One last look at bottom contours before glassing. I won’t know how the board goes until it goes, but shaping the bonzer is a lot of fun- flat first 2 feet, to single in the middle, to doubles one third up from the tail, to vee last 6". The vee was not intentional. I don’t know if the Brothers bonzers have vee, but mine came as a result of flowing the outside rail line. I didn’t want a dip in the rail line where the concaves come out the tail.
The concaves look exagerrated. The single is actually a hair less than 1/8", the doubles are 3/16", definitely more than I would put in a standard thruster. We’ll see…
I’ve never really studied other people’s butt cracks…maybe next time I see a butt carack I’ll have to study it more carefully,maybe even run my hands over it…
So as far as mine own butt crack…I’m going by intuition and unconsciously stored info.
I’m not sure how I’m going to get the tail block piece in. On my last board I used koa because I wanted a piece of Hawaii in the board, but it was pretty heavy.There’s nothing square back there to line the saw blade up with. I think it’s going to be , “cut, shape, fit, shape, fit, shape, fit, shape, fit…”
Hey llilibel Great project… After a coulple of holow boards I am going to try a few compsands… How did you clamp on your rails, Vac bag or clamps? And did you say you used 5min. epoxy for the rails? I bought some paulowina from that co. in Ga. But it really didnt look to great. Your board looks great!!!
Maybe it was a sign from the great shaper in the sky…
I’m so into this work I had even forgone lunch, something that would not be an option were my wife around (she’s Italian and for them food in a sacred ritual…no fast food, no sitting in front of the tv…but everyone at the table as soon as the pasat is al dente, with table cloths, wine and bread…). Anyways, I was preparing my inlay/logo/vent plug suprise combo. At a certain point I dropped the piece of abalone I was cutting. I started looking for it. Couldn’t find it. I started moving machinery, lifting carpets, trying to imagine where it could have rolled to? I was going nuts. “Things do not disappear,” I kept telling myself. I was literally pulling my hair. Then, after a good ten minutes of frustration I found the piece in the pocket of the apron I was wearing.
OK.
So, everything’s good again. Inlayed the abalone. No problems. I’m getting ready to cut the hole for the plug. I need a 1" hole saw but the smallest hole saw I have is 1-1/8" (for fcs install). I know, I’ll just use the router. So I carefully set the depth and start slowly dropping it through the wood and…ZIP. Faster than I could say “F#@*!” it ripped into my inlay. I was routing into the high density foam. I didn’t think it would grab. Even high density foam should just cut like air with a router, right? Not.
So after a minute of expletive deleteds I calm down. A former boss, master woodworker had a saying, “You can fix anything.” So now I got to figure out how to fix this thing.
OK. Today was damage control. My mistake? Try to cut the full depth of the plug (5/8") in one shot. If I’d done a 1/4" at a time it might not have ripped. Anyways deciding what to do wasn’t that hard- I’d just make the black circle bigger. It’ll make sense when I’m done. It was supposed to be like the “shotokan” karate symbol, but now looks like a lunar eclipse.
I was able to put a little bit of Hawaii into the board with the nose block and also decided to put two little tail blocks in. There was something weird going on with the tail block anyways (having to do with the one band of balsa hidden under the deck ala Benny- thanks Benny). Besides, those swallows are ding magnets but now they’ll be protected (koa is very hard).
I filed the nose block to a super sharp point. I was thinking this little Hawaiian spear will discourage would be shoulder hoppers better than the Nanakuli death stare. On second thought, it would also discourage me from pulling into crash tubes which is about all we get where I live.
So, tonight I’m going to put on the bottom glass. can’t wait to see that wood grain come alive!
Ever had a moment of total panic while making a surfbord?
I have to imagine it’s pretty common.
Mine came tonight as I lammed the bottom. I used a 2.75 cloth (from Thayercraft). It seemed unusaully white and shiny and a little bit stiff. I measured out a smallish amount of resin and went to it. After a while it became apparent that there were folds in the cloth under the lap that just would not come out and would not stick down to the board. A lot of them. Everywhere. “Oh f&^% me!” Because of the tight weave of the cloth I could not work them out with my finger, nor with a brush or squeegee. That’s when I started to panic. I started imagining all sort of extreme fix it scenarios. Finally, thank god, it occured to me to make relief cuts. I had to make a small relief cut about every 3-6 inches. but that seemed to solve the problem. Whew.
Now I can stand back and admire the grain and color (went from light tan to deep golden).
By the way, the pic of the logo is how the logo should have been on the deck, too. The idea was to hide the vent plug. OM is the sound of the universe. M is the first letter in my last name and the boards I made in high school were called “Morninglass.” I had toyed with the idea of going back to my high school roots but then I came on this idea to hide the vent plug.
Deck is lammed. On the deck I used 3.2 oz. It was so much easier to use than the 2.74. It behaved like normal cloth. No need for relief cuts. Because it was so much harder to work I doubt I had any weight savings using the 2.74 on the bottom.
There is one piece of wood (the one that was harder and didn’t bond well initially) that is so much darker it looks out of place. I should have used it in the middle as a “stringer”. Or not used it at all. It’s a beautiful piece of wood but just anomalous.
There’s also the rail shot Silly asked for a long time ago. For me they feel pretty knifey. I went to a surf shop over the weekend and felt some boards. My rails felt like the really chippy 6’-1"s, not like the 6’-6"s.
Way back when, when I was first investigating and considering doing a compsand I saw your walnut board. So nice. And then I saw your pics of putting on the bender ply with masking tape and thought, “Hey, I could do that.” So thanks for sharing. Your board was a big inspiration.
What’s next? You mean after the fin box, the side runners, the leash loop, the hotcoat, the sanding and possibly the gloss? I’m supposed to be making paintings for an exhibition I have in November. I’m way behind, but I couldn’t function mentally until I got this board out of my head.
Scot, The real testing of the board will probably have to wait until the winter, unless some big souths come through. Didn’t really happen last year. I think everyone in So Cal hopes it will be better this year.
Kendall- Never worked in the movie biz. A lot of people say that about my artwork (www.jeffmatsuno.blogspot.com for more). But one guy who actually worked in the movie biz and knows my work (and my working method) said I would hate it. My artwork is meant to be scrutinized even from up close. Plus I work meticulously and slowly (which is why I’m a little stressed- I don’t know if I’ll have enough paintings for the show in November). Instead, the entertainment biz is all about a quick pan and brief glimpses (the detail does not have to hold up to scrutiny) and you a have to work really fast. Not my style. I wouldn’t mind the money but it’s never really come my way…
But I digress…
Back to the board. Installed fin box tonight. Good thing I didn’t shape the board another 1/8" thinner! I would have routed through the deck! I think I got it squared away pretty good, used a level and a plumb line on the wall ( a trick I saw in bud808’s posts…thanks bud).
I went for a surf this PM. Wind swell, head high, sunny, me and two guys on wave skis at Palos Verdes Cove. It was nice. I was thinking about what the Duke (or was it Lopez?) said, “There will always be more waves”. It was a nice thought. I went to thinking about after I’m long gone, how there will be days like this. Then I thought of days like this long gone. I thought, “I’ll bet Tom Blake had lots of days like this, all to himself or with one or two others, right here at the Cove.” I felt like I was surfing with the ghost of Tom Blake. It felt really good.
Thanks Chip. You had your part in convincing me to do a bonzer. Thanks for your fin experiments and feedback.
I glassed the runners on today. Tacked them with 5 minute epoxy (felt more like 10 minute epoxy… a long time when your just standing there holding the fin). I used two samll strands of rope, one inch and a half wide 6oz, then one layer of 4 oz on the small runners and 2 layers of 4 on the big runners. I’m not sure if the big one’s are overbuilt or the little ones under built?
I foresee lots of sanding, especially between the runners. My guess is that’s why the bonzer never caught on commercially like the thruster- too labor intensive. Much harder to just pop one out.
