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.

sunrises and sunsets

they've been good lately

Let it ROT!!!

Using power tools, the usual.

It's coming together!

Went ahead and harvested some carrots. Real carrots, dirt and all.

Finish product!

Starting it out with my failed freckle lettuce.

This past weekend Matt and I took on the endeavor of building a compost. We needed to put our food waste to good use and my garden needs some extra love. We wanted to make it as simply and cheaply as possible so we used lattice fencing and some scrape wood from out back. Matt did most of the work, but he taught me to use some power tools and I pitched in!!!