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:

The Grey Ghost

A 7’ funboard (the “Kalaeloa Blaster” template) for my Nephew Al who just graduated from high school (Westford Academy, home of the “Grey Ghosts”). Epoxy/EPS construction with airbrushed skulls and highlights, FCS fusions and lightweight glass with a deck patch.

Paul’s Longboard

Fresh out of the shop, a sweet 8’ longboard for my high school buddy Paul. He designed the graphics and paint scheme on it, and I designed the template/shape for the board. A classic shape with concave to double concave on the bottom, soft-to-hard rails and a modern 2+1 fin setup. With the pintail and a nice continuous rocker it’ll work in just about anything from ankle slappers to overhead tubes, looking good the whole time.

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. :

Laminating/Pinlines and a Completed Board

For a board like this, laminating is a multi-stage process. I like to do the majority of art and color right on the foam. Once the art is good to go, I do a “skim coat” of thin epoxy resin over the raw foam. This fills in the many small gaps and spaces between the EPS foam beads, and will provide a solid base for the glass coat to lock on to. Once it starts to kick, I’ll lay out any logos or art that I’ve done up on translucent vellum and squegee them flat, ensuring all the air bubbles are out from underneath. Then the glass goes on – while the thin “skim coat” and wet decals are kicking. A nice tight lamination, pulling out from the center to the rails, usually gives a nice flat surface with the cloth well adhered to the blank.
On this board I’ve done a fabric inlay on the nose. Once the fabric is cut out, I pour on the resin, spread it around, give it a minute or two to soak, and squegee it flat. The edges will get covered with pinlines after the lamination.

If I’m doing pinlines, I’ll wait a day or so for the first lamination to cure. I clean the board with denatured alcohol and a tack cloth,  and then lightly sand down the area where the pinline will go. Then I mask it off and lay the line using an art brush and good-quality opaque acrylic. I’ll do a thin, quick coat which will seal the edge between the board and the tape, then lay it on thicker. Once complete I pull the tapes, clean up any goofs, and it’s off to the next lam.

Between lams is also a good time to look at the board up close and far away, and see if any changes to the art need to be done. This is the last chance I’ll have to put something under glass (and thus make it a permanent part of the board).

Overall I’m fairly pleased with the end result. There are numerous imperfections that are clear to me, as I’ve hand-crafted every square inch of it from blank to polish. Everyone who’s seen it so far has been impressed; hopefully the customer will be also.

Color

I like to make boards with a good bit of color. Not a big fan of clear/white boards. Anyhow, Paki’s 9’0 is coming along, almost ready for glass.

9’ 0” x 22” HP Longboard

Time lapse video of Paki’s 9’0 getting shaped. Thin, fast pintail longboard shape.