Our first longboard takes shape

We made a jig for the 10" fin box. After we figured out how to hold it still we had pretty good results.

After the last hot coat the board gets a thorough inspection.

More pics from the weekend

Ari sent some photos he took over the weekend. This is a typical scene early on. Lots of foam and racks everywhere as we rough shape the blanks.


One of my favorite parts.....picking out the blanks.

This year we were treated to a great surf movie out back by the campfire. The shaping shed doubled as a movie screen!

Derek finishes up his first board.

Ben shows off his work before packing up for the flight home.


Meanwhile, back in the shed Greg puts the first hot coat on the family longboard

Alaias

Mark planes out the hull on his alaia.

These boards do not have fins. What little control you have while riding comes from bottom contours like this and a lot of skill.
A little bit of stain and it's almost done.
Zoe masked off a small logo of her own design.

Here are the finished alaias. They should be ready to ride in a week or so!

Glassing the boards

Scott made his first board with us about 3 or 4 years ago and returns every year to help out with the glassing. Here he helps Derek put the bottom layer on his board. Derek is going with an all white board.
The glass job on Derek's board turned out great.


Mac and Oli decided to add a yellow and red tint to this board. With a little bit of resin mixed in they were ready to paint.

Before we began laminating, the boys laid down their colors on the bottom of the board.



As always, the laps are a critical part of the process. You want wet laps, tucked under clean with no folds or bubbles. As I finish laminating, Mac follows behind making sure the laps are taken care of.

We have a great time with the laminates. This is Ben's board with his new logo. When he makes it big time I hope he sends us some T-shirts!!

Saturday Morning

Each year we try to add something new to the process. Here we have rigged up a broom stick on hooks to unroll the fiberglass on the blanks. It's not as fancy as the pro shops but it sure does make life easier in the shed!

Ben was the first to start glassing on Saturday. Here he signs his board before laminating the top. He did a resin tint on the bottom using a mix of purple and yellow. By the time it all mixed together he had a deep green that resembled the water color in Ari's hometown of Santa Cruz.

Meanwhile, outside the shed the Mark and Zoe are hard at work on their Alaia's
Zoe applies alternating bands of light and dark stain to her board.
Mac was nearby taping off the rails for the resin tint that was going on the bottom of this board.

Ari, Ben and Derek started working on Friday to get a jump on the weekend. Ben had flown in that day from Daytona Beach for the weekend to join us. This will be his first board. He has a flight home on Sunday at 5:oopm so he had to get going!

They started skimming the board with the planers to get the glue residue off the blank.


Go-Pro cameras are pretty popular right now and Ari was right there with his new toy. We hope to post a few videos of all the action.

Friday was hot but everyone was in good spirits for the event!
Once the boards have been cleaned of all the manufacturing residue we were ready to lay out the outline. Here we used a 1/4 template I had saved from an older longboard.

With a hand saw and a little bit of WD-40 we started cutting the outlines.

One for the record books

Shapefest 2011 will be another event for the books! We had a busy weekend, great weather and even a little surf. For the first time ever we completed an entire board in one long weekend. Stay tuned for more photos and all the details.

Get your planers ready - Shapefest is almost here!