Cheater Coat

Visited Moonlight Glassing today - they've got the cheater coat on the top deck. After working on this for the last couple of months,seeing the board with the cheater coat is unbelievable - the wood pops with that first coat. Was expecting to leave it @ Moonlight until the next time I'm in San Diego - probably June, but Peter @ Moonlight says he might  finish it this week before I head back to Chicago.  My fingers are crossed as w/just the first coat, it looks incredible. It'll be unbelievable fully glassed with the gloss coat.
Decided to put a small logo on the board & kept it simple: "D Reese", with "Basement Boards"a smaller font below; both in Lucida Handwriting font. Placing it just above the tail block fully within one of the cedar bands. 
Working on this alone in the basement since Thanksgiving, it's hard to describe how satisfying it was to have positive input from the guys @ Moonlight who handle hundreds or thousands of boards each year. Am really flattered by their comments and Peter's blog post (http://www.tapedoff.com/  see entry for 3/25/11).  I'll take them up on the offer of visiting them a couple of times this week to see stages of the process.

Here's Peter from Moonlight with my son, Sam, with the board after the cheater coat. It's hard to describe how happy I am with how it's looking.

To Moonlight Glassing

Common advice says that first time glassing should be done with the help of an experienced glasser. The Chicago area is not a hotbed of surfboard fiber-glassing so I've shipped it to Moonlight Glassing in San Diego. They'll glass and install the fin boxes and vent. Besides, temps won't be consistently warm enough to glass outside or in the garage for another month. Looking forward to San Diego next week so I can get in the water again. Will take a trip to Moonlight Glassing to talk thru the work they're doing to finalize the project.

Final sanding

Using the orbital sander, sanding blocks, and hand sanding, the final step was to knock down all edges on the rails as well as everywhere else on the board. I used the 6" planer to knock down a few bumps on the deck. For the final sand, I started @ 150 grit and went all the way to 800.

The nose and the tail in particular were shaped more with sand paper than planing - with the curves, the 6" plane would cut well with the grain but then round a corner and hang against the grain. It was ok for roughing out the shape but sanding got out all the rough spots.

With this final sanding, all that is left is glassing, including installation of the vent and fin boxes. 

Venting

Hollow boards need to be vented since air expands and contracts with temperature.  The plans called for a zinc insert with a nylon screw, but in a Swalock's discussion,  Paul Jenson showed how he drilled out a screw to make a banjo bolt. After visiting a couple of auto parts stores, I couldn't find a banjo bolt of the right size. I have a drill press, so I made my own.  The advantage is that it only needs a few turns to vent the board. I may regret placing it in the middle, 2/3's of the way up, but I'm hoping the brass head actually looks good 2/3s to the top of the board.

Mistakes were made

The downside of having a fair amount of rail material to work with is that it might lead to over-ambitious & ill-informed planing. I did that.  Planed through the rail thickness, exposing a lateral hole along the rail in the middle of the board.  I ended up with 4 patches b/c it took me a bit to understand how to fix the problem. Lesson: the thinness extends much farther than where you broke through so cut a big hole for the patch or you'll be back with more patching. That seems obvious now, but . . .
Patching meant cutting out  thin parts of the rail or deck, filing edges so they are straight as possible, cutting material to fit the hole, gluing, and planing to match surrounding wood.
Using a triangular (or pentagon) profile wood patch, I found I could jam the point of the triangle into the hole and the edges would self-seat neatly against the edge of the hole with pressure - that's far easier than cutting a patch of the exact dimension of the hole.  The length has to be right, but the sides will self-seat with pressure from clamping.  The triangular or pentagon shape, also gives a flat outside surface to place your clamp.
I viewed this as a colossal screw-up, but was happily surprised after planing things down.  The patch is noticeable but you have to look for it. It almost looks like an intended part of the laminate.
Not to dwell on screw-ups but the final patch was particularly embarrassing.  After 3 patches I had the problem solved and things looked good . . . until I lifted and flipped the board and heard debris fall from one side of  to the other. I hadn't shaken it out before epoxying in the patch. It was too embarrassing to leave so I cut the whole thing out plus some, shook out debris, and re-patched.  A dumb-ass mistake. It's a good thing this isn't my day job.

Marking rails for planing/shaping

There's tons of info and opinion re: how to shape the rails. It ranges from 'go by feel' to analytical breakdown of planing angles and progressions.  Not trusting 'feel', I marked out a number of things before picking up the planer.
This drawing shows the starting point - figuring out where on the rail is the apex, i.e., the farthest edge of the rail.  I wanted a 60/40 rail starting about 16" up from the tail so I put a dot 60% of the way down the height of the rail. Then I put dots 1/4" above and below my 60% dot and connected the 60% dots as well as those 1/4" above and below. Again, the digital caliper was very handy. I now had lines the full length of the rails showing where the outside of the rail should be and 1/4" above and below it.
For the harder rail below 12" I put dots 1/4" above the bottom. Between 12" and 16" I drew a straight line connecting the hard rail edge @ 12" and the 60% dot at 16".
If you look at Surfboard Design and Construction, the next step would mark out points for each planing angle. I did that for the first planing angle, a 1/16" release on the bottom of the board starting 3" in from the edge. Again, dots 1/16" from the bottom of the rail and connected w/a line using a straight edge. Did the same with dots 2" in from the edge on the bottom deck. For the other plane angles, I figured that as long as I did the same progression of planing surfaces as shown on SC&D, I didn't need to calculate exact edges of each of planing angle. Holding the correct angle on my 6" block planer would automatically set the right plane surface. I just needed to pay attention to how deep I'd go by watching the distance between the edge of my cut and the lines I'd put in to mark the apex. It seemed to work fine. The top of the board needed fewer planing angles than shown in SC&D because I'm not working with a foam blank - the ribs already defined the slope of the deck into the rails. 
The progression of my planing cuts for the 60/40 rails were:
1) 1/16" release around the bottom edge, starting 2" in from the rail
2) a 45 degree plane from the bottom edge to the line 1/4" below my 60% line.
3) a 30 degree plane from the top edge to .2-.4" above the top 1/4" line depending on where I was on the board.
4) a 45 degree plane with the bottom edge of the cut on the upper 1/4" line

For the transition to the harder rails starting @ 12" from the tail, I simply planed following the line connecting the hard rail apex and 60/40 rail apex.

At the end, the planing left a 1/2" flat spot at the apex around the board. I'd hand sand that to make everything smooth.

Finalizing the outline

Suffice it to say, there were many hours on Swaylock's, with Surfboard Design and Construction, and practicing with scrap 2x4s before starting to cut away on the rails.  Anyone who's built a board before (not me) would know to define exact end dimensions before placing the rails and before cutting the ribs - on a hollow wooden board, rib outline defines the board outline to a large exten. With the Grain method, they appear to define it almost entirely. With the stacked triangular strip rails, there's ~1" of wood that can be planed away so there's some leeway late in construction to modify board outline.  That's a blessing and a curse as there's temptation to modify the outline more than is wise.  Lesson learned: fix the target outline dimensions before building anything so rib dimensions and rail strip placement supports the exact outline.  
Here's how I finalized the board outline:
1) Snapped a chalk line to establish the center. Marked it every 1/2" for the first 3" from tail and nose; every 1" for the next 9"; and every 6" after that. All these marks will sand out but don't press too hard (or use a Sharpie).
2) Figured out the half width, i.e., distance from the center line to the edge to establish the exact outline of the board. This meant figuring out dimensions in 1/2" increments in board length for the first 3" of the tail and nose; 1" increments for the next 9"; and 6" increments through the rest of the board. I knew target dimensions for length, 12" from nose and tail, and max width. I needed to figure half widths for all the intervening intervals.  I found a similar board design in Surfboard Design and Construction (SD&C) which gave the half widths at multiple increments, but the SD&C board wasn't exactly the same nose and tail dimensions as my target. Since SD&C's nose and tail shapes were what I wanted, I normalized those measurements to mine, i.e., I wanted 14.5" for the tail (@12") so my half width was 7.25".  SD&C had a 7.58" half width for the tail (@12") so my dimension was 95.65% (7.25/7.58) smaller. I multiplied SD&C tail dimensions by 95.65% to get my half widths. I did the same with my target nose width and theirs.
3) With my Excel half width worksheet in hand, I marked  nose and tail outline points on the top deck using the digital calipers - this task alone made the $30 for the digital calibers seem like an incredibly good deal. Used a ruler to connect the dots.  Did the same all the way along the top deck, using the metal right angle lined up with the center line. I thought about doing this on butcher paper to get a half outline to lay on the centerline and trace, then flip to do the other side, but went direct instead. 
4) These lines were the board outline, i.e., the outer edge of the rails.  It was time to do lots of planing and do my best to hit the lines so that each side was exactly the same width from center to edge. My first tail outline was a rounded squash, but after planing, the way the rails flowed to the tail didn't look right, so I changed it to a rounded tail which was consistent with the SD&C design.

5) Once I planed to the lines and made sure each side was even, I discarded the half width dimension table and focused on feel - looking down the board, running my hand down the outline to plane out bumps and irregularities.

This pic on right is after all planing has been done to establish the board outline.  The rails are basically right angles to the decks at this point.

Next step, shaping the rails.

Attaching tail and nose blocks

I followed instructions from the design I purchased: spend time with the flat file prepping the surfaces and then get creative with  clamping. A few bungee cords helped.Next time I'll get used bicycle tires as I damn near lost an eye with the bungee cord hooks flying around.

Both the tail and the nose blocks had a lot of wood that would need to be removed. That seemed easier than trying to get the gluing surfaces exactly perpendicular to the curvature of the board.  In other words, the plane of the board surface and the plane of the block were not aligned exactly. It was too hard to get the angle of the glued surfaces exactly perpendicular to the board surface; it made more sense to have extra wood that I'd plane and shape to flow with the plane of the decks.
The bottom two pics show the big, disproportionate tail block glued to the tail.

Prepping for the nose and tail blocks

 Last post discussed cutting the front and back of the board off to the blocks. After gluing the top deck, I cut off excess top deck and planed any excess on top and bottom so that the deck ended at the edge of the rails.  I glued strips of birch and cedar (another trip to Owl Lumber plus using scraps and lots of glue and clamping) to get the laminated blocks for the nose and tail.
Using the flat edges of these laminates as a guide, there was a good couple of hours with a 12" mill bastard file, 6" planer, and a sanding block getting board surfaces exactly flat so the laminate blocks would glue down with a nice tight edge.

Pic to the right shows the laminates I'm planning to use for the nose. Note all the shavings in both pics.  Planing the excess decking didn't take a long time with the jack plane and the 6" plane - at this point I'd gotten good at sharpening them and adjusting them to shave off nice curls.
Immediately after taking all the clamps off the board from gluing the top deck it was apparent that the rocker jig had served it's purpose. I needed a shaping stand as serious planing and clamping for the nose and tail was about to begin. 
I used scrap wood including a lot of the 24" 2x4s that I'd previously used to hold things down when clamping. My version combined things found on Swaylocks and Surfboard Design and Construction, modified to use the scrap wood I had as well as having the ability to break down flat to hang on the wall of a backyard shed or garage.

More clamps please . . . gluing the top deck

This step is conceptually easy, but harder to pull off.  My lessons:

0) Don't even start this step until you've pre-bent the top deck in your rocker jig. When I finished my basement a few years ago, I put in a steam shower which came in quite handy - cranked to 130 degrees, the entire top deck got steamed for about 40 minutes and then was immediately clamped onto the rocker jig alone for a couple of days so that it had the rocker bend in place before gluing.  Without that, it would have cracked and split as we raced to get clamps in place. Soaking hot towels on both sides of the deck would have accomplished the same thing - do both sides b/c if you do only one side, the whole panel curls. Don't leave wet towels on the deck after you clamp it.  The wood w/the wet towel absorbs water and expands while other parts don't and bad things happen.  Grain and others go about this differently, gluing individual deck strips to the ribs one-by-one so getting decking strips to take on the rocker may be simpler as you go strip by strip like building a strip canoe or kayak. My guess is that there are trade-offs with either approach. Visually, I like how I was able to use pretty broad panels of alternating cedar and ash with birch as the center stringer.
1) I glued a 2"x2" square piece of scrap decking to the underside of the top deck, exactly in the middle  at 67.5" from the tail. This is reinforcement for the vent that will be epoxied into the deck. Some put their vent at the tail, mine will be 2/3's of the way up the board in the middle.  

2) You want the centers of the top deck and bottom deck to be aligned as exactly as possible. I didn't assume my spar was exactly straight (it wasn't as it pressure from the rocker messed it up a bit) so I established an exact center for the whole assembly by matching the exact center of the top deck stringer and the exact center of the bottom stringer pieces (they aren't really stringers, but you know what I mean).

3) I'd been using Gorilla glue and decided to move to epoxy for this step. I underestimated how much epoxy was needed and couldn't run out for more as the clock was ticking. I reserved epoxy for the bond between rail, blocks and deck and used Gorilla glue for ribs and blocks on the ribs. I used 60 min epoxy so I'd have more time to get everything clamped down. My mistake was buying about 8 of the double syringe things from the hardware store thinking that'd be more than enough - it was half of what I could have used. Next time, I'll go to a marine supply and get cans of epoxy resin and hardener in bigger volume.Or, use marine epoxy that you dispense with a caulk gun (3M Marine Fast Cure 5200, http://store.grainsurfboards.com/products/extra-glue-pack).  

4) The top deck of my board has a fair amount of curve from side to side - the 2x4s I'd used previously to hold things down don't bend much so I bought 1x2s that would bend as I clamped them - where they had knots, they broke, often violently as we really cranked them down. Luckily, neither my son nor I were impaled by a splintered 1x2 javelin. Even with increased bend from the 1x2s, we needed to jam shims under outer edges of the 1x2s to make sure that there was strong pressure all the way to the edge of the rails - I didn't want to take any chances with getting a good seal. 

5) This operation needs more than 2 hands and a foot holding things down as you get clamps in place. My 15 year old son was critical in helping me get the clamps in place, shim them, etc. 

6) I used every clamp I had - we counted a total of 53. 

Gut check - cutting ends off the board

I'll be less queasy with the next board, but cutting the ends off the board was nerve wracking. It was unclear whether to do it before or after gluing the top deck. Also, screwing up was fairly unrecoverable.  I cut before gluing the top deck b/c everything was so visible. I could establish a cutting line easily seen without peering between the sandwich of decks, ribs, and blocking.
My Sharpie markings are smeared in this pic b/c I took a can of Zinsser de-waxed spray shellac and coated the insides a couple of times to seal things. Opinions varied on whether this was necessary, but I followed Dennis Murphy's advice: seal the inside or you'll regret it.

This shows the front of the board with my approximate nose shape and marks for where I would cut the board along the diagonal lines. You also see all the spar and rib patches I made after the spar buckled from the pressure exerted from the bottom deck - there's a lot of rocker in the front part of this board & I should have done more to get the bottom deck pre-bent before gluing it to the spar and ribs.  Luckily, all this ugliness and poor craftsmanship gets covered up.  To make the diagonal front cuts, I clamped on guides and used the pull saws, electing again to stick with hand tools rather than power.

This shows all the blocking done, the tail and nose cut down and the top deck on the floor glued and cut to the basic shape of the board. Cutting the top deck to the basic shape was important -- too much overhang means you can't get the clamps set. Next steps: bending the top deck to shape and gluing it in place.

Blocking for fin boxes, tail and nose laminates

Much progress was made from when I started the day before Thanksgiving to mid-December, mostly at night & a couple of hours each day on weekends. Ribs, spar, bottom deck and rails were assembled and glued.
 The next step, blocking out for fin boxes, the tail and nose pieces, stopped me for weeks because it meant finalizing board length and dimensions, including where fins boxes would be placed. Many, many hours searching Swaylock's, Googling for fin placement, looking at board dimensions from known shapers, and calculating where to cut off existing tail and nose decking & spar as that would affect tail and nose dimensions @ 12". It's nerdy, but I created a spreadsheet with a dozen similar boards and their dimensions - there's no surf shop nearby nor anyone in Glen Ellyn, IL who shapes and could guide me so I got analytical with info off the internet.

Measurement above top of spar	Length	Nose	Width	Tail	Thickness	Notes
	7'10	16	21 3/4	13 1/2	2   5/8
0	7'8	16	21 3/4	14 1/2	2   5/8
0	7'6	16	21 3/4	15 1/4	2   5/8
1"	7'10	15 1/2	21 3/4	14 1/8	2   5/8	Given where my rails are already set, these dimensions seem to be a good target.
1"	7'9"	15.5 / 15.5	21.75 / 21.5	14 2/3 / 14.25	2   5/8
1"	7'8	15 1/2	21 3/4	15 1/4	2   5/8	Close to an Enzo Egg
2"	8'0'	15	21 3/4	13 5/8	2   5/8
2"	7'10	15	21 3/4	14 5/8	2   5/8	Could be made into a Harbour Drifter Shape - 7'10", 14.25 nose, 21 3/8 mid, 14" tail with a narrow squash of 4-5"
2"	7'8	15	21 3/4	15 5/8	2   5/8
2"	7'6	15	21 3/4	16 1/2	2   5/8
Comps
Murphy egg	7'10	15 1/2	21 1/2	14 1/2	2   3/4	Rounded slight pin
Murphy Enzo Egg	7'10	15 1/2	21 1/2	14 1/4	2   3/4	Broad pin with distinct 'point'
Murphy Retro Egg	7'10	15	21 3/4	14 1/2	2   3/4	Pin, less broad than enzo
Harbour Drifter	7'8"	14 1/4	21 1/4	14	3	Narrow squash ~4-5"
Harbour Drifter	7'10"	14 1/4	21 3/8	14	3   1/16	Narrow squash ~4-5"
Harbor Sph Revolver	7'8"	16 3/4	22 1/8	15 1/4	2   7/8	rounded a little pin
Harbor Sph Revolver	7'10"	16 3/4	22 1/4	15 1/2	2  15/16	rounded a little pin
Bear Versatile	7'6"	14	21	14	3"	Squash 6-8"
Bear Midrange	8	14 1/4	21 1/2	14 1/4	3	rounded pintail
Haut	7'6"	15 3/4	21 1/4	14 1/2	2  22/25	squash - ~6"
August - Corky Carroll	7'6"	16 3/4	20 7/8	14 1/2	2   1/2	broad rounded pin
Hawaiian Pro Dsns	7'6"	16 1/8	21 3/8	14 3/4	2  14/25	Rounded Pin

 
After much figuring, I asked Chad Gross who created the plans as well as Dennis Murphy to check my plan to see if they made sense. Both were very helpful with suggested locations for fins given  dimensions and also gave advice on blocking materials, sealing the interior, etc.

These pics show what I did to block out the tail for the tail block and fins.  I took a Sharpie and wrote all the dimensions down so it'd be documented. I also took a big piece of paper and traced where everything was - I'm paranoid about doing all this work and then routing for fin boxes and getting hollow board. The blocking is balsa from the local Hobby Lobby. When glued in the balsa  stuck up above the ribs so it was shaved down with the 6" planer and some hand sanding to be level with the ribs and spar. Make sure you plane with the grain as balsa is soft and will rip and tear easily.
The top of the "T" (bottom of this pic) is where I'll glue the tail block. It will be 3" long so the top of the "T" is where the tail block will be glued and I'll shape the tail to be 3" back from the glue edge. The next step is to cut off everything to the right of that tail block.

I also glued scrap balsa blocks to the ribs so there'd be more surface area to glue the top deck.

Tools

The idea was to do as much as possible without power tools. My workspace is the utility room next to the ventilation system in the basement. Wood dust will propagate thru the whole house. As critically, power tools are weapons of mass destruction for someone without a lot of experience with things like power planers and belt sanders (like me). I cut the spar and ribs with a power jig saw, used the Makita miter saw for all  cuts needed for the rocker jig, shaping stand, and cutting 2x4s and 1x2s to hold things down between clamps and the board.  On the board itself, however,  I used hand tools for the most part and went slowly. 

Key tools (not in order of importance):
* Square, quick square, metal ruler
* Digital calipers - bought a year or two ago for $30 @ Harbor Freight. Never used  until this project but wouldn't start another without them. Incredibly helpful when marking out  tail and nose dimensions to get them even from side to side. Also for marking lines on the rails to guide shaping.
* Multiple Japanese pull saws - if you don't have one or more, go get them. They cut beautifully, have a smaller kerf, and because they cut on the pull, it's easier to cut a straight(er) line. Make sure at least one will slide down the groves of your cheap miter box.
* A box of nitrile gloves for anytime you're gluing. Buy a big box.
* A respirator mask for final sanding

* Tape measure, utility knife

* 12" Jack Plane, 6" no. 9 1/2 low angle block plane (get on eBay, buy ones that are pre-1942).  Once I figured these out, I love them. Especially the no 9 1/2 Stanley Sweetheart block plane which will peel off perfect, incredibly thin wood curls. When doing final sanding, the block plane worked better than sanding for bumps on the deck and rails. I followed planing this with light sanding.

* A cheap miter box to make a quick cuts b/c you need something for clamping, or you're patching a screw-up, a cheap plastic miter box is more appealing than shoveling snow off the patio, dragging the power miter saw outside, and freezing your ass off for a cut or two.

* A drill, mostly for assembling the surfboard stand

* CLAMPS, lots of clamps - never thought I'd use or need this many and refuse to total the $ spent on clamps - don't want to know. I figure it's money well spent. Kept adding more and ended with 15 10" bar clamps ($3.49 each @ Harbor Freight and not as good as the $7 Jorgenson 12" bar clamp @ HD, but usable as long as you don't clamp directly to your surfboard surface),  ~20 2" spring clamps ($0.99 each @ Home Depot),  11 24"  bar clamps, plus what I already had around: 2 Irwin spring hand clamps, 2 18" Irwin Quick Grip Clamps, and a few 6" bar and C clamps.  I used all of them. A lot.  (BTW, I checked out Harbour Freight's Irwin Quick Grip knock-offs and would NOT recommend them.  They break very quickly).

* Shop vac - used this more than anything. The project generated a ton of planing shavings that smell great but cling to clothing, dogs, shoes, etc. and migrate quickly if you don't vacuum them up frequently. I've got a couple of tall kitchen garbage bags stuffed full of shavings that will end up as garden mulch this Spring.

* Saw horses - the rocker jig needs a base. Mine sat on 2 plastic, fold-able saw horses that are crap - they flex when I put pressure on, you can't clamp to them effectively, they slide across the floor, etc. Had enough on my plate so I didn't want to design/build ones more stable and collapsible for storage so I lived with them.  Next time, new saw horses.

* A specialty lumber store. Most of the plans utilize standard lumber from Home Depot and show you how to re-cut it for decking, etc.  I might have been able to jig my low-end table saw for this, but again, it was too damn cold outside to do extensive work in the driveway or back yard. Instead, I relied on pre-cut 1/4" panels from a specialty lumber store. If you want mahogony or woods not standard at the local lumberyard, you'll need to find one of these places. As importantly, specialty lumber stores often have really good milling shops and will do cuts for you very inexpensively. Owl Lumber in the Chicago area is fantastic. Not only did they have beautiful Spanish red ceder with no knots, but for a few $s extra they cut my panels to exact matching widths over a 9' length - something that I've found way harder to do than I imagined with my cheap saw and limited workspace and wood handling equipment. 
Not pictured but fairly essential:
* Power jig saw for cutting the ribs, spar, excess decking (I have a Bosch and it's fantastic)
* Random orbital sander. Have a new Ridgid, works well. Good dust handling but not good enough to use inside the house.)
* Power miter saw: you can use a hand saw or a Skilsaw for all the cuts needed for the rocker jig, etc., but a miter saw works better. It's the most used power saw I have. Very good for cutting precise angles for the nose laminates. Bought a Makita slider with a laser cutting guide five years ago when doing some home construction and it's fantastic.
* Sharpening stuff for the planes. When starting, I didn't realize that sharpening is an entire book of it's own that could have it's own forum (and does by many others). Didn't get much guidance from HD or the local specialty tool store and was clueless.  Found the Scary Sharp method on the internet - it  uses a piece of glass and many grades of sand paper and seems to work pretty well. (http://www.woodworkstuff.net/scary.html).  At some point, a Japanese wet stone might be a good investment but they're relatively expensive.
* Table saw to cut rail strips into a triangular cross section. This was harder than expected as my low-end Ryobi table saw tilted to 45 degrees but wasn't happy accepting wood at that angle. The strips were sufficiently narrow that it was hard to fence them. If I'd followed the instructions it'd have been much easier: cut the 45 degree strips from a 2x8 where there's enough wood to hold against the fence and feed it through in control. The other alternative is to use a different method to build the rails: set up a router station or buy a kit with these cuts already done.  
Nice but not essential
* A spokeshave plane - Grain uses these a lot and they're cheap (<$20). I couldn't find one at Home Depot, Ace or other general hardware stores.  Grain sells them on-line. I found one at a Rockler Woodworking which has shops all over the country. I couldn't figure out how to use the thing effectively, however. Multiple adjustments, sharpening, dialing it way back, it'd either not cut at all or catch and chatter.  I'm sure it's user error.  I'll play with it more with the next board.

* Drill press - not required, but helpful for drilling ribs and spar for lighter weight, all of which could be done with a hand drill and a 1" or 1.5" bit.  (Nearly essential if you want to fabricate your own banjo bolt(s) for the vent (will post about this later, with pics).
* Power Planer - in a moment of weakness and concern over the amount of planing ahead of me to shape the rails, I added a power planer to the arsenal. It used it only to knock down the block laminates on the nose and tail of the board.  It will get future use, but I wasn't willing to practice on the assembly in which I'd already invested a lot of time. It was too cold outside to practice scrap wood. With the weather getting better, I'll play with it on scrap wood building hand planes.This device can cause much destruction - I'll practice before using it on anything where I've invested a lot of time already.

* Belt Sander - I have an ancient one someone gave me. I tuned it up, but never used it b/c it generates so much dust. Once I got the hang of the hand planes, they were far more satisfying and precise than the belt sander. And they generate easily picked up and beautiful curls of wood rather than nasty dust that gets everywhere. 

Critical places to look for information on what to do (in addition to whatever instructions you bought when getting the design or kit): Swaylock's forums, Grain Surfboards, Surfboard Design and Construction e-book (http://www2.swaylocks.com/node/1009693?page=4), Harbour Surfboard's website (good charts with rail profiles), Google and YouTube, which I used a lot to find designs for shaping racks, watch videos of shaping, etc. Plus, the kindness of guys in surf shops in North San Diego (Surfride, Mitch's) and Dennis Murphy who was kind enough to give me some advice.

Planing the rails to rib height

The rail strips are glued into place one-by-one. Once the glue has set, the rails need to be planed down to the same level as the ribs so that the top deck bonds uniformly to the rails as each rib flows smoothly into the rail at a right angle.  The picture on the right shows the left rail planed down to rib height on one side.  Using only hand planes, it took me an hour or so per side. Of course, it took me a fair amount of time to figure out what planes I needed, find the good ones on eBay, get them, learn to sharpen them, etc, etc.

The Jack plane shown in the bottom right of this picture was useful as it took off more material than the 6" block plan --at a cost. A 12" block plane carries a lot of momentum and it crushed ribs if I let the front end creep toward the center of the board.

A whole discussion re: tools is probably worthwhile - that'll be the next post.

Stacked triangular strips to build the rails - pros and cons

Each of 4 triangular strips is glued in leaving a rail that looks like this below. 

It's pretty slick the way that the triangular pcs. stack and interact with each other as you form the curved outline of the board.

The pros of this approach are that the outer edge of the rib is not what defines the rail - the stacked triangles give you enough wood volume to shape different rail shapes & dimensions.  You also don't have to create a stack of coved-and-beaded strips, thus avoiding a bunch of millwork with a router and router table which I'd have to buy.
The cons of the approach are that you still have to figure out how to make triangular strips. My table saw canted to 45 degrees, but not smoothly so my triangles weren't as uniform as I'd wanted.  Not having the rib define the shape of the rail is also a downside. It means you've got to free form shape the rail without much guidance from the shape of the edge of the rib. There is also a LOT of planing. See next posts.
This was my first board and I didn't use the method Grain uses and others appear to use - it looks like their rib outline defines the rail shape b/c the stacked cove and bead strips mimic that rail as they're glued into place. This has many advantages, especially for a newbie like me. Rather than having to figure out how to shape the rails, you just have to make sure the ribs are cut accurately. Once rail strips are glued on, there's minimal planing and sanding to finalize the rail . . . at least, that's how it appears.  It's especially appealing if you buy the ribs and spar since Grain and others who sell rib and spar kits have the cuts nailed since it's all done with a CNC cutter. Their dimensions should be perfect.
My next board may take that route, but I'm glad to have used the stacked triangular strip method. It forced a lot more thinking and understanding of how the rails had to be shaped - getting that thinking was a big part of wanting to do this project regardless of whether I ended up with a board worth showing anyone.

Building up the rails

The design I chose builds up each rail using 4 strips that have a triangular cross-section. The triangular strips are stacked up to form a shape-able rail.  There's a lot of curve from nose to tail, so each triangular strip - 4 per side - needed to be steamed significantly to bend without breaking.  The steam shower I put in the basement a few years ago came in very handy.

The first strip was instructive - I steamed it, slapped on some glue, and then tried to clamp the thing in place while glue ran all over, clamps unclamped, and I hopped on one foot b/c I was clamping with 2 hands and trying to hold unhappily bending wood in place with the other foot.  After that first experience, I steamed the wood and clamped it in place without glue overnight, then came back and glued it once it had taken on the bend more willingly.  

NEXT TIME: After steaming, clamp the wood in place overnight without glue to get the wood to take on the shape you want. That way you'll wrestle it a lot less when you've got glue setting up and time running out. 

Gluing spar & ribs to bottom deck

More clamps are needed throughout the project. I found that the 2x4s used previously to clamp things down didn't work well for the ribs - it needed something that you could bend over the curve of the ribs.. I cut a bunch of 1x2s b/c they'd bend and hold all parts of the rib down well when gluing them to the bottom decking.

NEXT TIME: 

1. With all the clamping to the rocker jig, the assembly takes on the right rocker - until you unclamp it. Then the deck wants to flatten out and exerts a lot of downward force at the nose where the rocker is greatest and the spar is thinnest.  My spar had typical plywood voids in the ply and it failed. I clamped everything back into the jig and glued in reinforcements.

2. Spending more time soaking the deck and clamping it to the rocker jig so it's relaxed and taken on the rocker shape would have helped.  The spar itself isn't strong enough to hold that shape - the deck itself needs to taken on most of the bend before gluing or it'll exert tremendous and destructive force on the spar. .   

Assembling & gluing the spar and ribs

The spar and ribs fit into each other with a notch in each that mated.  My notch cuts weren't completely uniform so some fit tighter than others.  This picture shows the assembly glued and clamped onto the rocker jig.

NEXT TIME:
1. I should have gotten all the template paper off immediately - a heat gun works great if the paper won't peel off by hand. 
2. I used a drill press to cut holes to remove weight from the ribs. Didn't take that step for the spar. It was stupid, so I drilled the spar after it was glued to the bottom deck. This was a mess with all kinds of tear out, etc. Luckily, it is hidden inside the board.
3. Before the ribs are glued to the bottom deck, the spar and rib assembly is pretty fragile - especially at the points where rib and spar are being joined because so much material has been removed for the notches. You have to be exceedingly careful not to crack the spar or ribs at these points. I cracked both and had to repair them with more glue and extra wood for bracing.
4. After cutting the ribs, I'll spend more time making sure each is uniform in terms of length from center to edges.

Laminating the decking

The plans showed how to re-saw 2x6s or 2x8's into 1/4" sheets, but I'm lucky to have Owl Lumber in Lombard, IL ten minutes away. They've got many options of 1/4" cedar, birch, white ash, cherry, etc., although more expensive than re-cutting your own sheets.  I chose Spanish Cedar and White Birch for the bottom deck which I'm setting up to glue together in the top picture. Both are fairly lightweight and free of knots.

The board I decided to make has lots of rocker (i.e., it curves up in the nose ~6" and in the tail ~3").  I made a rocker jig so that each rib can be braced at the proper height to get the right curve. Getting laminated decking to bend to that same rocker curve was important - it would crack if I didn't wet and bend the wood first. 

In the bottom picture, the bottom deck laminate is already glued and I've placed it into the rocker jig to start bending it to fit the rocker.  This piece was >9' long and about 23" wide so it was too big to steam. I covered it with hot, wet towels for about 10 minutes and then clamped it onto the rocker jig with pcs of 2x4 to hold everything down.  Clamps are placed where the rocker jig supports each rib. 
This shows the bottom deck clamped into the rocker jig so it will take the shape of the spar and ribs before I try to glue and clamp them all together.

Cutting the spar and ribs

I bought plans off the internet (www.timelesssurfcompany.com) and received a pdf instruction guide and pdf blueprints for the spar and ribs. I used spray glue to adhere the plans to the ply and cut them out using a hand held power jig saw.  It was Pie Day, the day before Thanksgiving. Stella the dog observing.

NEXT TIME:
1. Will consider buying pre-cut spar and ribs as the CNC cutting gives you much better fits when you need to piece the ribs into the spar as well as more exact and even rib heights and curves.
2. Will NOT use cheap 1/4" ply but will use marine ply or something much better. Cheap ply has voids that became a problem when the ribs and spar were glued to the bottom deck - the amount of rocker in this board put a lot of stress on the spar after the glue had dried and I unclamped it from the rocker jig. The voids caused failures in the spar as it couldn't withstand the deck's intent to lay down flat despite being clamped overnight in the rocker jig.
3. I'd spend more time getting the curve in the deck more permanent and I'd use better wood for the spar and ribs.  For the $10 or $20 I saved using cheap ply, I spent many, many evenings trying to salvage the cracked spar that was already glued to $100+ worth of Spanish cedar and white birch decking.

Choices

There was a lot of over-researching in deciding which direction to go: buy plans only, buy a kit, figure out what board type, etc.  I bought plans and instructions only:
1) I wanted to be forced to figure out the whole thing rather than have someone ship me pre-cut parts that I'd assemble.
2) If I wanted to do the whole thing, I had to make choices re: construction method. The way the rails are built by Grain and a few others is elegant and the way I'll do it next time. Those approaches use cove-and-bead strips and stack them for the rails.  I'd have to buy and setup a router table, jigs, etc. to make the strips. Instead, I chose plans from Chad Stone at timelesssurfcompany.com. The rail buildup was unique and I could make the triangular rail strips with my table saw..  
3) I decided to do an ~8' egg b/c an egg is a safe shape from a rideabililty standpoint. The shape is also fairly straightforward - no concaves or swallow-tails for my first effort. It had a lot of rocker which was a challenge - there were a few screw-ups figuring out how to make wood bend that much.

Why? #2

Increasingly frequent trips to San Diego meant I needed a new board. We live outside Chicago so hitting the local surf shops wasn't possible - the internet was as close as I could get.  I found Dennis Murphy in San Diego who shaped a foam/fiberglass 9'2" that's both beautiful and perfect for where I surf in San Diego. While researching, sites on hollow wooden surfboards kept pulling me back - Grain, Paul Jenson, Wood Surfboard Supply, Swalock's discussion threads, woodsurfboardplans.com. It seemed like the perfect project: compact enough to do in the basement utility room, complex enough to present serious challenges to someone who's not done a lot of woodworking, and if it turned out badly, only time and a couple of hundred dollars of materials in the dumpster. If it turned out well, it'd be a beautiful thing and I'd understand a lot more about surfboards.

Why a wooden surfboard?

A Chicago winter requires a project. Extended work outside is out of the question so it needs to fit in the basement utility room. Complex and technical is good as the winter is long. Hands on is important - I'm a suit and working with my hands is needed balance. Most importantly, the project must offer hope. Hope that days will get longer, temperatures will rise, ice will melt, the next trip to the beach will come soon, and for me, hope that I'll discover more about the nature of something I love. Last winter, I tied flies. This winter (2010-11), I built a surfboard.