Thanks mac, it's not really my first, it's about my third or fourth, and my last attempt was about 34 years ago, but it is the first one that has ever worked and I put that down to actually thinking before cutting rather than ploughing in with a plane and hoping for the best.

Once I had removed the scab from both sides and cut the template, I spent 2 days marking it out with a Foam Ez square and some other measuring and marking tools I made before I did any real shaping. By the time I was done, the blank looked like a piece of graph paper.

I had so may lines on it, I actually had to cut and sand further than I wanted in some areas because I pushed too deep with too hard a pencil.

It gives you a renewed appreciation for people like Terry Martin when you see him on a vid going start to finish in under an hour.

My suggestion would be go to someone like Bufords and see if they have any seconds of any size, with or without a stringer, you may may get one for under $50.

use it to get used to cutting foam.

You could even turn it into a skateboard deck and try your hand at glassing.

I already had most of the tools I needed, along with some good sanding pads and a David combi plane, because I find that using surfboard making gear for doing a lot of wood finishing jobs at home is usually better than the crap that Bunnings sell, and usually cheaper.

So from memory, the basic costs were;

$140 for the Blank (6mm T band stringer)

$190 for the resin, 6oz warp cloth, 10" fin box, 100gs Q cell, leash plug, sanding discs, 4" brush.

$36 for Foam Ez Square

There were probably a few other bibs and bobs, but some of the stuff I made myself from scraps I had around the house, like the callipers, the edge marking tool was just a lump of old board foam cut in the shape of an "L" so you could just shove a pencil through the foam. I also made a Fred tool for cutting the rail bands accurately, but I didn't use it much because it was too slow, I use the planer and was really carful about counting the number of passes I made.

I already had a 6" squeegee, but if I had to buy one it would have been around $12.

I used less than 1 Lt of acetone, which I already had at home.

I did not do a gloss coat, so that saved around $30 in resin.

I came up with a way to safely do the wet rubbing with an old orbital sander and I already had disc cement along with the RCD extension lead, plus the house has RCD protection.

I guess I'm also lucky that I'm so close to some of the main board industry suppliers at Brooky and Monavale, I could just pop down there anytime to get whatever I wanted, I must say the shopping at Surfblanks was a real pleasure for the one-off maker, everything is beautifully laid out like a self serve, with prices marked and as you're shopping the sales assistant will come up to you and ask if you want all the gear packed for you so you can continue looking.

I can tell you that the really big component is the time.

I forgot to mention that I have an incredibly tolerant wife, because the mess and the smells can be very difficult to live with, and that's before I've even considered making a board

There was no need to delve further into the issue of blanks because I found a manufacturer who had exactly what I needed, Core Industries.

They're in Tweed Heads, but fortunately for me they had a distributer called Howie in MonaVale and I was able to walk straight in, hand over some cash and walk straight out. The only mistake I made was not knowing which of the 3 available rockers was the one I got, but even there I appeared to luckout.

He said to me "what rocker do you want" I said "I'd like it to have a decent tail kick" he walked over to the back wall, grabbed a blank, put it on the floor in front of me, I eyeballed it and said "that'll do".

I should measure it to see what I got.

obct said..

From a distance, the bottom does not look too bad because the single layer of glass was manageable for me.




However, I still managed to F up the Volan fin patch by not making sure I cut within the line I made with the sharpie pen and then laying that side face down so I could not see my mistake until I was laminating.




Here you can see the tail vee, but you can also see the bubbles on the top side where I did not manage to do my laps in time.

If there's ever a next time, I'll be using UV.




This pic mostly shows the foil on the tail, but you can also see where the slight double concave is designed to spill out at the rear of the board

1st or 4th you've done a cracking job there mate!!

I happen to live in Santa Barbara and am lucky enough to be able to go to their factory and buy fins direct as they have a retail outlet there. Please support them by buying on their website, they are super friendly and helpful and are looking for feedback from customers, not to mention making a great quality product.