how the little fish approached finish

tacked on, glassed on fins. Hotcoated then sanded mostly by hand, patched some little sandthrus. clear acrylic sealer coat for a sort of satin finish and called it good.

sanding

sanding sanding sanding, sanding your fingerprints off, wearing out the paper, cutting a new sheet and starting again.

This is what I was up to before leaving for the basque

this is the bottom of the long fish laid up with the milky white opaque resin.

the white spots are a result of tripping over my glass scissors. (They must be over 30cm long and weigh a kilo) but a happy accident.

large and little
A couple of fish, the long fish is a 10ft fish-simmons style design, fryeinspired

the shorter is a 5'10'' belly to single fish-simmons, shaped by eye using the principles of the bigger board. I surfed this board here and there for the last couple weeks in french and spanish beachbreaks. it had a load of projection and felt great to surf but to really open it up I think I will replace the single foiled keels with double foilers, less toed in.

I glassed the long fish with a 6+4 deck with 60z deckpatch and 6oz bottom. It's got a nice weight to it, excited to getting it finished and into the water.

fins out

ENNUI tri-fin set for 10' Fish simmons. Fins foiled from birch ply, glassed with double 6oz

Roughed out a set of 4 with the power sander for something stubby with its wide point quite far forward. might finish them by hand or potentially make a singlefin instead. decisions.

SLOB JOB

resin swirl number 1, the detail is there but the contrast is off. stay tuned.

show us your bones

5'6''x23''x3''

5'10''x21 1/2''x2 3/4''

6'3''x19 3/4''x2 5/8''

2nd resin pigment attempt

Lyles 5'11'' from the previous post :-

a slightly more ambitious bottom-lamination. This particular photo makes it look a million times better than it actually turned out. from what I've figured out now it requires setting the circles, taking out all the excess over the same rail, then flooding the outline with clear resin. It was a lot of fun, and a learning experience - I hope I can lay the deck down a little cleaner. Considering free lapping it too

tri-colour swirl-biscuit

the board I ripped the glass off in a previous post has been reshaped I took to glassing it this afternoon - Using clear, grey and opaque blue resin. I was going for a clean-striped look but after finishing the blue I couldnt help myself - first resin tint and all. I flicked my squeegee and bucket over the whole board, sea-surfboards style.

The board is roughly 5'7'' x 20 1/2'' x 2 5/8''I think I will put 4 fins on it, I'm pretty taken with tyler warrens 'quadratic formula' board, I will foil some up later.

Here is the swirl/stripe/mess as it stands

lyles 5'11"

Shaped a 5'11'' round pin thruster for lyle over the weekend, quite stoked with the outcome. It's a slightly 'biscuity' template - but I tried foiling this one a little differently.

single

to double

shape of things to come

big blank, big template - ambitious foray into the territory of the long fish. There is a lot of board to get your head around. To get from the outline I chose on Boardcad to the hardboard template pictured took hours and hours. I formed a spin-template with 3ft overlap each way, so thats 16ft+ of curvature to take care of.

bike project

This yellow frame was a feature of my parents greenhouse for as long as I've been alive, dossing around with the tomato plants and the strimmer. In clearing out the garage to set up a shaping bay we discovered the handlebars, forks and wheels - the saddle and cranks may be hiding somewhere too. I slotted it together last night, and its an elegant sight.

Destruction in the morning

To grow - the snake must shed his skin. I resolved to shed the skin of my 2nd ever shape -and regretted it from the moment I touched the grinder to the rail apex. I've skinned a board before and its a truly disgusting process. You lay waste to hours of work, to a shape that you know at least 'works'- to pursue new ideals. The sound of ripping glass and foam will stick with you, much like the glass splinters and the itch.

It's done now though - and a new shape is templated already, a stubby rounded pin 5'7'' - those are all the details I know.