tail shaping

not a view of the tail i just worked on, but i liked how its lookin! getting there!
awesomeness

shaped the tail more, just kinda eyeballing what to do with it compared to my zippi and pics of other fishes. couldnt' really find any measurement-type guidance, but it's looking good! oh and we made awesome grilled veggies the other night!

rails getting closer!

gettin there!
started sanding down the tail. those two small marks just by the "buttcrack" are from my fingernails hitting the board after a swift sand... still getting used to going slower than with wood...
just gotta smooth these guys out a bit more and they're done

worked on the rails some more this morning. sanded off a few more bevels alogn the edges. mostly following the rail templates for the steve lis fish and just lookin at my fish for guidance too. started on the fish tail too, but it's seemign a bit too thick back there compared to my zippi fish. so no sure how that will progress, but i'll figure it out!

Sidewalk art

out for a walk this afternoon and noticed this stencil spray-painted on the sidewalk right around the corner from my office. neat.

planing the top and bottom and rails!

roughly shaped the main cont0ur of the rail last night

it gets everywhere
drew guidelines for the rails

the corners on this smaller block started putting grooves also. ended up just wrapping a piece of sandpaper around a block-didn't glue it down or anything, adn it worked great. the simpler the better






wanted a long, 24" inch, board with sand paper to sand the board evenly across the width. thought gluing pieces of paper along it would work, but where the paper meets teh next piece ends up putting small grooves in the board. need to just buy a piece of belt sander paper and use it instead.

planing the bottom of the board! getting dusty!

so this weekend i took off the outer crust of the blank (about an 1/8" on top adn bottom) and then started on the rails. came across a few problems, but learned from em!

it's taking shape!

outlines done! psyyyyyyyched!
everyone i've spoken to and read about stresses that you need to take your time and go slowly, but i was so scared of making messing up anyway that i didn't really have to remind myself to go slower
shaping it down to the template lines
mel was runnin around taking pictures like an over-excited/proud parent
rough board! pretty awesome to see it take shape that quick
rough tail
rough nose
cuttin the nose, scared shitless of making a mistake

cut out the shape last night and sanded it down last night and this morning! super pumped! and scared

Autumn

Fall board

DIY surfboard (#1)!!!!!!!!!!!

shaping racks-need to add foam padding adn put them in a 5 gallon buckets filled with sand! (plenty of sand for free around here)
template on the blank!
template on my other fish-using this board as reference for some aspects, but changing from it a bit too
quite frankly pencils leading me the whole way
board drawn out with dimensions-says 5'6", but i've already changed that to 5'8", other than that, all other dimensions are the same

About to start shaping my first board! Pretty pumped, been thinking about this for quite a while adn finally decided it's time! been reading a ton of stuff over the past couple weeks-there’s so many resources just online, and just from talking to people at surf shops (and getting passed feeling like an idiot asking certain questions), but I’ve already learned a ton and I’m really pumped on that alone. So, I bought a blank the other day from Foam EZ, along with one tool. I have most other stuff, and I’m gonna make a few tools too. For starters the shaping stands. Plenty of guidance on making these too. Cut the template out the other night too, so gonna cut out the rough shape this weekend! Many more posts to follow!

Little Jimmy Trail Camp

view from trail
stoppin to shoot
good morning
hang yer food!
spot
after


package
before
dirty windshield but awesome clouds

Went up and hiked to Little Jimmy Trail Camp (free with Adventure Pass) this weekend. It’s on the northeast side of Angeles National Forest. Took about 2 hours to get there, and with plenty of clouds coming in, we were nervous of some storms. Luckily they were all past when we arrived. It was sunny and pretty out. The hike is only about 2 miles long, but uphill with lots of switchbacks for the first mile. It’s a pretty awesome hike too, along the edge of big hills and over ridges the whole way. It’s part of the Pacific Crest Trail too actually. At the camp, I think you’re at about 7500 feet up! Highest we’ve ever camped! There are maybe 6 sites or so, but plenty of space so lots more could fit there really, but only two other groups camping this Saturday night. We explored the surrounding area a bit, but mostly just relaxed. We made a fire, as it was colder than we thought it’d be-Mel brought shorts thinking it would be hot, ha, what a rookie! J We bought one of those freeze dried dinners to make also- veggie lasagna, and it was amazing! Seriously, nothing different tasting about it; tasted so good! We just hung out by the fire some that night, secured our food and went to sleep. We woke up once from what sounded like a large branch breaking, and we were pretty certain it was our branch our food was hanging from, but neither of us figured it made sense to get out and check it out. Didn’t hear anything else, so we ended up dozing back to sleep. In the morning, turned out it was not our branch so we’re not sure what it was…took the hike back down in the morning sun, and it was beautiful.