Day 8 - One fish, two fish, red fish, glue fish

When we got into the shop today, we were greeted with the site of a glued, clamped and dried 6'2 Fish that was ready for cutting. We were excited to get going with it, but first we had to get the next two boards glued and set up so they could dry while we worked.

The first order of business was to clear a bunch of foam out of work space - all the leftover offcuts were crowding us out of the shaping bay. We also had to stock up on Gorilla glue - it has lots of sticking power, but apparently no staying power. After the errands were done, it was back to the shop and into clamping mode. While Micah, Dorothy, and I clamped, Drew and Kat finished up work on our shaping stands. We are at the stage now where we needed to have these. They are custom stands designed to hold the surfboard vertically and horizontally to make theme easy to work on. We also refined our clamping process and got one board done, but ran out of materials for clamping a second board. The drying time is 24hrs, and not wanting to do one board at a time, we hit up our local hardware supply stores (Chad Stretch and Joe Mitchell) for extra wood and clamps to get the job done.

Once the boards were clamped, it was time to cut out our first shape from the fully glued Fish. This was an exciting moment, as all our hard work and time looks like it's starting to pay off when you see the cut-out shape. At this stage, it truly resembles a rough surfboard, and you can start to envision what it's going to look like finished. Lots of work to go yet though, so here's some pics to tide you over while we get back to it!

Attendees: Drew, Justin, Micah, Kat, Dorothy (guest clamper)