The Kala II: Electric Bugaloo

The same shape as this board; I used the template to design the frames for a one-off wood board. I went with a nice bookmatched redwood top and a lauan bottom (ripped and alternated at the stringer and glassed on both faces). All in all I still prefer a properly planked bottom but the lauan is quick and easy to work with, and looks good. I went with a bonzer fin setup with an FCS trailer rather than the regular large single fin – I intend to surf this one as a slippery twin as well as the bonzer setup.  The smaller side fins are glassed on and made of meranti marine plywood.
Artwork is a kala I shot a while back (hence the name) and printed up myself. I wanted to see how the heavy rice paper would glass, and it came out nice. The blue highlights cover the deck-rail joint, which due to the heavy dome of the deck came out uneven. The lizard on the bottom was heat-transferred directly on to the wood.
Rails are strip-planked with alternating white fir and mahogany. The leash plug is stacked ply, cut and worked by hand with a stainless bolt as the anchor.
Video of the gyotaku process after the pics.

The Kala

6’5” single fin round-tail, single concave to double concave/vee, moderate rocker, 2 5/8” thick. Multi-color resin tint with cutlap on deck.

Pokeboard

This is for my youngest daughter, who is a pokemon fanatic. It’s the same “Malasada” template I used on the “demon hands” board, but a little thinner. It makes a great kids board as it is wide and stable, yet it is a full high-performance adult shortboard as well – thus it will grow with the kid.
I think it’s a good move to teach kids on a shortboard as soon as they are comfortable in the water. It builds strong surfing fundamentals – paddling, turning, balancing – where a longboard does not. I can always tell someone who learned to surf on a longboard – their style reflects the easy and forgiving nature of the big stick.

The Malasada

It’s a “Hawaiian Biscuit”.  Short, wide in both tail and nose and shallow rocker. Vee-tail with channels for speed. K3 fins on FCS Fusion inserts. Lightweight. This board will go airborne off the lip.

A Reasonable Facsimile

One of the joys of doing surboard art is using my technical abilities to bring an artist’s design to life on foam. Noted artist Paul Arnold designed the spectacular graphic design for his Waimano model mini-longboard. For this design – I call this the “Malasada” model (it’s like a CI Biscuit…but Hawaiian) the young man who ordered the board worked up this design with his father:

Armed with my new Iwata airbrush – which, once one gets the paint consistency and air pressure figured out, works like a dream – I came up with this:

Winter Board 2010

Your basic high-performance shortboard. 6’6” x19”, 2 3/4” thick. Even with double 4 oz. glass bottom and double 4 top with a 6 oz deck patch, it’s still real light.

Brothers

That’s what I’m calling these two boards.

“Big Brother” is a 9’0 longboard, full and thick, for my oldest brother.

“Little Brother” is a high-performance 6’5” shortboard which will be my winter board.

Since they both are new shapes I’m starting by cutting the templates out of 1/8” ply:

Kid's Boards

I build them just like my adult boards - hollow with an internal frame and solid wood planked decks - but with a 1/8" ply bottom, which I then paint white and let the kids decorate it (okay, I help with the paint job a little...).

Angelyne's swizzle stick:

Catherine's 60% 9'4". This one's a beauty - concave-to-vee bottom, nice rails, FCS fins...

Rails

I use the strip-planking method for my rails. It creates a strong, lightweight rail that has a nice look to it. The disadvantage is that the rail shape must be designed into the transverse frames, and thus the rail shape is essentially engineered vice shaped. I use a chine where the bottom skin meets the frame, so I can do a little more shaping right at the bottom of the rail.

Here's an example of how it looks during the build. In the past I've used epoxy or Titebond-3, and both methods are time consuming. It takes a minimum of 3-5 hours for each strip to set until it's strong enough to place the next strip. I'm going to try the new Titebond CA next time and rail an entire board in an afternoon.

From Rotorhead's Waterblog

Here, on a kid's board with a plain ply bottom, I'm dry-fitting the chine with clothespins. In this case I had to use another chine log - note the gaps between the chine and the frames:

From Rotorhead's Waterblog

On this, a 7'1" stinger, I used the strip-planking from the nose to the sting, then a single piece of fir for the relatively vertical rail aft to the tail:

From Island Dreams Surf Designs pics

For pointy boards, it's critical to get the nose just right (unless a nose block is used, but those just don't look right on pointy boards).

From Rotorhead's Waterblog

Once finished, the last few rails are sanded nearly flush with the deck and then the deck is placed. Once the board is finished and glassed, it really looks nice. Here is another stinger, with mahogany strip rails, a little hardwood piece right at the transition, and a solid cedar rail going back to the tail:

From Rotorhead's Waterblog

There are many lessons learned here:
- The chine log is essential - it sets up the entire outline.
- If the chine extends beyond the frame edge, the rail strips will have a gap between themselves and the frame, which is problematic. Again, a properl fitted chine is the key.
- The rail strips I use are all just square-edged. I sand a bevel into each strip individually prior to glue-up to ensure it fights tight with the adjacent strip. It sounds like a lot of work, but with practice it only takes a few minutes. The last few boards I made had virtually no gaps in them, which simplifies the finishing process.

7'4" Stinger

The dimensions for this board came from the Clark Foam 7'5"R close-tolerance blank, with my own modifications engineered into the transverse members (narrower tail aft of the sting). Frames are every 8" with an additional frame at the sting point. The deck is bookmatched redwood with a central mahogany strip. The rails are strip-planked mahogany about 3/8" tall and 3/16" wide.

From Island Dreams Surf Designs pics

From Island Dreams Surf Designs pics

The bottom is redwood with fir and mahogany strips between the planks. The board was glassed with a layer of 6 oz cloth set in epoxy.

From Rotorhead's Waterblog

From Island Dreams Surf Designs pics

From Rotorhead's Waterblog