So the next job is to use lacquer thinner to remove the sticky epoxy and then recoat the (hopefully) final coat on the top. I'll keep you posted.

Success

So a couple days ago I the botched to job dried enough to be flipped over(it's still really sticky) and I glassed the bottom side. This time, the job went perfectly, the glass dried in less than 7 hours and I'm happy.

So I glassed the top side of my board last week. However, like an idiot, I didn't mike the epoxy for the required 3 minutes. Instead, I mixed it for a total of 5 seconds. Anyway, the front half cured, leaving the logo, and most of the tail as a sticky mess. I tried scraping off the epoxy as the people at MAX epoxies told me, but that didn't work. It turns out that you can't glass ontop of it until the messed up batch is fixed. More on this later.

Since I got the kit I was always thinking about what design to put on it as a logo. After alot of thinking without getting anywhere, I looked at a simple Ying Yang. I like the design, but it was too unoriginal, I wanted to add something to it. The two teardrop shapes resembled whales when I saw it on a certain angle, so I sketched this design up and carved it into my board with a sheetrock knife(I couldn't find the soldering iron).

Fin boxes

So I recently roughly shaped the board and added two of the four fin boxes that I ordered from Rainbow Fin Co. along with Rich Pavel's canard speed dialer fin system. In plain english, this board will fly. In order to put these boxes in, because I am afraid of my router, I have to chisel out the box's profile perfectly and insert the boxes. After I put in the next two I'll finish the rails and sand the whole board perfectly and finally put a design on the top before fiberglassing it.

New Old Uke

So this priest I know had an old friend of his clean out his attic and find some old instruments, one of which was a ukulele. So this guy gave my priest friend the uke and some other old banjos. He dosen't play the uke, and I was the only one he knew that did, so he gave it to me. I found out that it is from hawaii and was made between 1915-40. It sounds amazing, and I think it is mahogany but it could be some exotic wood.

So I glued the top planks on, but they cracked on the sides. I glued them back together and then sanded them down, and now you can hardly tell. I still have a day or two of sanding to go, then it'll be ready for glassing. Also, a little bit of the tail didn't glue to the bottom, so I need to redo that little bit.

Almost ready to put on the top planking

So I've put in all the strips I need and sanded down a flat surface to glue the top planking. Now all I need to do is put in my fin blocks. I've decided to use a quad fin canard system from rainbow fin co. The board should be super fast, but we'll see. I recently got the measurments for the fin placment from the grainsurf forum.

Costa Rica

Costa Rica was awesome. I took my 5'8" retro fish and it got pretty smashed up and messed me up a little, another reason to go with a wooden board.

Time

Back to college, the board will have to wait until probably late May. Hopefully I can head to Costa Rica for spring break, but that will mean that the board will wait longer. Anyway, don't expect any updates until school is out.
So the other day I broke the fin off my longboard, and I got a new Donald Takayama fin and it looks pretty nice, but again I won't get to use it for a few months.

Last update

So I glued on a couple more rail pieces and it's looking pretty good. It's pretty messy, but later I'll sand it all down and it should look really good. It's in my room until I get to work on it again after school.

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.