Wish Kids New Toy!

[libby]

Ha ha spray it pink and send it my way!

[Driftingalong]

Awesome paint job!

(With all that red; it must be pretty fast)

[Laguna]

Awsome work KS, its come along nice!

[kitesurfer]

Cheers for the comments.

[jennie]

that is one sexy board!

[kitesurfer]

Morning again. Got a few more photos to share. Glassing this time.
Preparing to glass the deck.



Wetting out the patch panel.



Placing the leash plug decal.



More patch panel work.



More to follow.

[kitesurfer]

Positioning the top layer of glass over a wet patch panel. This is in my opinion the worst bit of glassing. Get it in the wrong place and all hell breaks loose. In these temps you only get 10mins to complete the glassing!



Safely down in the right place.



And the tail.



Note the large dry area in the middle where the glass was laying. This needs to be wetted out well next.



More to follow.

[kitesurfer]

Wetting out the deck both layers.



It's starting to look good.



Still need to wet out the laps.



Doing the laps.




Just a few more to go.

[kitesurfer]

Nearly all done.



Checking for any dry spots.



A couple of patches to cover areas where the cloth moved. These can be trimmed later.



All done until next week as i'm off to devon tonight.

[FishKid Wales]

KS is the bottom really as burgundy as it looks in the photo cos some shots it looks red some shots it lookslike redwine!
Have a good crack @ the Goldcoast!

[kitesurfer]

It's difficult to tell! Until i get the board into the daylight i won't know for sure. In the shaping room it does look burgendy. But again this may change once the hotcoat and glassing coats go on.

[xswind]

Looking good so far and those pictures have come out really well from last night.

Maybe there is hope for my photography skills yet.

The thing the pictures do not tell is just how stinky Kitesurfer is, opps no I mean the resin.

Keep up the good work there Kitesurfer.

[kitesurfer]

Ah xs or should i say big nose, was wondering when you'd show yourself!
To those who probably don't know XS Wind is the kind chap who owns the shed in which all of my surfboards are made! Mucho thanks xs for putting up with my stinkyness! And that's not refering to my surfing style!

[pirate]

Thats fu**ing awsome!!!!!! Man that's so much work i doubt i had the patience i'm the kind of guy that has a million half made proyects.

[kitesurfer]

Finally wish kids new toy is finished, just in time for the summer meet.
Those of you going to the summer meet will get to see the big handover, those of you not going will have to wait till next week for the final round of photos. Wouldn't want to spoil the surprise for wish kid now.

[lowrider_93]

-nicely done do u sell?? Cus i would definetly like to buy some of that, props

[kitesurfer]

Hey lowrider, i do sell the occasional board but canada a mighty long way to ship one. Can you not get one abit more local to yourself?

KS

[kitesurfer]

Ok couldn't wait till next week, wish kids senn his new board so i'll show some more of the messy construction photos.
A note to all, duting the build a surfboard goes through many stages, some of which arne't that pretty. But as everything is made from glass when you put on the final sanding or gloss coat all the mess you've made suddenly dissapears. It's like magic. So even with a coloured board like this one all the sanding marks and stuff will go. So the important thing is to make sure the board is smooth and free from dust and debris before the final coats go and you'll be fine. You'll see what i mean in the coming photos.

Right here are the fins being fitted.

For this type of homemade keel fin i route a slot in the board to accept a lug i leave on the fin. It makes positioning real easy and since these fins go in with no cant it sets them at the right angle 90 degrees



All the bits assembled prior to glassing the fins in. 6oz patches, fibreglass rovings taped at the ends and made into rope by twisting. These make the fillets to the board.



Filling the slots with resin to give extra bond and watertightness to the fins.



Sticking the fins in.



You need to work quite quickly to get everything done when fin fitting so don't worry about making a mess.

More to follow.

[kitesurfer]

Fitting the glass rope.



Painting the fins with resin to wet out the patches.



Fitting the patches and getting everything nice and wet.



Leave to go off until the resin has gone green and gelled then trim with a stanley blade. Don't forget to trim the ends of the rope as well.



Cheers KS

[kitesurfer]

Ok back from a weekend of drinking and surfing here are the final installment of photos.
This is what you can expect a board to look like after sanding and prior to hot-coating. For those of you that arne't aware a hot coat is basically a sanding coat and is the final coat that makes your board look all nice and smooth. (gloss coats are basically an additional hot coat added for polishing)
The hot coat is basically a mix of resin with an additive known as wax in styrene added. This wax finds it's way to the surface of the resin and allows it to be sanded easily.
Note! This product is called 5% wax in styrene. It does not mean you add 5% to your resin. The actual amount you add is between 1 and 2%.










The resin gets poured on and spread around using a paint brush.
Lengthways first followed by sideways then lengthways again. Keep an eye for stray hairs and make sure you get an even layer all over the board. I do the deck first with no masking used and just let the resin drip around the rails. Then the bottom gets done, not forgetting to do the fins if using glassed on fins.
I mask off the deck when doing the bottom as this helps with sanding in the rails around the tail and fins. Quite important to get the transistion from sharp rails to soft at the right spot and smooth.

More to follow.