For my son - The Red Ninja Board

Swied · September 21, 2012, 7:43pm

Long before time had a name, Ninjago was created by the first Spinjitzu master, by using the four weapons of Spinjitzu: The Scythe of Quakes, The Nunchucks of Lightning, the Shurikens of Ice, and the Sword of Fire. The weapons were so powerful, that no one could handle all of their power at once. When he passed away, his two sons swore to protect them, but the oldest was consumed by darkness, and wanted to possess them. A battle between the brothers broke out, and the oldest was struck down and banished to the underworld. Peace returned, and the younger brother hid the weapons, but knowing his older brother's relentless ambition for power, he placed a guardian to protect them, and for fear of his own demise, a map for an honest man to hide. That honest man was Kai's father. The older brother is Lord Garmadon, and Sensei Wu, who is the younger brother, must find the Weapons before Garmadon. Since Garmadon cannot leave the Underworld, he has struck a deal with Samukai and his skeleton army. In preparation, Sensei Wu has gathered four young ninjas, Kai, Jay, Cole, and Zane, to learn the ways of Spinjitzu, and stop Lord Garmadon. After months of training, the four Ninja begin their quest to find the Golden Weapons of Spinjitzu to vanquish Garmadon's evil plans, and travel to the Caves of Despair to retrieve the Scythe of Quakes. After narrowly escaping a dragon protecting the weapon, the Ninja find the Nunchucks of Lightning and the Shurikens of Ice next, while the threat of Samukai's skeletal legions follows their path. Soon, Kai is lured into a trap at the Fire Temple by Lord Garmadon, and the skeletons steal the three weapons, but Sensei Wu detains his brother's plan to unite the weapons at the temple by traveling to the Underworld with the last weapon, the Sword of Fire. After allying themselves with the four Ninjago Dragons, they journey to the Underworld to help Sensei and stop Garmadon once and for all. Using the Tornado of Creation, they destroy the skeletons and make their way to the throne room of Garmadon's Dark Fortress, where a battle between Wu and Samukai breaks out for the possession of the four weapons. Soon, Sensei is defeated, and Samukai, having possession of all four weapons, betrays Garmadon and demands he obey him. But he is shortly destroyed by all the weapon's power, as Garmadon planned, and creates a portal through space and time that he travels through to grow strong enough to possess the Golden Weapons. After returning to the Surface World, Sensei Wu knows Garmadon will one day return, and that the battle for Ninjago has only begun.

Swied · September 21, 2012, 7:44pm

Swied · September 22, 2012, 2:58pm

This was my first time using a hotwire and it did not go without problems. At one point the hot wire hit a snag and stopped for a bit. The wire burned a gouge in the masonite templat which also gouged the EPS. You can see the markings below. The bottom picture shows my fix. I mixed some epoxy with microbaloons to fill in the gaps.

Swied · September 22, 2012, 3:30am

The inspiration for this board came from the following post.

http://www2.swaylocks.com/forums/shortboard-dimensions-kids?page=3

I used the rocker curve of the Hot Grom design that Surfding generously provided, but created my own profile.

Swied · September 22, 2012, 3:34am

Here are the construction photos of the masonite templates for the rocker curve. I started by making a single template and then spay glued another piece on top. I used a bandsaw to make them as close as possible, and then trimmed it up with a router.

Swied · September 22, 2012, 2:56pm

After trimming the templates with the router I separated them using a heat gun. I then attached them to the sides of the EPS foam block with some screws. This was a very wide block of foam (30 inches) that was left over from my double SUP build. I built a super wide hotwire harp just for this project.

Swied · September 22, 2012, 3:51am

I’ll post more photos tomorrow. I’m going into the garage to do some more work on the board now.

Swied · September 22, 2012, 3:02pm

I had planned on using Surfdings design for the profile. As I said above… I had problems with the hotwire. I had one other big problem. The foam at nose and tail ends was too thin. I had to take about and inch and a half off of each end, which made it really hard to use the measurements from Surfdings design. I tried blending the curves of my existing templates to make the shape. You can see all of my iterations in black ink below. I ended up using the middle line on the nose, and the rounded tail. The last six inches in the tail came from my Black Widow Hand Plane template.

Swied · September 22, 2012, 2:37pm

Here are some shots of the glassing process. My son asked for a red board like the Red Ninja. I think I did a pretty good job matching the color. Compare it to the color of the ninja eyes in the second post of this thread. I used a bunch of red pigment and few dabs of yellow pigment.

The fins are carbon fiber FCS fins that I got for free at on of Bill Thrailkills events. The side fins are G 3000x’s. I forget what the rear fin was called. I already sanded off the logo.

Swied · September 22, 2012, 2:41pm

Here’s a close-up picture of the fins. I used a belt sander to grind down the FCS tabs. I was afraid that the fins may be too big for the board, so I kept on grinding, and took an additional quarter in off the bottoms of each fin.

Swied · September 22, 2012, 2:49pm

Here are the fins right after I finished tacking them on with 5 minute epoxy. This process took a lot longer than I expected. I have had trouble in the past setting fins. This time I did only one fin at a time. I held each fin steady next to an angle tool until the epoxy hardened. It was soo boring standing there for so long, but the placements came out perfect.

Swied · September 22, 2012, 2:54pm

My son came in to inspect my progress right after the previous picture was taken. He was a little upset that his board looked pink. I assured him that it would turn red again after the final gloss coat.

Thats all the pictures that i have for now. I now need to sand the fins, and gloss each side. My son is going to do the artwork himself with Poska pens.

llilibel03 · September 22, 2012, 5:41pm

Looking good. Ready in time for Swayholics?

Question- why did you decide against just installing FCS plugs?

Swied · September 22, 2012, 10:26pm

My plan is to bring it up to Plaskett.

Three reasons for doing glass-ons:

The fins looked a little big for the board. It’s only 4’ 9" long and 16" wide. I ground them down quite a bit after removing the tabs.
I was unemployed when I started building the board and didn’t want to spend any additional money on it. The fins were free so I just made due with what I had available.
Most importantly… I wanted the board to be ready for Plaskett. I have never install FCS plugs before, and I didn’t want to delay the completion date figuring out how to do the installation.

doyle · September 23, 2012, 7:43am

Haha, this is great. My boys are Ninjago fanatics.

chrisp · September 23, 2012, 3:00pm

Lookin’ good Swied!!!

You’re son is STOKED!

Swied · September 23, 2012, 3:31pm

He’s super stoked. I told him that he could do the artwork on the bottom of the board. I have a box of Poska pens for him to use. He’s been practicing every day in anticipation of me finishing the board for him to start the artwork phase.

chrisp · September 23, 2012, 4:21pm

Very cool!

From experience it’s tough to keep them from draggin their little arms / hands across what they just drew and smudging it.

Swied · September 29, 2012, 3:02am

Here are some picture of the finished board.

yaar43 · September 29, 2012, 3:23am

Way to go Dad, very cool!

Nice red