Garage Works - 8/9/2025

These projects were completed yesterday.

This first one is Prayot's PPC M1 wing repair.  The strut bladder gave way.  These higher pressure, exotic material wings need to have thicker bladders - any high stitch or small piece of debris can be a seed for a bladder blow out.

I patch three spots and also armored them with extra layers of Tear Aid.

This is Marlon's Dominator Pro all patched up.  He took it out to Hau Bush this morning and got some good rides.

And this is Mark's wing board now converted to support Foil Drive.  I put windows on the top deck -

And the bottom deck.

And fixed a few dings that looked like they were water infiltration points.

All done!

Next up are Duke's paddle and Marlon's prone foil board.

Garage Works - 8/8/2025

And this evening I sanded the fill on the ding on Marlon's new board.  Then I colored in the rails.  And finally I placed the 2 ounce cap sheet.

He can use this tomorrow during the big swell - then after I'll sand it and fair every thing in.  But come morning - everything should be water tight and rideable.

And I also sanded the fill on the ding on Mark's board.  And while I had epoxy mixed and available, I placed a small patch over the sanded ding.

I'll do a light sanding on the windows and the ding repair tomorrow, spray some clear coat and this should be good to go.

Garage Works - 8/6/2025

There are a couple of boards in the garage for repairs.

This is Marlon's brand new Firewire Dominator Pro.  First time out and he duck dives right into a shallow spot at Kewalo's

Easy fix - but it'll take a couple of days.  Here I've already sanded the break down and filled it with milled fibers.

I'll sand, color the rail, and place a fiberglass patch over this area (there are some light superficial scratches at the nose).

And this is Mark's board that Maile is using for a Foil Drive board.

I got asked to put signal windows in place.

And there was a rail ding (that I feel compelled to fix). 

Here is the bottom deck window.

And the top deck window.

I should be done with both of these by Friday.

Garage Works - 6/19/2025

And I got some time in the garage today.

I drilled in two signal windows on the top deck of No.41.  I also sanded these down later (but don't have a picture of that).

Then I sanded down the nose repair on Rick's board.  I went ahead and placed a pigmented fill coat on and sanded that down as well.

All done.

I need to get a fill coat on the top deck of No.41

Lots of fill-sand-fill-sand in the near future.

Garage Works - 4/29/2025

The repairs on Roland's wing board are complete.

Here are the mast track replacement and the bottom signal window.

This is the repair of the nose cracks

This is the added footstrap inserts

And the top deck signal windows - in case he ends up using this for Foil Drive applications.

New lease on life for this board.  How long that lasts... Roland pushes his gear harder than almost anyone I know - this will be a good test of my repairs.

Garage Works - 4/24/2025

I got this board back out to its owner today.

And then turned my attention to getting Roland's board all fixed up.

I sanded the epoxy work from yesterday (2 windows and a footstrap insert on top, window on the bottom), then added a fill coat of epoxy on the bottom work.

I also found some cracks up near the nose and got those opened and filled.

Here's the first fill coat on the bottom work.

I'll do another sand and fill tomorrow.  I'm hoping to get this one back to Roland by Sunday - I've been formulating No.41 in my head and want to start shaping it.

Evening Foil Drive Session - 3/14/2025

The wind was forecasted to die back - but it didn't until much later than it was supposed to.

That meant a choppy surf session...

There was an aggressive shark sighting at WPB - that closed down the beach for the day.  Norm, Marvin and I ended up at Pavilions.

With the high tide, we ended up riding the inside break.

I used No.31 - to evaluate how the signal windows worked.

I could use the drive while the whole board was submerged if I had the controller over the windows.

Catching waves in the chop was hard.  Staying on them was even harder.

I did get a handful of decent rides - in fact the break in front of the first cabin is pretty gnarly.  I ate most than I rode.  The wave would jack quickly - which is when the bottom dropped out and I would usually eat it.  But when I made it and I was able to go right - well those were EPIC rides!

I'd say I got 7 rides - the rest of the spikes were wipeouts.

The wind should be light in the morning... I've got both batteries charged up and ready to go!

W:21/FD:40/PW:1/S:3

Garage Works - 3/5/2025

I've been work on the signal window installation on No.31 for the past few days - I just didn't post on that work.

I probably have one last day of sanding and spraying, then this one will be ready to hit the water again (when the wind dies down - lol).  The goal here is to not have to pack the tracks with foam, and to not have signal cutouts anymore.

And as a result of hitting all the high points over at No Man's Land, I had some filling to do this evening.

I filled and sanded both the front foil and the rear stabilizer already - save one spot that could use another filling-sanding on a wing tip.

I can't sleep unless scratches are filled and the universe is in alignment.

Once these projects are finished, I think I am going to work on changing out the tracks on No.32 - it never ends (but I love every minute!!!!)

Garage Works - 3/2/2025

The winds are already picking up - so I will likely not be Foil Drive-ing for a bit.  So no time like the present to get this board tuned up for action (after the wind dies back down).

Starting with the top deck, I drilled out the holes for the signal windows.  I'm going for 2 on top so I can stretch out a bit.

And here they are filled in.  I'll sand these down and place a fiberglass patch over these tomorrow.

And with the top deck hardened enough to stay put, I flipped the board and drilled out the bottom deck window hole.

And here it is filled in.  I think I'll have enough time to get the top deck to harden (fiberglass patch), to be able to do the same to the bottom deck.  Not that I'm in a rush, but I do want to clear the rack to work on other issues (No.32 needs new tracks and I'm still playing around with what No.41 will be - but soon enough I'll be cutting out the blank).

Garage Works - 2/27/2025

And I got this signal window installation order finished up for Dennis today.

He picked up some of the M7/8 Custom Wingscrew bolts so these tracks should work now.  Dennis was partly the inspiration I had for trying out No.29 (but so were Robby, Norm and Marvin).  I think short foil boards may be about to come back into fashion...

The key really is figuring out how to get up quick!!!!

Garage Works - 2/24/2025

This was yesterday's garage works session - 

I sanded down the signal window fill and placed the fiberglass patch - on both sides.

If the patches harden level, I'll do a quick sand and fill with clear coat.

I think the next project will be changing out the track box on No.32

Then after that, No.41 (which will probably be a 5'2" x 19.75" Foil Drive Max board (for the bigger waves of summer).

Garage Works - 2/22/2025

Yesterday I finished the repair work on Norm's Code 1130S

Lots of sanding.  And I went ahead and filled/sanded the scratches, and even faired in/tuned the trailing edge.

Back to fighting shape!!! 

And today Dennis dropped off a prone board to get signal windows installed. 

I got both the top and bottom windows opened up and filled.  Tomorrow will be sanding and placing the fiberglass patches.

Garage Works - 1/22/2025

And before I went to the beach, I routed out the slots for the track extension.

I made the block at the top of the jig so I could route out 8" slots (instead of the 10.75" that I have the jig set up for).

And here are the slots all cut out.

I went ahead and sanded/grinded the high spots down to get this to sit flush.  And I still have some more to grind off...

Pretty straight if you ask me.

Tomorrow I'll epoxy these in place.  After that layer of epoxy hardens a bit, I'll place a carbon cap sheet to keep this modification super stiff.

After this, I might have it do another track add for Scotty (might).  And I'll be adding a long track to No.32.

I also finished adding windows to the board Marvin left (Majek). 

Garage Works - 1/11/2025

It's actually been a while since I've made a garage works post.

It's not that I haven't been working in the garage - but more that the repairs I've been doing have all been the same - front foil and rear stabilizer repairs.

I've fixed Mark's AFS Enduros (since he was nice enough to let me use them while he was on vacation off island - I fixed them for free) - front foils and the stabilizer.

I rebuilt Marvin's Takuma 178 rear stabilizer.

And I've been contemplating the build out of No.40.

But here is this year's first Garage Works post.

I had tested Marvin's Majek FD board and I thought it worked perfectly.  But Marvin wanted to see if the connectivity could be enhanced so if water covered the top deck, that the signal would persist.

Here's where I figured the best chance of resolving the signal issue would be.

And this is the epoxy fill.

Tomorrow I'll sand this just slightly lower than the surrounding deck, and then epoxy on the cap sheet.

There is still wind forecasted for the next few days, so it will be a bit before I take this back out for another test run.

Garage Works - 12/21/2024

Got in some garage time also yesterday.

I focused on finishing Marvin's boards (installing signal windows).

Done - one on the Appletree (to add to the two I had done a while back), and 3 new ones on the Majek.

And I got the tip rebuild furthered -

Sanded down the fill and got the carbon patches cut out.

I'll epoxy these on today.