I was looking for projects to do during the shutdown- shitshow. As things turned out I only missed three days of work so far and the beach in San Francisco never shut down. Nice to be Essential I guess.
I wanted to take my time and made a board to travel to South Africa with that would handle some size- work in about anything.
I took an old 8’2" SurfBlanks Australia blank and added a 5/8 Redwood stringer to make a Californian Fun Gun.
The original outline was an 8’+ shape, but I figured if I cut the nose off I could fit two boards in my 7’10" board bag. This is where things got ugly. It now looks a little Ass backwards… Ugly but all good.
I decided to try to cover up my lack of esthetic & shaping skills with some paint colors as per my normal boards. I could not find any white paint so I mixed house paint primer- Eazy 123 primer with some nautical blue acrylic paint. After thinning it out with water I put it on the board with a foam brush.
Thanks guys. My trip to SA is a bit off the rails at this point. I was supposed to go in July, but it’s looking more like tourism’s going to start in September-October.
My only real hard choice was what to do on the fin setup.I have been ridding mostly Twinzers for the last few years, but I have had a few great thrusters around this size. I looked through my notes an wrote down 10 different boards fin setups that I like in the mid length range.
l decided to try a neighbor’s board that I had fixed last year. It was a 7’10" Jeff Clark Twinzer from the 90’s. That board was a copy of a shortboard board he had made for another neighbor Grant Washburn. I’m 6’2" and Grant makes me look small. The board was made from a gun blank cut down to get a blown up big guy version of a Twinzer. My board is a little narrower in the tail, but pretty close to the same rocker and size.
I took his board out in head&1/2+ lumpy bumpy Ocean Beach and it was a blast! Now the fun part is that Jeff Clark had put the Canrd fins in asymmetrical -1/4" differences from heel and toe side. My neighbor had also replaced a broken Rainbow fin with another more upright twin fin. I tried putting the current Rainbow Twinzer fins in and it wasn’t as fun- electric feeling. I also got pounded and broke my leash… good old OB.
I decided to shape some G10 fins to match the more upright back side twin fin. I also found a company that is in R&D working on 3D printing an adjustable single plug for Twinzers. Problem solved…
The Live3Mind company graciously offered to send me a pair to test out. They made normal single and double plugs at custom cant angles from 0- 22%. Pretty cool for concave boards and bottom curves.
I decided to go with epoxy and 2x 6oz warp on the deck and one layer of 6oz warp on the bottom with patches over the fins. I also did a little resin panel logo on the bottom. The board feels pretty light for the size, I’m pretty cheep and try to use as little resin as possible…
