Learning a new Art

O.K. how many of you "Grain Surfboard" builders out there have done this. You get your kit in the mail and the first thing you do is put together the keel and frames  to try and get a look at what your new board is going to look like. Well, I bought my kit a year ago so you can imagine how many times I have done this. Now is when I tell you that I have finally put together this assembly for the last time and glued it to the bottom plank.

This is definitely not a solo project. I mean, I can surely build this board by myself but there are just some tasks that simply require more than two hands. Clamping down the frames is one of them. With fifteen frames and two clamps for each frame, that just proves that you can never have too many clamps.

Clamps are off and everything looks good. On to the next step. I was reading ahead and realized that it is going to be alot of "On to the next step".  I think this is a real good thing for me. I can set my own pace and learn the art of delayed gratification.

Getting off the ground (being grounded)

Well, this week has been a good one. After the hair raising task of trying to glue up 9 ten foot long planks to create the bottom panel, and race to get the excess glue off before the heat and lack of humidity set up the glue, I was able to get the bottom cut to rough size and sand out any uneven edges. Now I am getting excited! For the first time I can start to see the outline of the board and imagine myself padeling out.

The sanding of the inside edge was O.K. but it made me realize that it was probably time to invest in some hand planes. I will need them eventually, and there is no time like the present. While those are on order I went ahead and glued up the top planks so that I could reuse a lot of the wood from the laminating table to create my rocker table. Once that was done it was time to remove the tape that helped to hold the joints together. Call me wierd, but this was very satisfying. Not that it revieled anything new, just the process of pealing off the tape itself. I think it is kind of kin to when you get a sunburn or a scraped knee, you just can't help it.

Now I can turn to the rocker table and the keel and frame construction. I am finding this process very calming, a real step away from all of the hustle bustle of everyday stress. This is good for me, I need something to slow me down and ground me.

Don't you just love the way the knots and grain give such character to the board?

Summertime in Colorado

     

It's hot! Not hot like "Texas Hot!" but hot none the less. When it has been over 90 degrees for weeks and you are a mile closer to the sun it makes a difference. Well, this is my blog that will attempt to chronicle my journey through the pages and construction process of building a surfboard. A "Grain" surfboard to be exact. If you aren't familiar with them than you should check them out at http://www.grainsurfboards.com/. I know people who aren't even into surfing who have found this company as an inspiration. I guess right about now you are asking yourself what the heck is a guy in Colorado doing building a surfboard? Well, I lived in Southern California for a while and started surfing while living there. Right about the time I started to get the hang of surfing I decided to move to Colorado. I still have family in the hills above Malibu so I still get to California about once a year if I am lucky. Anyway, enough about that. For my 40th Birthday my wife bought me a 10' waterlog kit from Grain and I am finally, (11 months later), getting around to getting started.

After spending a little time reading the manual and collecting some tools and supplies, I finally was able to start making a little sawdust (sordust). I started by milling up some walnut for the stringer details that I wanted to ad. Then the laminating table was built so that I could glue up my bottom planks.

The process of building this table is a bit of a zen practice when you are ready to start working on your board. Taking the time to get everything square and taped so that glue will not stick to the wood is half of the work. Now it is time to get a visual. Pulling out the bottom planks and laying them out to find the best configuration before glue up is really exciting.

The moment is finally here to take action on this quest to build this beautiful wood salt sled. After about what seemed like an hours worth of taping the seams for gluing I was able to finally pull the cork out of the old glue bottle. Lets get messy!

Now that all of that fun has been had the bottom blank is glued and clamped and left to sit for the night. I will check in on it tomorrow and think about glueing the top blank.