tips & tricks – Page 3 – FFW Surfboards

February 18, 2013

Next One – the ‘forty one two’ MkII

The next one has gone for a machine cut!

I’ve refined the ‘forty one two’ to now include full single into double concaves in the AKU file.

I’ve also tweaked the rails.

In these screenshots, you can see the comparison to the ‘forty one two’.

Interesting thing I realised is that ‘adding in’ the concaves in AKU actually increased the volume. Which is the total opposite of what you get when you hand shape in the concaves (i.e. you take off foam to make the concaves when doing it by hand). That’s then lead me to realise that the rocker is also different, albeit the rail rocker and not to the centre / stringer rocker …

This then led me to think that when I cut in the concaves by hand on the last one, I have actually flattened the centre / stringer rocker.

Hand shaping vs machine design … bit of a mind twist!

February 15, 2013

Deck Compressions … you think?

OK, so it’s about time I showed you this stuff …

Having surfed the ‘forty one two’ a few times now, well, OK that’s an understatement, she’s been well, ah let’s say … ‘broken in’, it has a couple of deck depressions.

At first, I thought it was my glassing, or surfing it before it was cured, or maybe even the UV catalyst since I’d heard that can make the glass a bit ‘softer’ … turns out it she was cut from a ‘lite’ blank and therefore a bit softer than a standard blank.

December 31, 2012

Lost Motivation

I have lost the motivation to finish this one (the nineteen 97 minimal) … the sticky / tacky filler coat slowed me down and caused some stress, then the hot days have hit so getting into the shed is a mission … but, as always, the calm before the storm has delivered puss waves so I have been spending some time back in the shed …

The baking paper solution worked, to a degree … reducing the tacky / stickiness by approx 50%, but still had the gummy paper … so I reverted to the hot soapy water while sanding trick, and ploughed through the two coats … then, out came my very limited creative abilities to try and cover up some of the earlier stuff ups, only to end up then washing all the paint off since it looked like someone had vomitted on it … it was worse than an pre schoolers art work, serious, it was bad … and NO, there are no photo’s …

So, back to the drawing board, and another coat of yellow paint onto the sanded filler coat, which I have now just covered with another coat of filler using MEKP and not UV … this is a fresh batch mixed well this morning, so, let’s hope it does not go tacky! You can see the earlier issues in this pic …

December 19, 2012

THE ‘solution’ to the sticky problem ???

Well, it’s been two days now, with the solution applied, so I went out this morning to check on the progress. As you can see in the first pic here, the paper has “stuck” to the board, no surprise there.

So I peeled back some of the paper (see second pic), which has revealed all the spots where the paper has ‘stuck’ are now dry, not even slightly sticky or tacky on those spots … but, the lower spots, where the paper has not “stuck” are still sticky / tacky.

Looking at the whole board then, I’d guess that maybe two thirds of the deck are now ‘tack free’ … so that’s a huge improvement. I’ll sand it with hot soapy water (another trick I picked up) so the paper does not “gum up” as much … when I tried this sanding the last coat, the paper was heaps easier to to then clean (hot soapy water and scrubbing brush … no need for toxic acetone).

PS: I’d just like to acknowledge these ‘solutions’ have come from over on Swaylocks. If you’re into making surfboards, or want to get into making surfboards, then make sure you spend some time searching through the posts on Swaylocks … some seriously awesome information has been posted on there over the years.

December 18, 2012

OOPS – tacky / sticky filler coat

The filler coat on the deck of the ‘nineteen 97’ was still ‘sticky’ / ‘tacky’ after almost a week.

I’ve narrowed it down to being:

– my resin … too much heat in the shed
– the uv sunbake I used … again the heat and also it seemed ‘thicker’ when I used it
– the filler mix itself being about a month old now
– the wax in styrene % in the mix (i.e. too low)
– my application technique (i.e. brushing it too much)
– temp impact when I applied it (i.e. kicked too early, brushed after starting to kick)
– not mixed enough before using again
– mixed too much before using again … I shook the can, and did not stir it

The UV I used, ended up as a whole bottle, went hard and had to throw it and get more. I used the new UV for the lam coat on this board and it went off OK … looking back, I recall the filler coat on the last board, the forty one two, was a bit sticky / tacky and I used more rough grit paper than previous boards (gumming up) but the bottom seemed to go ok on the second coat I had to do, after fin instal and a couple of almost sand thru spots …

So, I’m now back to a ‘sticky’ / ‘tacky’ board … what to do?

I’ve had it out in the sun again to make sure it has fully kicked, and it is hard (finger nail tap) … it’s just when I put skin on it I feel the ‘tacky’ / ‘sticky’ … If I apply another coat, new mixed batch, later today when the temps drop … and assuming it is ok and not tacky, what will happen if I then sand through that layer of filler? Will I hit the ‘tacky stuff’? Would I be better off trying to sand this current still sticky / tacky layer? Wash it off with acetone and try again?

Nope, the solution was found … and is in action … here’s a hint:

December 9, 2012

Lap … cut & free (not dancing)

On the first two boards I did, the ‘jazz” and the ‘forty one”, I did free laps … the ‘jazz’ turned out quite ugly, and ended up with a very uneven line of cloth which is quite obvious after sanding the filler coat as can be seen in this pic:

It’s smooth, and only cosmetic, but I wanted better. So, with the ‘forty one’ I also did a free lap and tried to get a better line, hoping that would blend the lap better and be less ugly looking, but, not quite there as this pic shows:

Click on any of these images to get a larger view.

So, with the ‘forty one two’ I decided I would try a cut lap. My first ever attempt … so I tapped up the rails on the deck, and went about cutting the cloth more ‘neatly’, I even bought so new super sharp and awesome scissors which made the cloth trimming process much much easier … but, in my usually way, I invited the fuck up fairy back by trimming the cloth so some ended up inside the tapped line, this then lead to the issues when I went to ‘cut’ the lap, since some was overhanging the tape, but other parts were back from it … so I ended up with a bit of an uneven cut. Getting the razor blade to slide along the tap edge and cut was OK where the cloth overhung the tape, but when it hit the spots where the cloth did not make the tape, ah, messy again. Here’ a pic of the lap finished:

That ‘gash’ you can see on the left hand side is where I managed to put the corner of some sand paper into the foam when I was sanding the lap at that point … it was one of the spots where the cut lap did not sit well and needed a bit more effort to sand it down …the right hand side is he best lap I’ve done, and almost blends with hardly (relative to my two previous attempts) any cloth line showing.

So, with the ‘nineteen 97’ the plan is to do a cut lap and I will be taping the whole deck, using butchers paper to stop any laminate resin getting onto the deck, which, on the ‘forty one two’ resulted in a ‘bumpy’ deck … I will also make sure the cloth is well past the edge of the tape. Watch this space … I’m sure the fairy will be back !

PS: My ‘cut lap’ knowledge came from watching you tube video’s !

December 2, 2012

Decisions on the run …

OK, thought I would share one of my ‘decisions on the run’ … so, here’s the situation, I have the shaping stands that I turn sideways and whack on the ‘glassing stands’ … so, then when I glass I have the ‘reverse’ tape to hold the board … but once glassed, there is usually some sanding needed, like the dags on the laps, etc … so I end up just doing it with the glassing stands in place … but, it does get a bit hard to hold the board at times, so I decided on the run to use some masking tape to hold the board down …

So, while I’m sanding say the tail, or fin boxes, etc. I whack on some tape like the pic here (click it for a larger view).

You can see my stands in this pic too … and the ‘glassing stands’ I attach to the top.

Feel free to use any of my idea’s in your own R&D … after all that’s what Rip Off and Duplicate is all about !!!

December 2, 2012

Getting Organised

Well, the swell has been pretty ordinary lately … so, I have spent some time thinking about how I can get more organised in the shed. You see, I’m a bit ‘just get it done’ when I’m making boards, and I end up with stuff everywhere … the shelves on the top of my side lights have been very handy … I put stuff on them until there is stuff all space … and end up moving stuff, knockng stuff over, etc … so, then when I move it, I’m putting it in corners and “away” as I moved to the next phase of the board making process.

So, I was going to build some shelves, and use plastics containers, but when I priced that up, and thought about the practical aspect of it being used … well, I ended up going this way (see pic, click on it for a larger view). It has ten slide out plastic (easy to clean and hose out of foam dust, yeah as if I’m ever going to do that!) and have enough room in each for what I want.

And surprisingly, this did not come from Bunnings. Nope, it’s from Officeworks … for $38 !!!

November 11, 2012

When it rains … add some colour!

After the bad weather yesterday, did I mention it was drizzle rain all do, so I could not even get the blank back out into the shed (it got to sleep inside), but today, was another story … intially overcast and light showers, I figured no glassing again today, but maybe I could get the logo on and see what happens. So I started mid morning with the logo, via the stencil again as shown in the first pic.

As the weather was not quite clear enough for glassing, I started to play around with adding some more colour … anyway, mid way through the tape up the sky had cleared and out came the sun, so I quickly changed the design idea to get it finished quickly so I could start glassing.

In the second pic, you can see all the tape up I did, which pretty much ended up wasted due to my plan to get it glassed this weekend.

So, here I am, at just after 9pm having managed to get the ‘forty one two’ laminated and tonight after dark, I got the hotcoat onto the deck using MEKP rather than UV catalyst. I post more about that when I get some pic …

November 10, 2012

The ‘forty one two’ – before and after concaves

The design from AKU had a very slight single concave of only 1/16″, not 1/8″ as I posted earlier … but as I said, that is exactly what has come out in the cut blank as can be seen on the first pic here.

(Tip: double click on pics to see a full screen version)

The second pic here is after I have shaped in the concaves … I started with the single (or middle) taking down the stringer so I had about 3/16″ between the fins and about 1/8′ under the front foot … I then cut in the doubles so it runs with about 3/32″ from the front foot and runs through to it’s deepest between the fin with 7/32″ … both the single and doubles fade in from the nose, and fade out to the tail.