Sunday, January 1, 2012

From planks to blank...

A few things have happened since the last post.

I glued rail strips up the side of the board and then planed them flat with the frame.

The previous step was to glue the frame to the bottom planking. This step is building up the rails for shaping later. The first part is to put in a chine log - each of the frames have a 5/16"x1/4" notch in the corners. What we do there is clean up all the notches so a 5/16" x 1/4" strip will fit in there snugly and then glue it in place. After that strip has been glued, we glue in the bead/cove strips to create the rail. The thing to remember here is that the strips follow the rail exactly. So when gluing each strip, it is important to make sure that the strips compliment each other and are glued to the previous strip AND to each frame. It is helpful to do a dry clamp down for each one so you know where the twists are and if you have to clean up any glue, etc.

When the rail strips have been built up to the point where they can be planed flat to the internal frame, we take the magic surform and make a nice flat surface that is blended into the frames.

Finished stripping / planing:


Next, I glued to deck on to the planed strips and frames.
This is one of the more stressful parts as you have to get glue out on all the frames AND the newly created flat spot around the rails quickly and then clamp the deck planking down.
In this step, we use two different glues, we use 5200 marine adhesive for gluing the frames to the top decking and then we use titebond for gluing the rails to the decking.
The process here is: Do a dry run with no glue so you know exactly what clamps need to go where and make sure that when you unclamp everything they are easily accessible at the time you do the gluing -- also they need to be OUT OF THE WAY.

Anyway - after gluing and clamping - the planks, railstrips and internal frame have been combined to form a surfboard blank!

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Frame clamp down / glue up...

Gluing the frame of a HWS surfboard to the bottom skin is an exciting task. I decided to do this one alone this time, so there were some additional challenges.

Anyway, I did a couple practice runs and when I felt I had it down and could clamp the frame down straight, I started marking up the inside of the deck. I drew arrows and blocks where all the frames should go and did all the sighting in of the spine/frames.

After getting the planks all marked up and preparing for the glue up, I gathered all necesities and extra necessities... Then did a nice bead of 5200 along the bottom of all the frames and then smoothed it out with a piece of wood to get a nice even and thin layer of glue.

...THEN...

Clamp down!


Monday, December 5, 2011

Quad Simm Thing frame trued up and glued :)

Lots of work today!
1) Setup/tweaked the rocker table to support the frame.
2) Worked out the wonky spots in the frame and got it all trued up.
3) Glued the frame so it can be glued to the bottom planking.

It is coming along. :)

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Quad Simm Thing gets more life...

So, couple of steps have happened since the last post.

First, I lightened up the frame by cutting out the inside pieces.


And then I got a killer package in the mail... A while back, I thought about it a little and reached out to the Grain surfboard guys about getting the deck planks and the rail strips from them. It turns out, that it is about 40% of the cost for me to get the local western red cedar and have them just cut the planks and strips -- and I had to fair the edges and make the bead/cove on the rail strips...

So - I took them up on the offer and got some gorgeous white cedar planks/rail strips! Stoked! Anyway, I did the bottom glue up today.

Strips set out with the frame:


Glued/clamped:


#2:

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Simm thing is taking form!

The frame has been cut out and it all goes together. :)



Next step is to lighten the frame a little by cutting out pieces in the spine / ribs.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

It begins again...

So - 5'10" planing hull / simm / quad thing. :)

This is going to be a HWS board.

Stats:
1) Spine/ribs are 6mm marine plywood.
2) Skins / rail strips are cedar -- the guys at Grain gave me a great price on this.
3) The fin setup is quad proboxes.
4) Glass will be 1x 4oz S glass deck and bottom cutlapped with a 4 oz deck patch.
5) Resin is RR CE for lam / fill coats.

Anyway - stoked to start up again!

Here is the spine/ribs glued down. Will be cutting them out tomorrow:

Friday, February 18, 2011

Blue Board...

Ok - so I decided to make a hullish design... This one is a 7'6" x 23 3/8" x 3" - wide point forward beastie of a funboard.

The board is made from Greenlight EPS foam (2lb density) with 3 layers top/bottom 3.7 oz S2 glass. The resin is RR CE for the lamination and RR KK for the fill coats.

Initial blank:


Anyway, I decided to do a blue resin tint on this one and that was the root of many issues. Unfortunately, my resin tint turned out blotchy and streaky - oh well, we shall chalk that up to learning.

Bottom from the tail:


Bottom from the nose:


Big bottom, big bottom, talk about mudflaps, this boards got 'em:



Deck: