Rogflys

I have been a bit busy lately, not necessarily with the board........ Last week I was able to get the blocking put in for the finbox and the leash and vent plugs.
For the fin box I located the blocking to be able to put the box about 6 1/2 inches from the tail, which should give me plenty of room for adjustment of the fin. You can see the blocks for the vent and leash along side of the finbox. The block on the left has been hollowed out as it will support the vent.

I also have the tops of the rail strips flattened to put the top plank on.

After getting the surface prepared it was time to start spreading glue. The Boy had to be a part of that. He assisted with applying the 3M 5200 fast cure marine adhesive to the keel and ribs, as well as a bead on the inside of the flat part of the rail.

I have been adding the rail strips over the last few days. Trying to get one in the morning before I head to work, then one in the evening. Hasn't worked quite that well, but progress is being made.





I had some time this afternoon, so I pulled it out to the sunlight to get a couple of pictures....... And put a rail stip on.

The rail progress will get a little slower now. I have to use some bigger clamps as the 2" spring clamps are a little small.















I moved it back into the garage, and took another picture..........

Well, I have been working on getting the rail stips glued on. So far I have 5 of the bead and cove strips glued in. I am getting to the limit on the 2" spring clamps, going to have to figure out how to address that......................
On the tail of the board I am running the rails long, as they will be cut after the top plank goes on and a tail block will be added.
The nose coming along, I had to steam the first couple of stips in order to get them bent around the nose. Guitar building came in handy!!!
I will be adding more strips over the next few days. I should end up with about 12 throught the mid section of the board.

I removed the clamps from the frame this morning. Not that I was surprised, but it held together nicely. The next step is to put in a piece of 1/4" x 1/4" cedar strip that is called a "chine log", or "chine strip". This is an old boat building term that refers to the corner peice of wood that is used to join the bottom and side planking of flat bottom boats. On the srufboard they provide a similar purpose, as well as they give additional meat on the bottom corner for shaping the bottom of the rails later. The chine log fits into the knotches in each rib of the frame. This defines the outline of the board, so it is improtant to be sure it is a nice fair curve running the length of the board.

The instructions have you bend the chine log around the nose of the board. I changed things a lttle bit here. Instead I drew a nice round shape for the nose on a cutoff piece of planking. The chine logs butt into it. I am planning to steam bend the "bead only" strip around this, which I should get to tonight.

Grain Surfboards offers a line of surfboard ranging from a 4'5" Paipo to the 10' Waterlog. I enjoy the longboard, so the Waterlog seemed to be the kit for me.

The first step in building the board, is to build a "rocker table". This is used as both a flat surface on which to glue up the top and bottom panels, as well as to glue the frame to the panels.

I have my helper run most of the powertools!

Here is the internal frame of the board sitting on the rocker table. I went a little out of order from the instructions, and did not glue the the frame together at this point. I chose instead to glue up the panels first, as I did not really have the space to store the assembled frame.

Gluing up the panels was pretty easy. Grain marks the planks with a suggested pattern. I laid out the bottom panel planks and liked what I saw, so........... From the instructions, as well as information I gathered on the Tree to Sea wooden surfboard builders forum, I clamped the planks together, and put masking tape on the seams, then flipped the whole panel over and you can use the tape as a hinge to put the glue in the seam, and hold everything together as you put the clamps on to pull everything tight.

Here you can see the tape on the seams. I removed the bar clamps, but left the battens on each end to make it easier to flip over.

.......and putting on the glue.........

Then the clamps are put on, with some weight on top for good measure.

This process was repeated for the top panel, and as the glue dried I assembled and glued the frame together.
The bottom panel is then trimmed to the oversize outline of the board, and the rocker table is shimmed to match the rocker of the keel (no picture of the frame on the shimmed table...).

The frame is glued to the bottom plank with 3M 5200 marine adhesive, then lots of clamps.....

Progress to this point has taken place over 4 days. So far it is progressing smoothly, and the white cedar sure makes the garage smell good!

Gowing up in Southern California, I have constantly been asked, "Do you surf?" Well after years of embarassment and the answer being, "No", I finally made the time to give it a try. Thanks to a friend, Jeff, I was able to borrow a board and he gave me some pointers to help me get started. Well after a summer of borrowing a board I decided I should get my own. I did a bit of looking around and came across a company called Grain Surfboards. They make hollow wood surfboards as well as kits for individuals to build their own hollow wood surfboard. Well, since I enjoy woodworking projects, I figured this would be fun. So after 6 months of wanting to do this project, I placed the order with Grain as a Christmas present to myself. Finally, at the end of February the kit arrived!

Now that I have bored you with that background info, I will bore you with the construction process.