About 9 years ago I bought this old single fin for $50. The rails, nose and tail were torn to shreds, and the fin box was broken. I was just learning to surf when I bought it and knew little about repair. I bought an automobile fiberglass repair kit from Canadian tire and smothered the board in glass and resin. I stuck the fin that came with it into the fin box (way too far back) and poured resin in to secure it. I never sanded it, or even dried it out to start. The thing weighed about 20 lbs and had jagged fiberglass sticking out all over. This was never a pretty board to begin with, and I made it horrid. But I loved the thing and I learned to surf on it.
I’ve always liked the idea of giving old things new life. Like a 300 year old fir tree, cut down and milled into beams for a house. The house gets torn down, and the fir reclaimed and a beautiful dining table made out of it.
How many lives does this surfboard have? The guy who sold it to me told me it was once a longboard that broke a couple feet from the tail, and reshaped into the 7’2”. Now I’m going to try and make something else out of it. Reduce, reuse, and recycle.
Here she is. Lovely paint job. Bears and tiger stripes.
is there a trick to posting photos in the text? i tried to make a word document with pics in it and then just cut and paste, but the pics didn;t show up.
wide point at center. this board was actually really fun to ride.
The board has about 3” of nose rocker beginning about 2 ½’ from the tip. The last 5 1/2 ‘ have only ¼ “ kick near the tail. Slight V in the tail and a lot of belly through the remainder.
The glass job came off pretty easy. I cut around the perimeter with my grinder and tore it off in long strips, using a steel putty knife where resin was left behind.
Not much foam loss. I decided not to form too many ideas about what I want to shape until after I stripped it of the glass. If I need to cut off the whole tail, I’ll make a short fish. If I can remove the fin clean, I’ll make something longer.
There was no way I’d be able to remove the fin box alone, but I want to keep as much length as possible. I used a hand saw to cut outside the box and chiseled away the stringer clean. I used sandpaper glued to a chunk of 2x4 to get a straight flat slot, and used it again to shape a flat chunk of foam. I mixed up a small batch of epoxy and profil to use as glue, and brushed it on the slot and the chunk of foam. It set up clean and then I could saw off the excess. I’m hoping it will be strong enough with no stringer in the tail. Most of the area will be a new fin box later.
I ended up with a pretty clean blank, a bit less than 20” wide. There was a lot of tear out on the deck and rails, which would influence the shaping later. I decided to shape a 6’8” single fin. This is a board I would never buy for myself, but with a free blank I figured this is the way to try one out. Maybe I’ll only be able to use it a handful of days a year, but I’ve always wanted to surf one.
I researched on swaylocks for ideas on templates, and drew out a few lines on the blank. I only have so much to work with because of some damaged foam, so I decided on a rounded pintail, wide point 4” ahead of center.
I came very close to making a stubby, with the tail just as it is in the picture above. I used a steel flooring transition and some strips of cedar to bend around navigational marks to make my curve.
After I cut out one side I traced the template on cardboard to transfer it to the other
The major shaping I had to do was to put as much rocker into it as I could, because it was so flat. I was able to use my planer to put in an inch of tail rocker before it lost the thickness I need for a fin box. I’ll have just enough.
this went surprisingly well. the planer is my friend now. I added about 5/16ths of V in the tail blending to flat at about 18”. That should increase the rocker at the rail line a little further.
I went flat along the rest of the bottom, with fairly soft rails, except for along the tail where the rail is hard. On the deck I needed to skim off a lot of foam to remove damage and dirt. I made my rails too thin once again, but it turns out I really liked that on my last board, so I hopefully won’t mind. I should learn how to do proper rail bands one day.
I’m going with a double 6oz deck and single 6oz bottom. I’m using Resin Research epoxy left over from my last board. Last time I wasted a lot of resin on the floor, so this time I started out mixing only 9oz, and mixed another 6oz to finish wetting the laps. Only a few drips on the floor. On the deck lam and sand coats i wasted very little resin. I did the top and bottom sand coat (hot coat) in the same day, about 5 hours apart. i didn’t sand in between and i think that is why i got beading in my resin, where it didn’t adhere on the rails. The hot coat actually ended up a bit irregular, with lots of dips and high spots. the result is that when i sanded off the high spots there was lots of exposed weave. but now i have the shape of the board back and i’m going to do another sand coat to fill in any weave and dips.
i’ll report back with more pics and glassing info soon.
