.

I haven’t got to ride the board at Cronulla yet. I went up to Port Mac for a week and then had a surf at down at

Burning Palms on Saturday which is where the fin fell off.

I’ll post a few more pics when I get them off my mate. No action shots as the surf was pretty good so no one wanted to take pics.

Cheers,

JD

6

Mate…

At least the board would have been lighter walking out of “Burning Palms”

It’s a long way up and back to the cars !!!

W

7

Yeah I was bolting up the track as I was late for work.

It’s a magic place though.

Thats another thing I forgot to mention. Even with the big wooden keels the board is really light.

I was a bit worried about that but so far it has held up ok.

But man my arm was killing anyway as it’s 22" wide. Go Go Gorilla arms…