Day 32 - The end has come! (sort of...mostly)

Today was a momentous day for our little surf project - 4 weeks and 4 days after we started, it signified the end of our the major work, and the end of our time in the little barn across the road. Drew and I started at 10:30am and once the room was up to temp, we put on Kat's last hot coat. I also had the little repair job on my left fin box that we put a patch of 60z cloth on and resined up which we left to dry while we did Drew's fish, and then Micah's board. By that time (many hours and a meal later) my board was ready to hot coat again, and that marked our last official hot coat for these four boards! Once that was done, we started sanding down boards to get a smooth finish, Kat added a pin line on her deck, and we finished by sanding off the resin and cloth from our fin boxes and testing all the fins. They all worked perfectly!

Even though we're more or less finished, we do have some touch up sanding to get the boards smooth, and leash cups to install, but those are all very small jobs that we'll just do over the course of the next week or so as we tidy up. But at the end of the night yesterday (after another 10hr+ day) we finished by taking down our custom glassing bay walls (bed sheets and staples) and spent some time cleaning up Milton's shop, which he has graciously let us use for longer than expected. Thanks Milton!

Also, the big question mark in our "project over" proclamation is that Drew's semi-gun is still an eyesore. Fortunately, we think we know how to fix it, and after doing all the other boards, this one will probably turn out the best of all! So we will probably have another post or two about leash cup installs and fixing Drew's gun, but for now, bask in the glory of these few pictures of our mostly finished boards (Justin's and Micah's). I'll add a few more later when I get Drew's camera as well.

Attendees: Drew, Justin, Micah, Kat

Day 31 - epic day of everything

We weren't messing around Saturday and had grand master plans to get as much done as possible this weekend to try and wrap things up. Everyone was at the shop by 9:30am and once the room was up to temp, we got right into it.

In laminating the bottoms of our boards, we used the cut lap method, which meant we ran masking tape around the deck, wrapped the bottom cloth around onto this tape, and cut the cloth at the masking tape lines to get a smooth lap line. In retrospect, we're not sure if this was necessary or not, but it did cause us some grief in cleanup. Because we painted our boards before glassing, the resin started to pull up paint when we took the tape off. Drew managed to come up with a method to minimize the damage on his Fish, but we all ended up having to do a bunch of touchup in preparation for glassing the decks.

So, while Micah did this touchup work on his board we glassed Friday, we started on Kat's. We devised a highly advanced and technical format to track and maximize our glassing and drying times - pencil and a stick of wood. Ok, well at least the chart was fancy. I think we burned it though so you'll never know. We were able to plan out all our flip times by tracking this way, and make sure that we could move boards and turn everything around to get as many top laminates and then top hot coats done as we could in one day. We were able to do all 4 top lams and all 4 top hot coats, by using a "cheater coat" and doing the hot coat (resin only) before the top cloth had dried completely. This worked perfectly, and 12+ hours later, all 4 boards have just the bottom hot coats and clean up to do Sunday.

Attendees: Drew, Justin, Micah, Kat

Day 30 - friday night lights

Last night we got the last bottom lam coat on, which was Micah's board, in preparation for our big days Saturday and Sunday. After Drew's gun mishap, these next four boards have gone without a hitch, and it seems to get a bit easier every time. We're learning lots and hopefully we retain all this for next time we came boards. Another late night, but we're up at the crack of dawn Saturday to make sure we get everything done.

Attendees: Drew, Justin, Micah