Garage Works - 1/20/2025

I trimmed the excess foam off the reinforcement block - I used the small Bosch planer and the microblade surform.

I'll have to use some epoxy to fill the sides - I cut it tight, but there are still some voids.

And I marked the centerline and the track locations.  I trimmed one side of the boxes so they can sit closer to the existing tracks.

I cut the slots tomorrow - I want to go through this in my mind a few times before spooling up the router.

And I got the Spitfire 840 fitted and balanced onto the Groove Kitefoiling Board. 

Pretty much to the rear of the tracks - which makes sense because this is a larger foil in terms of kitefoiling.

I originally thought my sole new year's resolution was learning to parawing - now I'm including learning to kitefoil 

Furthering the Cause

I spent a little time this afternoon working on the 4'6" prone foilboard.  Focus was on the bottom deck and rails today.

I used the planer to trim off a bunch of bulk - definitely going with the beveled bottom rail from now on.  After I got the blank to roughly where I needed it, I transitioned to dragon skin (drywall leveler) to start blending in the rails.

I'm going to try and make this one narrower than the 4'10" - shooting for 22".  Also going to try to keep the thickness - 3.5" so the volume and paddling power are high.

I ran out of daylight and had to call it quits for the day.  If I get home early enough tomorrow, I'll knock out the top deck and start the sanding regime.

Taking a Short Break By Shaping

Knowing Marlon is anxious to get another board in the water, we decided to skip surfing and foiling to get moving on his new longboard.

We felt most of the foiling should be done to the bottom - getting it as flat as possible to make it a super fast paddler.  I'll put a spoon in the nose so he can get 10 toes over (but later after the top is dialed in).

We used the surforms first - and Marlon was comfortable with using it.  But I switched to the planer because we had to remove about a 1/2" of material.  After a couple of hours, the bulk/rough shaping to the bottom is done.

Now the question is do we work on this all weekend and knock it out, or do we go surfing....

Marlon Getting Ready to Shape

Learning how to use the different tools is a big step in learning to shape.  He sliced foam using the jigsaw and mowed using the planer.

It takes practice and more practice to get comfortable with these so they become assets and not liabilities.  Every journey starts with a first step...

Curved Japanese Block Plane

I'm trying to get the last bit of shaping done on the first three boards so I can get them painted and glassed and wet.

The regular block plane was too big and gouges too much when you're down to the fine sanding. So I finally broke this out - a curved Japanese block plane that I bought when we were back in Japan (duh).

If the blade were just a smidegon narrower, it'd be perfect, but closer is better than butchered.

I've just got to slap some spackle on the boards to fill in some gaps and it'll be time to paint.

In the meantime, I'll work it out with the kiddoroos what else they want on the boards (drawings of plesiosaurs, butterflies, sharks and horses no doubt).