Huck, absolutely beautiful. Sacred Craft next year?
[quote="$1"]
that board is a piece of art!!!!!
[/quote]
The above may qualify as the understatement of the year.
I think you should offer to let The Surfing Heritage Foundation put it on display for a while. It is certainly worthy.
Thanks for all the encouragement and kind words - an artist can never hope for more than to produce something that people connect with or respond to! It means a lot to get some positivity, always a boost.
Still gotta finish it before I can say its a success, I've never glassed over tissue paper before, the whole thing could go to pot with a bit of delam. That's OK, its all part of the learning curve when you start getting experimental, right?
Anyway, the artwork is complete, ready for glass. I added 4 oz. with all the tissue art. All I need is some epoxy, and as soon as work picks up, that's first on my shopping list. Meanwhile, here are the pics of the bottom.
Working with tissue as an art medium is very tricky - you can't erase or paint over anything. Once the tissue is pasted on, that's it. You have about 1 second to decide you don't like it and peel it off and throw the piece away, or live with it. And the stuff is so thin and fragile, don't even blink when you're brushing it on, because if it crinkles or tears, that's it. It is what it is, and you're not gonna fix it. Anways, working with this stuff, you fight the learning curve for sure.
I love the artwork but to be honest I think I’d be a little nervous taking a pic of a brightly colored fish out into the water where you surf.
[quote="$1"]
I love the artwork but to be honest I think I'd be a little nervous taking a pic of a brightly colored fish out into the water where you surf.
[/quote]
OK, then in that case I won't let you paddle out on it LOL!
Hey Huck.
Do you plan to add a vent to allow pressure to equalize from hot and cool, air expansion and contraction?
Thumbscrew vent from Fiberglass Hawaii in Ventura. The board is ready for glass. I gently sanded the whole thing with 100 grit.
excellent work huck keep it up, i cant wait to see it all polished up
bump
hurry up Huck!!!
bump
hurry up Huck!!!
Fantastic work Huck.... just stunning.
Technical, creative, artistic,
You talented bastard, its beautiful !
thanks guys for the nice comments - until its finished its still a pig in a poke, 'cuz I always have this foreboding feeling somehow it could all go drastically south along the road to completion LOL.
Anyway, a bit of an update. First I glassed the tail in the fin area, so I could set my fin plugs. I used 2 oz. glass, which is a trip, its like glassing with silk cloth, kinda cool. I cut the tissue out of the fin plug wells after I glassed, so I had a sample of the paper/glass combination, to see if there were any bonding issues. The good news is - apparently not. I could not peel the paper (polyspan) away from the glass. I put it in water, and nothing happened. The skin is waterproof inside and out.
After I did the tail, I made a decision to glass the entire board in 2 oz. first, then 6 oz. over that. I knew I'd be adding some unwanted weight, but felt the tradeoff was worthwhile, since I really liked the increased strength the 2 oz. added to the paper.
When I glassed the board with the 2 oz. glass, the entire surface rippled and looked horrible, as you can see in the pics. But I figured thats a good thing, since the polyspan relaxes when it gets moist, and tightens back up when it dries. So the fact that everything went rippled meant the resin was getting some penetration into the polyspan tissue, which had to be good for the bond.
It took about 6 hours, but sure enough, it eventually all tightened back up. Sanding it is just weird, not like any surfboard I've ever sanded. I mean, you're sanding a wood framework covered in tissue, with all these little open areas of tissue over nothing. I tried to be careful, but at the end of the day, you gotta just sand like you mean it, and let the chips fall where they may. I did have a few sand-throughs, but nothing disasterous.
So at present the entire board is glassed in 2+6, waiting to be sanded and hotcoated. No gloss coat planned for this one. Current weight is just over 10 lbs., so I guess I missed my 10 lb. goal, oh well. Like I said, I made a tradeoff for strength - and it does feel very strong. But looking at it, there is a definite feeling of vulnerability associated with a stick and tissue board!
I have no idea how durable this board will be, and anyway its not likely to be my daily driver. But I figured, if it ends up a wallhanger, then the little extra weight of the 2 oz. won't matter anyway. But I gotta get it out in the water at some point, and if I end up loving it, it'll probably get out quite a bit.
I used more resin than planned, its gonna be close to finish the board with what I have left. I'm sure I can do it. Thanks to kensurf for the price dot suggestion for covering leash plug and vent while glassing.
Hey Huck,
Why not just use 4-oz S to keep weight down? The 4-oz S should give you the strength of a 5-5.2 oz cloth.
In this case it was largely a matter of using what I had on hand.
I have used 4 oz s-cloth in the past, 'tho, and I find the 6 oz. has more "body", and is so much easier to work with, that I find I prefer it, despite the extra weight. Especially on a project like this, where it is inevitable that some of the surface irregularities are going to have to be addressed when sanding the glass.
Lookin Good Huck!
nice work there Huckster!
WOW HUCK!
THATS AMAZING!!!
Hi Huck -
That board is turning out great. I've only seen photos of one other board that was even close (transparent skin over frame.) Maybe you've seen it? Peter Costello told me the guy lives near him. I'd love to see this one in person...
Hah John - that's rad! I had forgotten about that critter, but yes, I have seen it before. To be honest, this is something thats been simmering in my mind for a long time, but the guy most responsible for inspiring me to go ahead and build it is a fella that goes by the handle Camplus. Here's some of his handiwork:
--------------------------
I now have the whole thing hotcoated. Maybe I will put a gloss coat on it. At any rate, it does need one more coat. 10.5 lbs right now, and I could surf it like this, but cosmetically it needs that final coat, because of the places I hit the weave. I don't have any more resin, so I'll park it for now, until I get some.
It has a few bugs, too. Like one spot where the hot coat went off too fast, and the glass didn't get saturated. And where a bit of wetsanding slurry leaked into the vent, and dripped onto the bottom, in such a way that I can see it, but can't get to it.
But overall, I'm very happy with the outcome so far, considering that it was pretty risky to build it with unproven methods, but it seems sound. I'm thinking of adding one more layer of 2 oz. on the deck in the rectangle area behind the wood planking, in the area where feet will be standing.
what ever became of this project?
Did it get finished?