Westcoast Demo board

This thing is freakin' sweet! I made it to send out to the west coast as a demo. I'm on a couple of online message boards, and have always had a lot of interest in my boards from the SoCal crew, but folks don't want to pull the trigger on one of my boards without knowing how they ride. So, I figured what better way than to send one out to be demoed around by a couple of trusted people.

6'1.5"-20.25"-2.25"
Figured Anigre and European Beech veneers, carbon fiber rails, "secret sauce" metal-flake pinlines.

Two-piece travel board

This was another custom colaboration with Jeff. Interestingly, it was also a custom for the guy who got the bumblebee bonzer. Love those repeat customers!

This one is a more refined and developed version of the two-part travel board, with carbon-fiber rails. Shape by Jeff at Spindrift, tech by Jarrod. I made my own custom clamping system for this one, it gave me an excuse to buy that sweet little benchtop mill I've been wanting.

bumblebee bonzer 6'7"

Man, have I ever gotten behind on my board updates here!
Ok, first up, this was a custom for a very cool guy up in the cold and dark Atlantic Northeast. It was also my first colaboration with Jeff from http://www.spindriftsurfboards.com/ on a custom order.
Sorry there's not more photos, don't know what happened there, I'll see if I can dig more up later.

6'2" x 21 x 2 5/8" Quad Compsand

No clever name, just a quad fin setup on my favorite outline template.

Only thing really unique on this board is the rail, which was built out with a high-density foam called Divinycell instead of multiple layers of balsa. Much easier to work with, and it shaved probably two hours off of the build time on this one.

El Caracol 5' 9.75" x 21" x 2.875"

Fun little experimental board.

EPS core, XPS rails covered with carbon fiber. Skins are Alder veneer with a deckpatch of balsa under the "traffic areas" to keep it from crushing under my heavy feet.

Shortest shape I've made for myself, but surprisingly functional. I took it out just to test it when we got the swell from hurricane Gustav. I fully expected that it would be to small and squirrelly for "real" waves, but I wound up riding it all day into solid overhead surf.

Red boards are FASTER!

Wanted to try some different materials on this one... The initial impetus on this build was my buddy telling me I was a total tool for not riding any thrusters, or even owning one. So, hopefully this is versatile enough that if I hate it as a thruster I can do some other stuff with it. I was originally going to make something more conventional, but what would be the fun in that?

Same old 1lb eps core, but only 1/40" alder veneer for skins. The deck is supported from crushing by a balsa deckpatch under the veneer. Rails are one layer of balsa, with 1.5" of XPS foam (blue styro) outside of that.


Dims are 6'5" x 22 x 2 5/8 with a 1/4" deep concave in the deck. Bottom is mostly flat with a very mild single under the front foot. The huge center box is so I can play around with riding it as a single (didn't have a smaller, or black, box laying around), and the probox sides should give plenty of opportunity to mess with homemade fin sets.

The original plan was to tint it lightly red, and to let the blue rails show through to make the rails purplish. I kept adding pigment until I was happy with the color, and this is what came out. The grain of the wood is just barely visible, and the blue of the rails is entirely obscured.

Cedar skin five-fin fish

5'11' x 22.5 x 2.625 with the Greg Griffin-style 5-fin setup in ply and carbon fiber. I tried to get with Greg to get a set of his fins, but we were having trouble connecting and I was frothing to get this thing finished. He was generous enough, however, to share the placements with me, and a friend forwarded me some tracings of the fin templates themselves, so I'm hoping I got pretty close to how the master himself would have done it.

I've surfed it a couple of times now, and it is definitely on the low end of the volume scale for me, but once up and going it is very drivey, as you would expect with 5 fins, but also very loose, which you wouldn't expect. I can't wait to get it into some good surf.

Good call, lets see if you can ruin your new favorite board

I've had this idea in mind ever since deciding to take that bumblebee quad back. I figured I'd fix it up, and if it worked well for me I would make it into the ultimate travel board.

Let me preface this by saying that none of these ideas are my own. I simply adapted them to my needs, and improved them where I saw fit.

I didn't take many photos of the build process since my wife had the camera out of town when I was doing much of it, but I'll narrate best I can with the few cellphone pics I took.

I started by taking .5" ID carbon fiber tubing and glassing them into slots I routed into the board. I placed them close to the bottom skin and close to the rails so they'd have something to "grab" onto. The ends of the tubes were plugged with epoxy and the centers of the tubes were plugged with pencils wrapped with tape so the tube wouldn't splinter when the saw cut through it. The center tube was placed close to the deck, but the alignment didn't wind up being perfect with the other two, so it looks like I'll have to get by with just the two side tubes.

Here's a shot of the routered slots, the carbon fiber tubes before they went in, and the strips of balsa I used to cap the slots.




After putting the carefully aligned tubes into the board and re-capping the balsa and re-glassing, I made a jig to clamp on the board that would guide it down the sides of my table saw. Then I cut that sucker in half.

I totally borrowed the idea of placing the tubes before sawing from the Pope bisect, so don't give me any credit for that idea. I'm not an "idea guy", I'm more of a "planning and execution" guy.


After that I cut up a longboard centerfin box and inlaid that into the foam so it was oriented vertically, and so each half of the board would have two sections of finbox that would face each other when the halves were mated up. should have taken a photo of this part, but when you see how it is bolted together you'll get it.

I used carbon fiber to tie the finbox sections to the deck skin, so they wouldn't come out under tension

then I put the half-circle abs plastic caps over the finboxes, and glassed over the exposed cut section, and lapped that over all the other work on the outside of the board. I had to tape down the glass to get it all lay down right in one pull.

then I put a thin sheet of ABS plastic on each half for a flat mating surface. Again, I can't take credit for this or the idea to use the finbox as a screw anchor, it was Pierre on Swaylocks who did this first, albeit without the CF tubes for rigidity.

Here's the finished work.
The anchoring system, under the plastic caps are chunks of longboard center finbox facing each other so the bolt has something to anchor against. The aluminum bolt has holes through its head so it can be turned with a standard fcs-size allen wrench. Again, not my idea.

All the parts you need.
Opened up so you can see the mating surfaces and the tube openings for the carbon fiber rods. You can also see the center tube which will remain empty because I didn't get it aligned right with the other two. If I were to do it again I would use a single large tube in the center, that way alignment isn't an issue.


Assembled and ready to surf. Well, except for that patch on the tail... I couldn't knock this thing around my shop for a couple of weeks without dinging it, right?


I took it out in its new form for the first time yesterday, and I'm happy to report that I didn't manage to ruin it with this process. Thank goodness for that. All in all, it added about a pound of weight, but it was pretty light to begin with, so no worries on that.


Next step: Making a different tail half. If I can create a pintail section to mate with the existing nose, I'll essentially have two entire boards for a full range of surf conditions, and will only have to pack three short sections on surf trips. The ultimate travel board!

Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology.

I'm back, and back to work!

One of the nice things about these compsand boards is that they can be rebuilt when needed. While I was away, I was in touch with the guy who had gotten the Bumblebee Quad I had made in my first batch of compsands. It had sustained some damage in some collision mishaps, and had been repaired poorly, to say the least. It also had some performance limitations that he wasn't entirely happy with, so I took it back in trade on one of the classic fish I had made in the last batch. I'm happy to say he's very happy with the fish.

So, I had my work cut out for me when this board got back into my hands, but I figured it would be a good warm-up for getting back into shaping again.

The deck was badly damaged, so it had to be removed first.




Then the areas where the rail was damaged had to be replaced. Since the rails are built up in multiple layers of balsa, they have to be replaced in the same way. The stair-steps are so the joints are staggered so as not to create any weak points in the rail.


The biggest problem with the performance of the board was that it was, quite simply, over-rockered. Too much curve = maneuverable but slow board. The top part of the photo shows the original rocker and the bottom half shows the rocker as I re-set it when I vacuumed the skin back on. Much better, and reflective of the shaping experience I have gained in the time since I originally made this board.

The finished board with new skin and pinline. I have been riding this board almost exclusively since fixing it up, and it is my new favorite ride. Funny how that works out.

One for the road, from the road...

One for the road...

Just had to bust out one more board before hitting the road on my new travel nursing gig. Last shape for the foreseeable future. that's kind of sad.

6'8"-20-2 5/8 E-wing bonzer. Skin is full-length ecuador balsa I milled and carried up here myself. I owe Andres in Playas BIG for that hookup! Inlay is ecuadoran Tagua nut "vegetable ivory", scrimshawed (if you can so call such damage) by me. Andres idea, again. Thanks Andres.

Bonzer runners are hawaiian Koa. I heart Koa. And I heart Bernie for sending it to me. Thanks Oneula.

SeoulSurfer's board

6'8"-22 1/2"-2 5/8" Bonzer with lokbox.

Oneula's board

Custom for Bernie.
6'4"- 22 1/4"-2 3/4"

Probox fin system for versatility.

Trio of fish

From left to right they measure (5'10"-21 1/2"-2 5/8") (6'1"-21 1/2"-2 3/4") (5'10"-21 3/4"-2 5/8')

Lokbox fin systems on each one, available with zippi template or standard keels in clear or wood inlay. Low rocker, old-school style, for blazing speed down the line and in weak waves, and particularly low rocker on leftmost fish.

A pair of eggs

Both measure 7'8"-22.5-2.75

I'm keeping the one with wax on it. Rode it today in wonderful conditions, at least for Corpus Christi. Sets were coming in at head high, wind was offshore at 10 kts, and this board was smooooth as butter. Only took two waves to get used to it, even though it was the biggest board I've ever ridden, with the most fin (8.5" TK flex). Very fun day.

Pimped out skateboard project- Caddiboard.

This was a recent project, just for fun, that I did between batches of surfboards. Wanted to try something new and different, something cool and pretty, but not as big as a surfboard... kind of a palate-cleanser, as it were.

So, I came up with the idea of making a foam-core skateboard (well, I didn't exactly invent the concept) using the same methods I do to make my surfboards. The biggest departures from my surfboard techniques were; 1. using a male mold to press the foam and wood layers onto the foam core and make the concave and nose/tail flips, 2. using plywood inserts where the trucks bolt through the deck, and 3. using an additional cosmetic layer of veneer over the top of the balsa. Other than that, it was pretty much business as usual.

With the blinging rims and pimping wood grain, I"m calling this one my Caddi-board.


Don't forget to click the pics for high-res versions!

Rotating Fin System "Surfboard Trucks" Thruster

6'3" 15 x 21.5 x 16 x 2.625

I made this one as simply a test platform for a new fin system that an online acquaintence, Dave Blake, has developed. The boardI put the system in is very similar to my MR-style twinnie. I thought about using a more typical thruster template for this application, but in the end I decided it made more sense to use a template and rocker I am already familiar with and enjoy riding, to better make a direct comparison. The only changes I made was to make the tail a squash instead of swallow, and to soften the rail a little. Everything else is the same as my twinnie. I did white opaque on the bottom/rails to hide the white finboxes. The pinlines were just for fun.

The fin system allows the side fins in a thruster configuration to rotate from parallel with the stringer to a "normal" position of 1/4" toed-in towards the nose. This very noticeably reduces the amount of drag caused by the side fins when the board is being ridden straight, while maintaining the benefits of a toed-in fin during a turn. It uses the water pressure generated by riding the board to push the fin into whatever position is most efficient for whatever type of motion is occurring.

I generally don't ride tris, as I don't like the way they feel when you do anything but turn them. They turn great, but I always felt like the brakes were on as soon as I stopped going rail-to-rail. As described, Dave's system seemed to have the necessary qualities to fix that particular problem for me.

Indeed, it did.

In a word, it was FUN. The kind of fun that leaves you smiling all day long. As I said before, I'm not a thruster guy. This was far and away the best session I've ever had on a Trifin. Actually, one of my two best sessions of 2006.

It was easy to find the sweet spot on this board since I've been riding one so much like it, so I knew what was going on with the very first wave I caught. I caught it, quick pivot to go right, then just rocketed down the line. I honestly could not believe the sensation of acceleration, it threw me so much I almost forgot to turn. But turn I did, layed it down into a deep backside carve, then snapped back around and was flying down the line again, just like that. It was really neat, to tell the truth. And it wasn't like you could say "ok, now the fin is toed in, now it is straight, toed out, etc...". The fins just seemed to be doing whatever needed to be done at that particular moment. Nothing felt odd or forced, it rode very naturally. If I wanted to straight-line it down the face, it was off like a rocket; if I wanted to crank a turn, it was only limited by my abilities; if I wanted to chop-hop a mushy section, it was making drive where I needed it.

Great system, great fun.

The set I tested were from the prototype run, and Dave is currently making some last-minute refinements before making his first larger-scale production run. Production models should be available soon. Visit Dave at http://www.blakestah.com/fins/

Swirly bonzer pintail; "The Frayed Ends of Sanity"

6'10" 21.5 x 2.625 thick

Widepoint-forward bonzer based upon my Twinnie template. The "Frayed Ends of Sanity" title came from a couple of sources of inspiration.

First, I was making this board for a trip to mainland Mexico in the hopes that I would be finding waves juicy enough to warrant a pintail in my quiver. This vacation was desperately needed, as I was nearing the end of my rope as an overworked RN at a county psych unit. My sanity was being pushed to the limit at work as I tried to help people who had already gone beyond their own limits.

Secondly, this board seemed to fight me throughout the building and glassing. Steps and processes that had always gone smoothly were causing me grief at every turn. Much of that might be due to my decreased frustration threshold and my first attempt to do color work with epoxy. As I tried to get the angles correct on the bonzer runners, Metallica's "frayed ends of sanity" came on the radio. Listening to that song, staring at that psychedelic resin swirl, it all came together and drifted away.

Catharsis.

After that, it came much more easily.

The hotcoat flowed, the pinlines curved, and the board worked.

In the waves it was smooth, predictable, solid. Everything that the circumstances leading to its creation weren't.

Feedback

The great guy who got my #17 twinnie liked it so much that he became my first repeat customer and got the #16 singlefin too. I only let him have it because he promised to take good care of it.

So that means two things...

First, you're about to see another testimonial.

Second, since the board-building fund is newly replenished, you'll be seeing some new boards here soon.

But first, the feedback.

"Yes!!! Finally took the board out this evening in 2-4 ft. windslop and it performs amazingly well even in such crappy conditions. For starters, it's nice and loose and very nimble, unlike my full-size longboards. I was connecting sections like a madman - nice speed and glide, and it's momentum carries really well. I get the impression this board might actually excel in the bigger stuff/overhead. I'm anxious to give it a go when the hurricanes start rolling in. Now here's the part that blew my mind... I was getting consistent hang-fives on this deck. I'm using a Turbo Tunnel fin, and that might help, but it was pretty cool to be hauling ass across the face of the wave with my front toes skimming the water on a board that's under 7 feet!

And yes, the abalone is gorgeous in both sunlight and moonlight (my session went well past sundown tonight.)

Man, Jarrod. You make really nice boards! Thanks again! "

Can't argue with that kind of enthusiasm, now can I? Thank you Jonathan!

Making contact

After an online friend shared this blog with the local surfing scene (thanks www.coastalsurfing.com) , I've gotten some interest in more information.

So, if you want more information, or just to shoot the shit, you can email me directly at mostlyharmlesssurfboards at (@) Yahoo dot (.) com Sorry, got to break up the address so the address-mining bots don't put me on all the Penis Enlargement, Low-Cost Home Loans, and Nigerian Lottery email lists.

Mark Richards - Style twinnie V2.0

6'3"x20 3/4"x2 3/4" 5.75 lb

I got such good feedback on my first one I decided to make another just to sell. Again, it has the new logo, this one is rendered in walnut burl, kingwood, balsa and paua abalone.

This is what its proud new poppa had to say about it: "Took the board out yesterday for the first time. I am a longboarder and your board is my first venture into shortboarding. I was truly amazed how easy it is to catch even small waves with this
board...This board is going to get a lot of use. Nice work!" "Took the board out again yesterday...I want you to know it's my favorite in my quiver and I'm getting ready to take it back out today."

More photos of minitanker

Mini-tanker 5-stringer singlefin

6'10"x20 3/4"x2 3/4"

Most fun I've ever had on a singlefin, this thing is cool! Also the first board pimping my new logo, thanks to JD San Jose for the great design. Logo is laser-cut from balsa, kingwood and paua abalone shell. Stringers and nose/tailblocks are red cedar. Weighs in at a deceptive 6 lbs.

Round pin thruster

6'6" 11 1/4 - 19 1/8 - 13 7/8 - 2 1/4

Quite proud of this one. Think it is one of the most refined shapes I've yet made. Plus, it is the one and only carrier of my now-retired "mostly harmless" logo in exotic wood inlay. This has yet to be paddled out for the first wave, it's for a buddy in mexico.

Mark Richards-inspired twinnie

6'3"x20 3/4"x2 3/4"

One of my new favorite boards, this thing is just so much fun!! Fast and loose and drivey, I just can't get enough of it in any kind of surf!

Compsand thruster

6'5"
2.25 thick
13 3/8 nose
20 mid
13 3/8 tail

Made this one for a friend, but didn't wind up giving it to him... Long story.

Ultralight at 5.5lbs.

Balsa composite egg

6'8"
2.5 thick
15 nose
22.25 mid
16 tail

Pretty, isn't she? I went through my entire supply of balsa to select the boards that would look nice together. I love the shimmer on the bottom grain on this one.

Bumblebee quad compsand

6'6" long
2 3/8 thick
15 3/4 nose
21 7/8 mid
16.5 tail

Wide-tail bumblebee-style turbo quad.

This is another new phase of construction methods for me, with solid balsa rails and 1/8" balsa skins over ultralight foam. It's called "composite sandwich" construction, or CompSand for short. This made for boards weighing as little as 5.5 lbs, but tougher than normal glass-over-foam construction.

The Makore Fish

6'2" 17-22.75-17.5-2.75

Figured Makore veneer old-school fish. This is my pride and joy. I've put more water time in on this board than any other I've ever had. She's looking a little more worn these days, but she surfs just like the day I put that final gloss coat on.

deep double concave thruster

Thick rails and extreme bottom concaves on this one. Amazing what vacuum pressure can get 1/30" veneer to conform to.

A New Direction

6'5" 14.5-21.75-16-2.75

This was the start of my move into wood-over-eps construction. There was quite the learning curve involved in this batch of boards, but I think the results were quite nice. These are the boards that really helped me learn about vac-bagging and epoxy, as well as finish quality control with epoxy.

Bonzer stubbie

At 5'11" this is the shortest board I have made/ridden. Wide and flat, it was my introduction to stubby/fishy boards. It was a TON of fun in mainland mexico surf. It was 3 layers of glass with epoxy over what wound up being my final Clark foam blank, the legendary 6'2"C.

The "Fat Penguin"

This was an experiment in many ways. I made the blank myself from materials from home depot, then used plans from a very controversial shaper to make this very unusual shape. then, since the shape was so ugly, I hit it up with some equally unusual artwork. In the end, the "fat penguin" wasn't what I had hoped it would be, but it was ridable, at the very least. It was a good introduction to epoxy resin, and was to signal the end of my use of (smelly) polyester resin.

Blue Bonzer

6'5"x20 3/4"x2 5/8"

This was my first attempt at a bonzer bottom and fin setup. I loved this board, but like so many others it had to go to make room (and money) for more boards.

li'l sis' board

6'3"x19 1/4"x2 5/8"

KC's board, made it for my little sister. I was very proud of these pinlines.

First batch together at last

Here are the first three I did, all done. I kept the yellow egg and the red/yellow resin swirl, then sold the fish for money for the next batch of boards. That is how I've operated since, from batch to batch.

yelloooow pinlined egg for bianca

6'8"x19"x2 5/8"

blue swirl modern tri-fish

6'2"x21"x2 3/4"

first few boards

Well, the purpose of this place is to organize and display photos of the surfboards I have made.

These are the first few.



6'8"x19"x2 5/8"

Hello

5/11/06
Welcome to my new blog.

Thankfully, few people will be viewing this during my learning process. I'm sure it will become more polished as it goes along.

I hope.

If you are one of the unfortunate few to stumble across this during the development phase...

I apologize for the inconvenience.