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Old    surfdad            10-16-2008, 8:24 PM Reply   
Surftech is the largest manufacturer of surfboards in the world. I believe that I read 160,000 units a year.

In the surfboard world, these boards are considered stiff and corky. Shapers also note that while the construction is robust, you can't order a custom in that construction - as is true with all pop-outs.

Last year I built a rather simplistic one and this winter I'm going to duplicate James board...or at least a reasonable facsimile.

This is the model:

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Old    surfdad            10-16-2008, 8:34 PM Reply   
Surftech took advances from the sailboard industry and brought it to surfboard construction. The methodology is a low density 1# EPS core wrapped with high density skins, in between is a lightweight fiberglass. Surftech are rather stiff because most of their resin is on the outside, beautiful automotive paint and the EPS core has a fairly deep saturation of resin in it.

The first thing is to hot wire the rocker into a billet of 1# EPS. The bottom rocker is the most important part of the build. I have already made up the hotwire templates. Mark points on the nose and tail to accurately attach the templates.

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Old    surfdad            10-16-2008, 8:37 PM Reply   
The rocker hotwired. I use a Tenoka hotwire bow, but you can also easily make one.

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Old    surfdad            10-16-2008, 8:39 PM Reply   
After the rocker is cut, I mark the centerline on the top. I'll use this to layout my plan shape / outline.

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Old    surfdad            10-16-2008, 8:42 PM Reply   
On my build, I can't thermoform the skin over the rails, so I will use 1/2" thick H80 divinycell on the rails. In order to glue that up, I first markout the outline of the board and then using a guide on my jigsaw, I trim just under 1/2" in from the first cut.

My first outline - this is what the final board will eventually look like.

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Old    surfdad            10-16-2008, 8:44 PM Reply   
The outline cut from one side.

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Old    surfdad            10-16-2008, 8:46 PM Reply   
This is a small piece of the 1/2" H80. This is a 5 pound density cross linked PVC. The entire board will have this epidermus of 5 pound foam. This compared to a typical surfboard that is in the 2 pound range.

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Old    surfdad            10-16-2008, 8:50 PM Reply   
I going to fiddle with the "wings" later by gluing on a piece that I'll shape to match the outline.

I next marked a line just inside my first cut, a hair less than 1/2" so that I would have enough rail material to allow shaping tha rails.

You'll notice that I free-handed the area around the wings, basically just connecting the two curves. I used a sanding block to blend these two curves a bit better than in the picture.

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Old    surfdad            10-16-2008, 8:51 PM Reply   
Tomorrow, hopefully, I'll cut and attach the H80 rails, save for the wing block.
Old     (notsobueno)      Join Date: Dec 2004       10-16-2008, 10:00 PM Reply   
When (if) I grow up, i want to be like you, Jeff.
Old    surfdad            10-17-2008, 5:33 AM Reply   
Why I never?! Are you suggesting that I am grown up?! :-)
Old     (smedman)      Join Date: Feb 2006       10-17-2008, 7:50 AM Reply   
Nice Jeff. Don't ever grow up!
Old    lakeside5_10            10-17-2008, 8:14 AM Reply   
you grow up and grow old , never will do it.
Old     (hawaj)      Join Date: Aug 2005       10-17-2008, 11:18 AM Reply   
grow up? no thats no good, never ever
Old     (monkey)      Join Date: Oct 2002       10-17-2008, 5:06 PM Reply   
> "In the surfboard world, these boards are considered stiff and corky"

I ride surftechs (for ocean surfing). For small surf (less than 8 foot), they're simply the best boards I've ever ridden in my life, and everyone I know that has one says the exact same thing. They're WAY faster. They're lighter. They can handle intense sun exposure. They're a little tougher (although that part is overrated). They float better, and best of all, you never have to worry about your shaper having a bad day. If you buy the same model, it's the exact same board. In fact, I busted one of them the day before I was going on a surf trip to Central America, so I went to the shop and bought the exact same board to bring on the trip. I had never ridden the new one before that trip, but it worked exactly the same as what I was used to. And, just to make sure I wasn't imagining how much better the surftech was than the traditional surfboard, I went and bought the same shape/brand in regular "poly" material. In big surf, the regular, shaped, poly board is very nice, because it absorbs the bumps better, but if it's under 8 foot, the surftech is the only one I ride. It's that much better.

Which brings me to the point of my super long post. Why isn't the wakesurf industry flooded with surftech/tuflite boards. They'd be perfect for wakesurfing given how much lighter they are and how much more speed they generate.
Old    surfdad            10-17-2008, 7:35 PM Reply   
Hey Tim, good post. Don't you think it's just an issue of an inmature market? The vast majority of folks are still buying the $299 HL/LF/CWB boards.

Back to the build. As I planned, I glued up the rail material this evening. The rails are H80 Divinycell. In this picture, you can see that I am cutting the rails with the rocker. I've used the rocker template from my hotwire, even though it's not quite the right arc. I've also cut the rails 2 inches wide, which is more than I need, but I want to have enough material to shape top and bottom.

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Old    surfdad            10-17-2008, 7:38 PM Reply   
I forgot to mention that you can cut the H80 with a razor knife.

The nose of the rail material needs to be cut/shaped where they meet - a 45 degree or so angle.

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Old    surfdad            10-17-2008, 7:41 PM Reply   
I mixed up about 3 oz of epoxy and spread it on the rails and also a bit on each side of the EPS blank. I use a 1 1/2" paint brush for this - you can call me Rembrandt. :-)

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Old    surfdad            10-17-2008, 7:43 PM Reply   
I attached the rails and then slipped the whole thing in the bag to cure.

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Old    surfdad            10-17-2008, 7:47 PM Reply   
Tomorrow, I hope to:

Trim the excess H80, shape the bottom of the board, route out the EPS for the High Density foam inserts where the boxes will go AND attach the bottom skin. :-)
Old    surfdad            10-18-2008, 11:29 AM Reply   
Out of the bag and ready for the tail block. I just used 5 min epoxy and some tape to glue that up. You'll notice in the picture that I've written down measurements on the blank itself, for the depth of my concave. I'll plane or sand most of that off, but if not, it will be covered by a d-cell skin.

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Old    surfdad            10-18-2008, 11:31 AM Reply   
With a planer (not the cool Clark Foam planer that I have on order) I take the rough shape of the concave down and then finish with a sanding block.

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Old    surfdad            10-18-2008, 11:45 AM Reply   
The core of this board is 1 pound eps. It's best described as floppy. As such, you can't insert fin boxes directly into it as virtually any torque on the fins will cause flex and distortion resulting in diminished drive.

To counter this, a high density foam insert is embedded in the 1 pound eps to distribute the load better. You can use scraps of d-cell or cut a separate piece of balsa or high density foam to fit. I recently tried pour foam and found that to be the easiest. The foam glues itself while simultaeneously filling the void and shaping itself. Just seemed quicker and easier to me than shaping and fitting a separate piece of foam or wood.

The first part of the process is to determine how much to hollow out, then fill it with a higher density foam.

I mocked up where the fin boxes will go and then marked out 1/2" around that to provide the load bearing structure - such as it is.

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Old    surfdad            10-18-2008, 11:47 AM Reply   
A quick couple of passes with the router set at a 1" depth creates the cavity. The Futures rail boxes are 3/4" deep, so I added an extra 1/4" depth which, if I've measured correctly, shouldn't poke through the deck at that location.

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Old    surfdad            10-18-2008, 11:50 AM Reply   
I used 4 pound pour foam for this, that seems to be the minimum density to be functional in this sort of situation. I also made "caps" that will go over the cavity to help pack the foam as it is expanding. I poked two holes in each cap to allow the foam to vent as it's expanding.

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Old    surfdad            10-18-2008, 11:52 AM Reply   
Now when working with the expanding pour foam, accurate measurements are a necessity! :-)

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Old    surfdad            10-18-2008, 11:54 AM Reply   
After pouring the foam into the cavity, you can shape it down to the contour of the boards bottom. The high density foam doesn't shape as easily as the 1# EPS, so some finesse is needed to avoid overshaping the EPS.

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Old    surfdad            10-18-2008, 11:57 AM Reply   
The last piece that I needed to do was attach the dcell along the rails where I'll shape the wings.

Two small scraps served that purpose and I just 5 min epoxied them on.

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Old    surfdad            10-18-2008, 11:58 AM Reply   
The board is ready to have the bottom skin attache dand hopefully I'll get that started after lunch.
Old    surfdad            10-18-2008, 7:50 PM Reply   
I deleted all the images from the camera of attaching the skin. In a nutshell, trace the outline of the board on the dcell. Cut it out with a pair of scissors (it's like heavy construction paper). Cut a similar shape from some 2 oz. 'glass. DO NOT seal the EPS core, because we want the epoxy to soak into the EPS. Wet out the 'glass and lay it on to the dcell skin. Place that on the core and then slide the whole mess into the bag. Easy! :-)

In the pictures you'll see that I just bagged the skin to the core, not to the bed, but I placed the blank ONTO the bed to insure that the rocker stayed.


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Old    surfdad            10-18-2008, 7:54 PM Reply   
The concave shaped earlier, now has the skin in the same contour.

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Old    surfdad            10-18-2008, 8:00 PM Reply   
Next step is to bring the deck down to dimension and check it frequently to make sure it's square.

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Old    surfdad            10-18-2008, 8:05 PM Reply   
The blank currently weighs 22 oz. It will need some external paint to help achieve stiffness. My estimate, at this point, is that the final board with paint, but no fins or traction will weigh about 3.5 pounds...not bad, but not stellar either.

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Old     (hawaj)      Join Date: Aug 2005       10-19-2008, 5:21 AM Reply   
What a mess from planer. Now I can see what will happen when I didnt use vacu all the time.
But It was clean everywhere. I only little fight with hose over my shoulder but that was ok

(Message edited by hawaj on October 19, 2008)
Old    surfdad            10-19-2008, 5:50 AM Reply   
I know, it's a mess!
Old    surfdad            10-20-2008, 7:34 PM Reply   
I attached the deck skin this even and this process is the same as I accidentally deleted earlier.

After shaping the deck and the rails, the deck skin gets attached. I start by tracing the outline of the board on a piece of d-cell.

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Old    surfdad            10-20-2008, 7:35 PM Reply   
You can cut the 1/8" dcell with scissors or a razor knife, it's like thick construction paper. :-)

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Old    surfdad            10-20-2008, 7:37 PM Reply   
After the skin is cut, I lay up a piece of 2 oz glass that will laminate the deck skin to the eps core.

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Old    surfdad            10-20-2008, 7:40 PM Reply   
Mix up a few oz of epoxy, wet out the glass and then spread it out on the dcell skin. I use a plastic spreader to smooth out the glass on the dcell.

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Old    surfdad            10-20-2008, 7:42 PM Reply   
Next, I pick the blank up and put it ON to the wet skin, upside down, then pick them both up and flip them over in tandem.

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Old    surfdad            10-20-2008, 7:47 PM Reply   
Then I slide the whole thing in the bag and pull a vacuum over night. :-)

That's principally the entire build, or at least the uiques aspect of this type of construction. The rest is the standard final lamination that is consistent with other builds.

After the lamination, we are going to paint this up with flames :-)

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Old    surfdad            10-21-2008, 5:31 AM Reply   
Out of the bag and it weighs 28 oz. The deck skin where it meets at the rails still needs to be trimmed, so it will most likely have a weight of 26 oz after sanding.

It's as stiff as a 2 - 3 # blank at this stage. It's an interesting phenomenon. If you glue two playing cards together they are still fairly easy to bend through the joint, but glue a third and it's decidedly stiff at the joint. This is true with the entire structure of this blank.

The biggest "downside" with this construction for wakesurfers is that the boards aren't big enough to show an appreciable weight savings. It's most likely 25% lighter than a 2 pound blank at this stage, but that translates to maybe 4 oz. On a larger board - say a long board, that savings is most like 2 pounds.

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Old    surfdad            10-21-2008, 7:50 PM Reply   
The deck blended into the rails and it weighs in at 26.5 oz - I missed by 1/2 oz. :-)

The board on the right without traction or fins weighs 5 pounds exactly, it has a deck patch under the rear foot.

The surftech build will have about 1 pound of external lamination and in order to affect some additional stiffness, about 1 pound of paint and a 2 pack gloss. I'll shoot for 3.5 pounds without traction, but my gut tells me that 4+ is more likely.

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Old    surfdad            10-22-2008, 7:57 PM Reply   
D-cell is cross linked PVC foam and is closed cell, BUT you need to seal it. Not to prevent the uptake of resin, but to give the wetted glass something to stick to! :-) Typically when you lay out wetted glass it will lay flat and stick on EPS or PolyU, but on D-cell it just slides around. I've heard of folks using bondo to seal with, but a slurry of epoxy and micro-ballons or spackle will do the trick also.

I've opted for 2 oz glass on the bottom, and I used 2 oz of epoxy. It'll need a light fill coat before shooting the catalized primer for the paint.

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(Message edited by surfdad on October 22, 2008)
Old    surfdad            10-22-2008, 8:02 PM Reply   
How to lap the rails using a bag. :-) Pull the excess bag up on the side you aren't laminating as the vacuum is pulling.

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Old    surfdad            10-23-2008, 5:33 AM Reply   
Crappy picture, but out of the bag and it is right at 30 oz. The deck lamination and fill coats are going to add 8 to 10 oz. I believe the addition if the boxes will be neutral in terms of weight addition as the foam I am cutting out will weight just about what the plastic boxes do. My estimate of weight before painting is currently at 40 oz. If I can keep the paint at 1 pound, then I am on target for the 3.5 pound finished weight. We'll see.

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Old     (baddad)      Join Date: Dec 2004       10-23-2008, 8:23 AM Reply   
Very impressed!
Go Jeff, Go!!
Old    surfdad            10-23-2008, 8:24 PM Reply   
Thanks dimitri!

Flip and lam the top. When I pulled the board out of the bag this morning it felt just a hair tacky. That after almost 9 hours under a blanket, so to be safe I stepped up to a fast hardener from a medium hardener. That fast will cure down to 40 degrees, so hopefully I won't have the tackiness issue tomorrow morning.

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Old    surfdad            10-23-2008, 8:25 PM Reply   
Hey Petr! Can you guess what this is...or maybe it's more appropriate to ask what this WILL be?

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Old    surfdad            10-24-2008, 5:45 AM Reply   
Out of the bag with no signs of the tackiness that I had yesterday. The board currently weighs a hair under 35 oz. I don't think I would ride it at that weight, but I would guess that it is "finished" in terms of glassing.

We're going to try our hand at painting and will be using urethane automotive finishes including a 2 pack final gloss which will stiffen the board up more, as well as, get rid of the ugly old formula d-cell grey.

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This is a close up of the deck, one small resin vein on the rail, but you can see a pretty clean and smooth lamination on the deck.

It is 2.5 oz of 4 oz cloth and 2.5 oz of resin holding it on. There is no way that I could do that by hand. Maybe an incredibly talented and experienced laminator could wet out 2.5 oz of glass in a 1:1 matrix by hand, but the bag allows even a garage hack like myself to achieve it.

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Old    surfdad            10-24-2008, 6:53 PM Reply   
Fill/Sanding/Hot coat. I'll only scuff this with 220 as the next layer will be a catalyzed orimer in preparation for paint, rather than the more common gloss coat.

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Old    surfdad            10-25-2008, 1:50 PM Reply   
Hotcoat on the deck.

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Old     (bac)      Join Date: Feb 2008       10-25-2008, 6:27 PM Reply   
Very nice Jeff! Very interested to hear how it rides
Old     (hawaj)      Join Date: Aug 2005       10-25-2008, 9:16 PM Reply   
I really have no idea Jeff.
Old    surfdad            10-26-2008, 5:08 AM Reply   
Thanks bac. My paint doesn't arrive until the 29th, so I'm a bit ahead of schedule. The hotcoats are done and I'm at 39 oz. I'll install the fin boxes this week and it should be at 40 oz (2.5 pounds) going into paint. If I can keep the paint at 1 pound total, the final production weight will be at 3.5 pounds. The plan for the paint is all black with overlapping red/orange flames which are pinstripped in yellow. I'll post a snippet that I hope to achieve on the bottom/tail of the board.

Petr it's going to be a pantograph! I purchased the design from the folks at Copycarver and then blew the dimensions up to 4' x 8'. Basically a poor man's CNC with limited use :-)

Mostly I just work with one design and different materials. I've found that duplicated that same design over and over is tough - on a good one I can get with 3mm. This pantograph has a stylus located to the left of the router and you trace whatever you are trying to duplicate and the router follows those dimensions right down to the fin box routing! Well...that's the plan at least :-)

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Old    surfdad            10-27-2008, 8:30 PM Reply   
Dimitri if you're reading this, my biz email is whacked. Didn't want you to worry, the Roush went out and should arrive on Friday.

Fin boxes in. This isn't the normal way to install Futures, but the bagging process makes it tougher.

The boxes are in HD foam, the flanges in the D-cell and the feet down in the PolyU.

Marking for the cut - I don't worry about the visible markings as I'm going to paint all of this.

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Test fit

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Glued up and curing

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Old     (baddad)      Join Date: Dec 2004       10-28-2008, 5:29 PM Reply   
Dang Jeff, you make it look so easy....
Old    surfdad            10-28-2008, 8:29 PM Reply   
Hey Dimtri - be sure to post up pics of that Roush when you ride it this weekend.

The process isn't really all that hard, I'm sure that my having done it several times makes it flow easily...but it's not hard. However, THIS method of construction is incredibly labor intensive and time consuming. I have to laugh a little when folks talk about this sort of construction as pop-outs or less challenging than hand shaping a blank.

I can also see that it would be really hard to be competitive with price on a board built like this in the States.

Back to the build...I want to paint the flames on the bottom and have them cover the fin boxes. So I used Bondo

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To create a smoothie! :-) I'm hoping that the flame pattern will flow smoothly over the boxes and that they'll be hidden in the graphic.

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I've taped over the box openings and set screw holes. I'll have to go back and touch up when I remove the tape after painting.

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Old    surfdad            10-29-2008, 8:09 PM Reply   
Now comes the tedious part...I think I calculated there will be 40 coats of paint if various colors from primer thru the clear. I was WAY generous on my weight, I'm projecting now that this board will hit 5 pounds. It will be 2.5 pounds of foam and glass and 2.5 pounds of paint.

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Old    surfdad            10-30-2008, 8:36 PM Reply   
My "milling" machine is starting to take shape! :-)



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Old     (jstieg)      Join Date: Apr 2007       10-30-2008, 8:46 PM Reply   
jeff, why so much paint? seems like 40 coats is a bit overkill
Old    surfdad            10-30-2008, 9:01 PM Reply   
Yeah it is Johnny. :-) It's not 40 layers of the same color or all over. There is a primer, white base coat, yellow for the pins, orange and red fades for the flames, black for the rest and then clear. There will be a ton of clear to get an even surface due to the pattern on the tail. So seven different "colors". The base and primers will take 5 to 8 thin coats, the clear will be about the same, but probably 10. The base and yellow hopefully less, but I'm estimating 5 to 8 there also. The fades and the black and drop shadows will be the least, but it really adds up quickly. The design is crazy for this application, but HOPEFULLY will be sick. :-)
Old    surfdad            11-01-2008, 8:04 PM Reply   
The primer is a 2 part catalyzed primer in a can. Just like you'd mix in your spray gun. There is a small button on the bottom of the can and when you activate that, the two parts get mixed. Super hard two part urethane primer! This company also makes a 2 pac for an automotive clear coat.

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Old    surfdad            11-01-2008, 8:06 PM Reply   
5 coats of primer.

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Old    surfdad            11-01-2008, 8:08 PM Reply   
Base coat curing. It's flawless.

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A close up of the urethane base coat.

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Old     (bac)      Join Date: Feb 2008       11-02-2008, 12:21 PM Reply   
Can't wait to see the finished product!

And Jeff, looks like I'm going to get the hook up on getting some rough blanks that I can play with and plane and finish myself. I'm looking forward to building a few this winter
Old    surfdad            11-02-2008, 7:18 PM Reply   
TXSurf, that is so cool! What do you have planned to build?
Old    surfdad            11-03-2008, 8:46 PM Reply   
Yellow, for the top of the fades and pins.

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Old    surfdad            11-04-2008, 6:21 PM Reply   
Laying out the pins....guess who gets to do the hard part?! :-)

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Old    surfdad            11-04-2008, 8:13 PM Reply   
Pins mostly done.

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Old     (konaking)      Join Date: Mar 2008       11-05-2008, 4:06 AM Reply   
SD I wish you were my neighbor.
Old     (bigshow)      Join Date: Feb 2005       11-05-2008, 3:25 PM Reply   
What, you want EPS dust blowing in to your yard?
Old    surfdad            11-05-2008, 3:52 PM Reply   
That is SSSSSSSOOOOOOOOO not true! Photographic evidence to the contrary, below! :-)

Although...I could sneak out under cover of darkness and empty the bag over the fence (evil laughter).} :-)

Why NO, neighbor I have NO IDEA how the neat pile of 2 pound EPS pellets appeared next to our fence line on your property.

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Old    surfdad            11-05-2008, 8:43 PM Reply   
Like in the Army, dig a hole and fill it back up...mask the flame outlines and then cut them back out! I should be done with this part by Xmas. :-)

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Old    surfdad            11-06-2008, 8:09 PM Reply   
Ready for the first fades.

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Old     (hawaj)      Join Date: Aug 2005       11-07-2008, 1:07 PM Reply   
yep Jeff pinstriping my board was real pain because of dusty sealed surface didnt want to stick with blue 3M pinstripe tape and than that masking with newspapers was "fun" eh eh. But I surly wanted to try it out. Pinstriping smooth surface is different story.
Old    surfdad            11-07-2008, 7:43 PM Reply   
I am hating the pins and all the masking tape. I've had one section that I didn't control very well, it curled back over on itself - THROW that piece away!
Old    surfdad            11-07-2008, 7:44 PM Reply   
First flames painted

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Old     (bac)      Join Date: Feb 2008       11-08-2008, 5:23 PM Reply   
I bet thats coming out sweet! I can't wait to see it finished!

Doesn't look like James minded doing the striping

I'm not exactly sure Jeff, I'm gonna buy a few in a some different size/shape configs and ply with the. I'm just getting the time to actually talk with the shaper on the phone long enough. Business has been crazy busy lately

(Message edited by bac on November 08, 2008)
Old     (smedman)      Join Date: Feb 2006       11-08-2008, 5:55 PM Reply   
cool flames Jeff! definitely gives folks an appreciation for the artwork process. it can add HOURS+++ to the process of building a board for sure. :-)

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