My latest project: Balsa sandwich experiment

Few pages worth of photos…



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Thats one fine looking board! Whats the other type of wood? How do manage to get such a good shine. I definantly don’t have the touch.

Big thanks to…

Meecrafty for kind and solid words of advice.

Swaylock for the site.

Bert for getting everyone inspired.

Benny for the original 15$ blank thread that got me started.

Greg for the resin.

Mitch for the boxes and fins.

Oneula for taking on way too many projects at once, which gave me faith to finish at LEAST one.

George Vergette for being my thrid and fourth hands and finally

Silvana for putting up with hours of me lurking in the basement.

and of course, anyone else along the way here who answered any of my posts or questions…

It’s gonna cure for a week and then get shredded in hopefully decent surf on Turkey Weekend up here in the GWN.

BTW; the Canadian Maple is analogous to a Boston Cream donut…except with maple glaze instead of chocolate. Man, I miss the fish tacos of San Diego…but a post surf Canadian Maple almost comes close. Bob n’ Doug would approve.

Cheers,

G



wicked board mate

love it every thing about it really.

thats a big leash loop

not only is GWN a superb board builder, but as you can tell from his words, he’s also a really really good guy…congrats man!

now go get some surf molecule man!

regards

wow

hey G, hope u dont mind but i thought i’d post my latest on your thread…here are a couple of pics…so strange tho, the rocker pic doesnt look anything like the live in your face shot… ???..im in love with the foil and bottom curve for sure…looks like low rocker but its actually 2 5/8+ tail R…my eyes/mind must be playing tricks on me again…

Beautiful board! Is that resin swirl over wood on the bottom?

What’s it weigh?

What can I say about a board like that, except:

“Take OFF, eh?”

Ya hoser.

Beauty.

nutZ! Server glitch, either on that end, or this end, just made my last response disappear!

Quick run down…board designed on ASP3000; a blending of templates from the Rusty Quad up on the Transworld Surf site and my Rusty C5 by Bill Johnson, now of Teqoph (pronounced Take Off!), so Keith, you’re bang on in so many ways. Templates spat out on the PDF format, then translated to Illustrator and printed in full size before being transferred to masonite for hotwire guides. Man…having those full sized rail sliced to determine my railband cuts was AWESOME.

1.4# eps. Completely shaped, rails, bottom and everything. Sealed with spackle and afterwards, roller applied layer of epoxy (1.5oz/side). 3/8" x 3/8" x 4’ semi stringers running down centreline (1) and at angles towards rails (2; those ones are only 3’ long) so that they all stop in the middle of my stance. Fitted in to countersunk lines cut with router; set in with epoxy and q-cell (no glass) in the vacuum bag and planed fair with a spokeshave after cure. Fin positions set, partially according to McKee, ovals routed out and 3/32" balsa ovals fit in as reinforcment to spread finbox load; set with q-cell/epoxy again. No bag needed. 3/32" balsa butted, cut with outline templates, lammed with 4 oz and vac bagged for deck wood.

Bottom; resin swirl on 6 oz set at 45 +/- with pure pigments ground in to epoxy by yours truly (pigments from Danielsmith.com ; you can see the seams cuz I didn’t trim the cloth edges :(…know for next time. ) Squeegeed clean and then a dry layer of 4 oz (at 45 +/-) applied with a roller such that the resin saturated through from bottom. Hit any real dry spots with a little bit more rollered resin and all in a vac bag to let the vacuum saturate the rest of the glass. Both layers fully lapped to the wood.

Used the “proud” line of the balsa on the deck (not countersunk) to get a nice smooth cutlap and sanded the balsa down so that it was fair with the rail countour. Applied 2.5" wide 4oz tape patch along balsa/glass junction, 6 oz patch under front and rear foot, laid down logos/lams and covered it all with a freelap 6oz layer. Deck didn’t get vacuum; too lazy ;).

Sanded any high spots in the glass, blew it clean, then hotcoated after wiping with toluene. RR hotcoat on the deck, EX-74 hotcoat on the bottom. Installed finboxes. Ground finboxes down, sanded hotcoat almost right down to weave. Pinlined with Kroma Colour acrylics (very high pigment load = thin application) and 3M Trimline tape (thanks Shwuz). Leash loop installed.

Heavy glosscoat with EX-74, with a bit of Additive F, 3% toluene and some “interference” pigments in copper and gold for lustre. Glad it was heavy; I’ve only spotted two pinholes, so I’m pretty sure I’m water tight. Finish is “as is”; there’s some dust bunnies that I’ll probably wetsand out and then polish on the bottom. Rails are fine and deck is just gonna get waxed anyways.

Lessons; Heatgun is your friend for removing air bubbles…a couple of quick passes and you’ll see them rise to the surface and burst…very rewarding, especially when glossing/hotcoating. Masking tape is the devil; electrical tape is the goods (Thanks Hicksy and Chip for mentioning this in the fin mold thread). Don’t get overzealous with the resin when setting your boxes…it just means more work. Vacuum bagging is easy, fun, can save ALOT of time and can make a botched lap lie flat. Furthermore, bags are FREE…what? Free? Yeah…next time you’re at home depot, have a look for a stand with string and such for tying up your purchase to your car; chances are there will be a long roll of tubular poly for wrapping luber up with…believe me when I tell you it’s burly and flexi enough for bagging and that it happens to be just the right width. My new random orbital from Bosch is the BUSINESS as it’s got rotary capabilities in one setting for fast material removal, but it doesn’t leave swirls, I can change the pads (need to get some softies) and it’s damn near dust free with the shop vac in use, which is awesome as my workspace is only 6’3" tall and about 150 sq. feet, houses 4 bikes, the rest of my quiver, snowboards inclusive and our washer and dryer. It’s clean enough that my landlady who lives upstairs and shares the space doesn’t mind…actually…she’s pretty stoked about the boards too!

Weight is undetermined; more than 4 pounds as that’s where the kitchen scale tops out. I would say it’s in the same close range as the 6’8" Johnson pu/pe I grabbed templates from. That said, I like to ere on the side of heft rather than ultralight…there’s alot of floating logs and rocks in the lineups in the PNW and ultralight boards have very short lifespans. Better heavier and surfing than busted, on the beach and bummed I say. Prolly in the 7-7.5# range. Feels…good. Solid. Buttery rail contours.

Again, wanna thank Meecrafty for his counsel and others for their help along the way. Not bad for board number three. Still though, with what I’m going to see this weekend, I’m wishing I’d upped the priority on the 7’4" gun project.

http://www.stormsurf.com/cgi-bin/4cast.cgi?ID=enp.46132

http://www.stormsurf.com/4cast/mht/pacnw.html

That’s 22ft at 20 seconds for my first surf in a month on Saturday morning. Something tells me I’ll be looking for shelter…

Cheers,

G

I love it… I’m thinking of doing a board black w/ a white stripe down the back just like ‘Hosehead’ from the movie. That’s a sweet board. I know I’ll be checking my home depot for that bagging stuff… Hope Tofino goes off well for you… Had some sweet surfs there this summer right off the side of the rockpile on Long Beach using a beater board… Joel