Grain Surfboards - The Steamer day 3

Original photo by Clayton Plummer

This past weekend I spent Friday through Monday working with eight other surfers and the guys from Grain Surfboards building one of their Steamer Kits in the back parking lot of Patagonia Cardiff.

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Day 2 was more work and a longer day than day 1, but it was so much fun  I slept like a baby Saturday night as well.  Thankfully, Sunday was a late start so I was able to sleep in.

Original photo by Clayton Plummer

My girlfriend and I spent Sunday morning cruising down to Oceanside and more specifically Surf Ride Board Shop.  I ordered a new Billabong Xero 302 wetsuit to replace a wetsuit top that tore, finally, after seven years of service.  It is really cool, though I am a kook, with the camo arm and leg.  I didn't get to wear it that day, other than trying it on.

Day 3, we started mid-day to let all of the titebond glue as well as the 3M 5200 marine adhesive dry, cure, and set as much as possible.

This insured that the top deck was glued to the frame and rails as best it could be in such a short amount of time. It worked. We were given a quick lesson in how to use a draw knife and sent on our way.

Original photo by Clayton Plummer

The draw knife is used to cut a lot of wood off of the edges of the top deck as quickly as possible.  It works really well in the hands of a professional.  It is really dangerous in my hands, in that I ALMOST took too much wood in one spot.  I thought it was going to be an issue. Thankfully, it wasn't and that spot went away as soon as we started to use our spokeshaves and block planes to bring the top deck in line with our rails.

The wood shaving process really started to make sense on day 3 and I was able to get the hang of both the spokeshave and block plane (more or less).  The end result was really cool to see. The thing that started life looking more like a WWII airplane wing was beginning to really look like a surfboard.  Surfable? Still to be determined, but in all sense and purpose: a surfboard.

Original photo by Clayton Plummer

 In order to get the rails to really come together with the top deck a line of blue painter's tape was set all around the board at the deck-to-rail mating line.  It isn't an exact science, but the idea is to shave the top deck down to the point that you can just see the top edge of the tape.  Once there, you don't have to shave any more wood from that area.

Done right, the tape just pulls right back off of the board.  In my case that wasn't totally true.  I had blue tape still stuck under the wood of my top deck even at the end of day 3. I later addressed this issue on day 4.

Original photo by Clayton Plummer

The final thing for The Steamer on day 3 was to have the tail block installed.  I was given a box of light and dark colored wood block pieces to glue together and then glue to the tail of the board.   I chose three light sandwiched around two dark pieces.  I think it looks pretty good.  Once it was all glued up, it was taped into place and left to sit overnight.

The tail block process was repeated for all of the longboard guys, which I think there were three of us total.  Everybody did their own pattern and it turned out really well on everybody's boards.

Grain Surfboards - The Steamer day 2

Original photo by Clayton Plummer

This past weekend I spent Friday through Monday working with eight other surfers and the guys from Grain Surfboards building one of their Steamer Kits in the back parking lot of Patagonia Cardiff.

--//--

Day 1 was a lot of work.  I felt great at the end of the day, slept like a baby that night, and woke up ready to charge head-on into day 2!

Some of the guys got up early enough to go for a surf before the start of day 2.  I wasn't one of those people.  It looked like fun watching them with my coffee in hand, though.

Saturday, day 2, dawned with the boards railed and ready for us to start using spokeshaves and block planes to get the pieces of wood fair (wood working term for smooth, round, and continuous).  Once we had shaved all of the wood down (very thin in some spots) we sanded everything with 80 grit sandpaper and prepared the surface for more titebond glue as well as some 3M 5200 marine adhesive.

Original photo by Clayton Plummer

The final step for day two was to get the top deck glued onto the planed and sanded rails.  Once the deck was set, we used a cool lattice work of boards, more spring clamps, and rope to squeeze everything together.  The bottom of the boards are contoured in this process using some cool CNC machined, unique, and individual piece of wood for each section of the board.  Each set of CNC pieces was unique to the type of board.  So, the pieces for my Steamer were different from The CI Biscuit pieces, The Seed pieces, and all of the other boards in our class.  One other guy had a Steamer in the class.  The remaining six boards were different.

The million dollar questions for every passer-by was either "Is that Balsa wood?" or "Is that thing solid?"  It was pretty interesting how many people came by that had wooden surfboards.

Grain Surfboards is headquartered in Portland, Maine.  Amazingly enough, there had to be a hundred transplants that now live in the Cardiff are; it was quite the reunion all day.  It made me laugh, only because I'm a transplant from Michigan.

The final highlight of the day was all of the dogs!  So many people in Cardiff have French Bulldogs.  They are so cute with their little satellite ears!!  Along with my hard work, I had plenty of dog therapy.

Clayton

Grain Surfboards - The Steamer day 1

Original photo by Clayton Plummer

This past weekend I spent Friday through Monday working with eight other surfers and the guys from Grain Surfboards building one of their Steamer Kits in the back parking lot of Patagonia Cardiff.

--//--

I was excited about the class, but man it was FUN!!

We started Friday morning, day 1, with our bottom decks glued to the internal frame.  The task for day 1 was to glue up all the tiny individual wood pieces that made the rails.  Using multiple spring clamps, titebond marine wood glue, and a cool hot-glue technique they recently developed we worked in pairs on each others boards to get all the pieces glued and set for day 2.

Original photos by Clayton Plummer

Some of the pieces required the wood to be steamed in order to make the curve of the nose or tail.  This was achieved by placing the piece of wood under a towel, soaking the towel in water, and then placing a common household iron on the wet towel.  This steamed the wood which made it very pliable.  More spring clamps were used to keep the wood bent in place as we worked and as it dried.

Before I signed up for this class, I played with the idea of buying one of Grain's kits and doing this whole process myself.  I'm handy and mechanically inclined.  I build and work on my own bicycles.  However, day 1 of this class was a HUGE eye opener.  I am so very glad that I paid for the class, because wow.  Using the spokeshave and block plane correctly would have been a very long process.  Just getting my tools sharpened would have been a long process.  Not to mention all the auxiliary tools, stands, clamps, and such that I would have had to purchase.  I would have equaled the price of the class to just have enough supporting equipment. All that on top of making mistakes that I wouldn't have been able to fix myself and ruining the board completely.

Clayton

Saturday Surf Session

Original photo by Clayton Plummer

Once again it was a Saturday surf session at Anderson Street.  I tried to coordinate meeting two different friends.  It didn't work really well.

I met up with one, but missed meeting up with the other.  I saw both of their vehicles parked, but couldn't pick both of them out of the line-up.  There were quite a few guys out since SoCal was experiencing some pretty decent surf.

Typical of Anderson Street the "bigger" sets, which weren't that big, for the record, would just close-out.  So, you had to sit and endure through the close-out sets and wait for the medium sized stuff Anderson Street can handle.

My first wave of the day was the best for me.  I was surfing my Dead Kooks Hell Hound.  I rode a nice long left staying right in the pocket the whole time.  I probably rode a total of six waves in the two hours I sat out there.  Not a high production day, for sure.  It was fun though.

My buddy and I talked about everything and nothing in particular the whole time we sat out there.

Until next time,
Clayton

Saturday Surf Session

Original photo by Cyron

Last Saturday, the 28th of September, I surfed at Anderson Street.  I rode my Meyerhoffer Lemondrop because I thought a buddy of mine might join me.  He isn't a surfer by any means, not that I'm good, but I can out-surf him.  So, I thought I'd even the odds a bit by riding something that I needed to really paddle compared to his long board.

It was a perfect long board day at Anderson Street.  Thankfully, the Lemondrop is a full-foam board.  There is a lot of meat in the board and most of it is right under your chest.  Which makes it really easy to paddle.

As a result, I was still surfing lots of waves.  Granted, it was only one bottom turn and then the wave was done, but still I was catching a lot of waves and making that bottom turn.

I ended up surfing with three random guys and one girl.  It was fun.  Two of the guys were really good on their long boards.  It was fun to watch them put on a clinic.  They were doing head-dips, hang-five, hang-ten, you name it.  It was really cool to watch them do their thing and make it look SO easy.

Also, to no ones surprise, I'm sure, I saw the dolphins.  This time they had the little ones with them.  They were stirring up the bait-ball and teaching the little ones how to hunt.  It was really cool.  The babies were so tiny with their little dorsal fins.

The spooky part of that experience were all the birds.  They were chasing the bait-ball too.  Pelicans, which are huge in person, would dive-bomb into the bait-ball not two feet from where I was sitting on my board.  It's unnerving because you don't hear anything until the giant splash happens on impact.

It was a great day.  I spent a total of two hours in the water that morning.

Until next time!!
Clayton