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.

Nohu

The nohu, or scorpionfish, is a real ugly fish. Thus I named  my newest design after it. It’s a 7’ twin fin fish with minimal rocker and a wiiiiiide tail. I made it for small days when it’s too mushy for an alaia, as an alternative to a longboard. We’ll see how it rides – the fins are real small, so it should slide quite a bit but still bite enough for control.
Here’s the inspiration (not one of my prints):

And my take on it. Meranti marine plywood interior frame, bookmatched redwood top, redwood rails, lauan ply bottom. I actually ripped the ply and alternated the light/dark faces for the bottom, using a layer of fiberglass to bind them into a single sheet prior to gluing to the frame. It’s not the prettiest but it’s easy and  inexpensive, and stucturally both light and strong (as it’s glassed on both sides). Fins are my own design; nose/tail blocks are redwood with paulownia on the nose and mahogany on the tail block. :

Uhu

The latest out of the shop is this unique alaia. Based on the success of the omilu model, I made some changes that I hoped would be beneficial. First, more wood. The omilu was a bit to thin and too light, making it flex more than I would like. Additionally I don’t feel like it would hold up to  overhead waves. Also, maintaining more width throughout would help in catching waves and planing. The omilu tended to downshift once off the face. While fairly easy to maneuver, I felt it was too loose – particularly when in the flats, where it was a chore to keep it from spinning out.

 

So, I developed the uhu. Very little wood was removed from the blank – just enough to give it a nice outline.Unlike the narow waist of the omilu I went with a “stinger” tail, keeping the board wide up until the last 20 inches or so where the tail steps in. For control I went with a Catch Surf setup – rounded 70/30 rails up front and hard, inward-canted rails in the tail (Catch Surf hand-makes finless soft surfboards which are really taking off).  The bottom is the standard single concave, with the addition of a couple of channels in the tail to help keep it straight.

So how does it work? I took it out on a nice chest-high day at an empty reef break out by the Coast Guard air station at Barbers. It was perfect alaia surf – long, gentle lines with reforms and multiple sections. The board performed beyond expectations. It was markedly easier to catch waves than the omilu, allowing me to get in earlier and really set up my rides. It tracked straight – almost too straight, and I really had to use a shortboard-like technique to turn it, unlike the omilu which really needs a light touch. The only negative was that it really wasn’t any easier to paddle than the others (alaias are a MAJOR arm workout). The extra wood didn’t make a difference – it was essentially neutrally buoyant weight. The positive side of that is that you can duck-dive the thing about 6 feet no problem, and actually “swim” underwater with it.

As for the graphics…after cutting the outline, it just looked like an uhu (parrotfish). I bagged my first uhu a few weeks ago (granted a red-phase, not a bicolor) and that sealed the deal. I just wanted something interesting on the back so I made some camo stencils and went with an aquaflage scheme. The logo is again just a reflection on my current obsession of spearfishing. I couldn’t bring myself to put a camera mount on the nose – it would just ruin the art.

I’m really excited about riding this board this winter. This will be my “co-number one” along with a “normal” shortboard I’m making for more critical surf.

New Paddle

In Action:

Early Season South Swell from rotorhead guy on Vimeo.

SUP Paddle

The bending jig used is actually for an iako (outrigger crossbeam). I’ve modified it for a nice double-bend. Since my last 2-ply paddle failed (see the video here) I used 4 laminations on this one; two lams of douglas fir in the interior and mahogany on the outside. Here is is just out of the jig:

From there, it’s a whole lot of hand-shaping with a small plane and a spokeshave. Here is some sequentials:

 

The blade is douglas fir with mahogany highlights. I made a temporary jig to glue up the “wings” on to the shaft.

I used the same blade template as the last paddle, as I really liked how it felt both paddling and surfing:

The blade was covered with glass set in epoxy:

 

 

From there, once the epoxy was dry, I sanded and filled with urethane, and she’s ready for her premiere.