My fiance surprised me Saturday at eight am by coming home from garage sale shopping with this board. She bought it for five dollars!
Since I’m working on my first board, she told me that she figured I could use it to practice glassing. She said I should reglass it and ‘make it pretty’…
Unfortunately (for her)… the glass is actually in really good shape (except for easily fixed dings in the tail and nose)… I told her that while I’d love some practice glassing, I don’t want any practice un-glassing Plus, who’d want to destroy such amazing artwork!
Anyways… my first thought was that it might make a good fish, but after measuring it up the wide point is way too far back. Also, the template is growing on me. I’m gonna fix the dings and see how she goes…
Dimensions are 5’11"x19 5/8"x3"… 15" tail, 12 1/4" nose… rocker’s pretty flat through the middle with flip in the nose… very much like a fish.
The label is ‘M&M Surf Designs’… shaper ‘Vartanian’… serial number 217.
I know it’s not as pretty or unique as the boards we’re used to seeing on swaylocks, but I’m excited so I figured I’d share
By the way… what was the motivation behind all of these boards I see that were painted with some sort of white marine paint during the 80’s? I was thinking about sanding it off, but man is that stuff thick!
ah- yard sale boards- a subject i actually know something about. my queen found a brewer bat tail knee board at a neighborhood yard sale, i have found all sorts of $10 winners. fun fun fun. i’ll try and take a yard sale quiver shot soon.
I got a 7 foot semi gun for free at a garage sale…single fin late 70s model I think…plastic fantastic is the name on it…Anyone know anything about the company…got it this summer haven’t got a chance to surf it yet…will post a pic later
The stuff on the deck looks like a coating of solar-rez probably to cover all of the dents. Glassing is about 20% resin time + 80% sanding time, and this is a good project to practice sanding. If you want to cover up everything, sand the whole thing down with 80 grit until you just start seeing the weave (this will keep the weight down). You’ll probably have to angle and tip the sander to get in all the deck dents after you sand off whatever’s on there. You can leave the fins in if they’re not loose. Fill in all of dings, dents, etc with a stiff mix of resin/cabosil, sand, repeat until smooth. An opaque, 4 oz cut-lap lam on each side will hide everything. You can do two colors if you want. Many pigments are not truly opaque. Always test it to see just how opaque it is. You can add white or black (watch the black amounts!) pigments to get it really opaque. If you leave the fins in, just slit the cloth for them before you trim the outline on the bottom lam, but mask them about 1" from the bottom so that you won’t have to sand them much later. Clear hotcoat, sand to 400, matte acrylic spray if you want, and it will look new. I always have a least two of these trash/garage sale projects going on all the time and just integrate the work with new boards and repairs.
Thanks for the tip! I’ll likely do exactly that. It hadn’t occurred to me that I could lam it without sanding all the way to foam… but it makes perfect sense.
Great… I guess it will be helpful as glassing practice after all… and the fiance will be very happy about the prospect of it getting a lot less ugly
Howzit fisch, By the late 70’s Plastic was owned by Bob Highsmith who bought the name in the early to mid 70’s from Gary Thurnagle. After the Plastic factory in H.B. burned down in 1970 I used to go with Gary to Bob’s surf shop ( South Coast Surfboards ) and he would sell Bob Plastic laminates and Bob would have them put on his boards. Gary did this to finance making honey comb hollow boards under the name Aquatic Energy. Aloha,Kokua
Plus, who’d want to destroy such amazing artwork!
