Garage Works - 11/22/2024

I actually finished this repair order yesterday.

Here's the tail repair

Here's the starboard nose epoxy replacement

And the port nose epoxy replacement.

And just when you finish one - more show up.

These are Roland's boards - I guess I know what I'll be doing this weekend.

Garage Works - 11/19/2024

I worked on repairing Harris's Appletree today.

I sanded down the fill -

Cut out the patch (and the peel ply)

Then added the epoxy.

I just came in from the garage (4 hours later) and took off the peel ply.

Tomorrow I'll sand the patch to get it flat.  I may add a thin top coat, then sand and clear coat.

I should be able to get this out of the garage by Thursday (Friday at the latest - I want to work on glassing No.39).

Veteran's Day 2024

On this Veteran's Day, I just wanted to take it easy with La and Marlon.

First up was a dawn patrol with Marlon and longboards!  Although if I knew what the surf was going to be like, I think I would have brought the Sweet Potato.

Marlon brought his recently made longboard and I brought the Viking.

The surf was fun - and all the regular foilers were looking at me funny (like what are you doing on a surfboard???).  I caught several fun ones and didn't want to get too tired (long, fun day ahead).

W:139/PW:2/FD:80/F:5/S:20

Next up was errands.

I fixed our gutters on the side of the house I couldn't previously reach (you'll have to ask me about this in person if you are interested).  Then I got the last coat of epoxy onto the board Greg asked me to fix.  Then I cleaned up the garage a bit - and then we headed out.

We hit some stops and had to fight through some traffic, but ended up at the North Shore.  We got some new threads at Xcel (mahalo for the discount!!!), and then ended up at the new Patagonia shop!

Pretty cool shop!  They had some pretty cool imagery up on the walls - one was Moona Whyte kitesurfing a sizeable barrel at what looked like Teahupo'o

Which reminded me I used to do stuff like that - and that subsequently made me dig out some equipment (and get mentally prepared to do it again).  I really haven't had the desire to kitesurf because you can't do it near where I live (have to drive to Kailua or Mokuleia).

Maybe it'll be fine to take a little drive....

And lastly, Greg came over to pick up the board I repaired for his daughters.

Fun, relaxing day!!!  If you are a veteran - I hope you had a good one!

Garage Works - 10/15/2024

I worked in the garage before going winging - but I had those pictures uploaded first.

I got the clear coat on Norm's board - I'll let it harden overnight and tomorrow I'll get the deck pads on it.

Then I sanded and filled (and sanded) the repair on Kalani's board.

Filled and sanded more times than I thought it would take (all because I didn't use peel ply up front).

With this one cleared, I started the repair on Greg's beat up board.  I'd like to get that done before starting No.39 (thinner 5'8")

Garage Works - 9/14/2024

I sanded the ding (which really wasn't that bad - but I would dwell upon this until it got fixed properly) yesterday.

And in the evening I went ahead and placed a carbon patch.

Since I'm writing this on 9/15/24, I've already sanded the patch and am getting ready to place another layer of epoxy.

And the other thing I did yesterday was give the Silk 850 and HA Ultra 750 back to Prayot.  And at the same time I picked up the Silk 1050. 

He had the solid paint marker all over the bottom of the foil and stabilizer - so I sanded it off, got a Donaldson trailing edge on both, and then sanded everything down to 1000 grit.

Hopefully this thing runs super silent.  I mainly want to see if this will work with the Foil Drive and not consume a lot of voltage coming up to foiling speed.  But that'll have to wait until No.34 is fixed. 

Garage Works - 9/4/2024

Because I sold No.37 to Marvin, I got the urge to shape again.  I brought one of these billets home from my office.

And I broke the billet down into three separate blanks

This is the end chopped off plus an offcut from the last billet.  I'm going to take this back to the office until I need it.

And these are the two other blanks.  The one in the back is the 6" blank that I'm going to use to make a custom for Norm for Foil Drive-ing.

And here is the 5'7" stretched version of No.37

I'm probably going to shape Norm's board first before working on this one (and actually the template might be the same - to get more volume on his, I can just go thicker).

The other blank is going to be another No.37 - gotta have that shorter board for when the waves have good energy. 

And while I was at it, I mixed up some epoxy to start the repairs on these two boards.  A lot of the water came out of Roland's board so I started the process of sealing it up.  I think there is more inside, but it isn't coming out anymore.

I'll sand the fill and put a fiberglass patch over the drill hole.

This is Rick's board and the tail ding repair.  I had previously sanded the ding - and the carbon was largely intact.  I used the same fill as I mixed up for Roland's board.  I'll sand this area, then place a carbon patch over the areas I removed the paint.

I'm hoping to have both of these out of the garage by the weekend (so I can start mowing foam).

Garage Works - 2/18/2024

I got some time to try and finish Harris's wing board.  This is the repair area sanded down.  There are some low spots that need to be filled.

And here it is post fill coat

And Prayot dropped off a board to be fixed.

I filled the void with epoxy/aerosil.  Tomorrow I'll sand this flush and laminate the carbon over it.

And the second Ken who wings over at Hickam called - dropped his board from the washing racks.  Another nose job...

Garage Works - 10/5/2023

I was going to sand down the laps on Marlon's board - but I got asked to stop/cease/desist so that he could do it.

So I shifted to finishing the other boards in the garage.  This is Tim's board - the ding on the left is the new one.

And this is Harris's board -

Two hairline cracks and a chipped rail

This Flying Dutchman was built really well.

Got the garage cleared just in time for a mast track replacement...

Garage Works - 8/10/2023

And taking a break from foiling, I even got a lot of work done on garage projects - this is La's surfboard.  I'm smoothing out the old delam repair and a couple of small dings so it is water tight... she may actually go and use it soon....

Here it is sanded down -

A layer of 4 ounce glass and a coat of epoxy goes a long way to smoothing out the older repair.

These are the two forward rail dings - I should barely have to sand these - mainly blending them in with the rest of the board.

And I epoxied in the footstrap reinforcement blocks into No.32

This weekend I'll cut out the slots for the inserts, get those cleaned up and epoxied in place.  I want to also get the mast track boxes cutout and the boxes epoxied in on the bottom deck.  If I get there, I should also laminate the board.

I'll add the fill coat on La's board, and cut the finbox slot on Ken's board.

That's a lot of stuff to get done (in addition to renting a giant ladder to fix my gutters, pressure washing our teak lawn furniture, watering La's plants, yup.....).

Garage Works - 3/6/2023

With the west winds picking up, I wanted to get this board back up to 100%.

I ran the repair areas through my normal sanding regime - 40-80-120-180-220.  Then I sprayed clear coat on and done!!!

I also installed one of the Dakine Primo footstraps - so I can try jumping again (I've been watching plenty of YouTube videos).

And here is Matt's board that I have to rebuild the nose.

I'll template the outline (Matt said this is what he was after), then cut out the bad stuff and splice in some EPS, reshape and glass.

This is going to be an interesting repair.

Garage Works - 3/4/2023

I have a few repair projects/orders in the garage - so today I started to work on them.

This Pyzel board belongs to Matt - I'm using this as an example to fix the one he turned over to me to rebuild the nose.  I'll start on this one after I fix Jim's board.

Jim's board has been sitting for a some time now and is bone dry.  This is the carbon liner all arranged.  I mixed up a bunch of epoxy in various batches to wet out the bottom and sides, rebind the top skin where it had separated, and got some of the sides wetted out.  The next batch was mixed with aerosil to coat the bottom and sides of the reinforcement block.  And I made one last batch to laminate the liner to the top deck.

And time to let it harden.  I'll level the block tomorrow, then rout out the track slots.

I also went ahead and prepped No.25 to get fixed.  The rail that I think I dinged with my shin (port side), the depression where I hit the board with my knee (to the right and above the iwa laminate), and the mystery depression near the nose off to the left - all got some fiberglass and epoxy.

Garage Works - 1/12/2023

I sanded out the burrs on the nose ding Marlon got on his shortboard and filled it with epoxy.

And I got the top deck on the asymmetric laminated. 

I used saran wrap to get the innegra to stick to the rails and make that top deck to rail curve.