Chine log #1

I glued on the right chine log, it went very well. In order to make the front of the log curve I steamed it with a towel and an iron. The process didn't take too long, but I don't have enough clamps to do the other log as well, so I have to wait. I guess I'll have to wait for each rail to dry before glueing the opposite side, this would take alot of time. I think I may trust the glue to stay after a couple hours and take off half the clamps to do the other side.

Tail Piece

I unclamped the boards from the keel and amazingly nothing happened. The tail pieces were too long as they should have been, so I had to cut off the extra, but keep the bottom boards. This turned out to be a nightmare and the amazing strength of the glue/caulk that I used tore of pieces of the bottom boards. The damage isn't serious and is mostly cosmetic and hopefully it won't show up.

Keel to bottom

Tonight I glued the keel the the bottom boards. I had to get six more clamps to finish the job and I could have used some more. The 5200 glue took some getting used to and I had a couple small gaps where I didn't get any glue squeezing out, but I filled them in. The only real problem was when the middle of the board between the two ribs didn't touch the keel. I put a board under the deck and wedged it up and that seemed to keep the boards together. Also, I glued the tail block on and secured it from the celing(ran out of clamps). I'm not putting any blocks in because I plan on glassing on the fins and putting the leash in without penetrating the board cavity through the tail, more on that later.

Rocker table/glueing the top boards

Last night I built a rocker table and glued the top planks together just to get that out of the way. It was much easier to clamp with the rocker table than with only four sawhorses. I followed the directions and clamped it up, taped the seams, unclamped, flipped, glued, and clamped again. They turned out pretty nice.

Glueing the ribs/spine

I glued the ribs to the keel of the board. I dryfitted all of them before glueing. In order to get them in with the glue, however, I needed to use a rubber hammer. Instead of looking down the spine to make sure all the ribs were level, I held one end up and put the other on the ground. I slowly moved my hand towards the floor. If a rib didn't hit the floor uniformly I knew that it was out of line. This may be a little hard to understand. Anyway, I'm pretty sure that it went as well as possible.

I looked at my bottom planks and saw that, towards the front, one of the boards is out of line. I think I'll be able to sand the entire piece down a little bit to fix it. I really wish I could put the whole thing into a thickness planer and make it perfectly smooth.

Gluing the bottom boards

I glued the 5 bottom boards together tonight. First, I dry clamped all the boards together and taped them up on one side. Then I flipped it over and using the tape as a hinge, I glued in all the cracks. Then I clamped it up again. It was difficult making all the clamps stay on because the board was only 1/4 inch thick.

Above are some pictures of most of the kit.

First Day

I received my 6'0" Wherry surfboard kit from grainsurfboards.com today for Christmas. The kit included everything I need to build the board; wood, epoxy, fiberglass, and glue. However, I still need to purchase some wood for a table on which to build, and a 10' x 4" PVC pipe for clamps. I'm pretty excited, and I'll begin as soon as I make a trip to the local lumberyard.