Raw Fish - 5' 9" x 21"

How goes it cyber surfers? This is a story about a fish I'm building ( my first). After watching the movie "One California Day" & seeing Joe Curran & Joel Tudor ripping on their fishes , I thought it might be time to give one a try - so why not build my own out of wood. After doing a bit of research on the net I came up with a design - pretty similar to Jim Banks's planshapes - but with a mccoy dome or convex bottom - most people go with concaves or flat bottoms - but I know the dome works on all the boards I've made - so cant see why it wont work on a fish. It was origionally going to be just a twinnie with keels - but quads get a big wrap - so I'm going to use 4 fin plugs & try it as a twinnie & a quaddie - why not experiment?

The timber used for skins & ribs is 6 mm Paulownia. I like to go with a 5mm plywood spine for a bit of extra strength. Ribs are 6 inches apart.  The board is going to be finished with tung & orange oil. Glue used Titebond 111

DIMENSIONS :
5 ft 9 inch X 21 inch X 2 3/4 inch


       Heres some pix

                          Chine strips secured with sewing pins inserted using multi grips

                                           Frame clamped to rocker table during assembly

                      Frame secured to a second rocker table with bottom facing up - ready
                                                      for bottom skins to be glued on

     

                                          First bottom strip 145 mm wide X 6mm thick

This is the tail end - that block of wood attached to the spine is only temporarily in place to help hold the skin to the spine when gluing - It will be cut off when I jigsaw the fish tail outline

Bottom skinned & ready for rails - I've left 30mm outside of chine strips for the rails- which will consist of 4 timber strips at 7.5mm wide - the 2 outside rail strips will be solid  timbers - while the 2 inside strips will be similar to the chine strips,  ie - a separate bit at top & bottom

This is the first bottom rail strip getting glued on - I'm using 7.5 mm square balsa for the inside bottom 2 rail strips 

This is the first top inside rail strip getting glued on - ( you can see the bottom 2 balsa strips already glued on) - I'm using a 12 mm deep strip for first one & 15 mm deep strip for second - the strips are cut with the rocker curve in them as I find this avoids the  twisting you get when using straight bits

The above shots show the outside rail strips with bottom rocker curve cut - so they sit nice & flush against the bottom skin - ( I use my plywood rocker template to get these curves ) The other shots show the amount of inward & downward clamping pressure applied - & the last shot shows all the rail strips glued on & ready to be sawn flush with the first & last ribs - ready for nose & tail blocks to be glued in place

I  like to glue small balsa cross pieces to the ribs to increase the glueing width of ribs - makes it stronger

Rails trimmed flush with first & last ribs - fish tail jig-sawed

Solid nose blocks being glued on 

I sanded the rails to the angle of the ribs - (so the top skin can sit neatly on ribs & rails) firstly using a belt sander- then a bit of final hand sanding to get it accurate. You can also see in this shot above that I have glued in some 100mm wide x 2 1/2 mm thick balsa sheets to the inside of the bottom skins - I would'nt bother doing this on a glassed board - but because its going to have an oiled finish , I'm trying to add extra strength where I can

After an epic surf trip down the mid north coast - scoring multiple east swells & nice autumn conditions - it was back to work on the fish

Before skinning the deck I added some balsa blocks for the fin plugs & some extra balsa reo around the tail to give the skin more of a gluing surface - also made a vent plug hole

To reinforce  the deck I added little intermediate ribs  which were about 5mm wide by 12 mm deep - these were notched into the spine & the chines - also glued 6mm square balsa cross pieces to all the ribs to increase glue join- next up I glued on the deck skins which are 6mm thick

Fully skinned - I forgot to mention that I varnished the inside before skinning to seal the internal structure in case it ever gets water in it . To seal the underside of the deck skins I used a foam roller to thinly coat the boards with glue , as I glued them on - this should make the board totally waterproof inside

Got some annoying pink stains in the bottom timbers after taking board off the rocker table - some sort of mould I'd guess - eventually got rid of it after lots of sanding - almost gone in this shot below

Now for a few artistic touches to make the board more visually appealing

Timber used here is black wattle

Nose block timber is Durian

 Tail block timber is Camphour Laurel

                Thought it needed more - so I added a few bits of Huon Pine for contrast

Finished logo with native bees slurping down the ancient oils of the Huon Pine

                                                          Nose & tail blocks sanded

              The timbers used here are Black Wattle for the circle & Pink Ivory for the petals

As far as fin positioning goes  - I had to go with my intuition  - as there are so many different configurations around. What I came up with was :

1) to point the front fin to 85 mm outside the nose & the back fin was positioned parallel to the front fin.

2) Rear tip of front fin 11 inches from tail tip. Rear tip of back fin 6 inches from tail tip

3) Rear tip of front fin 1 & 1/4 inches in from rail. Rear tip of back  fin 1 & 1/2 inches in from rail

4) Both front & back fins same cant angle of around 5 degrees

5) About 3/4 to 1 inch gap between front & back fins

Hope it works!

A drilling template is essential to get the holes accurate

Holes drilled & a seal coat of epoxy

An 80 grit sanding disc in a drill  was an easy way to get the plugs flush with bottom

Before I oiled the board I decided to apply marine varnish to the nose & tail blocks & logo to properly seal the timbers - did 4 coats

Just a piece lint free cloth wrapped around a ball of cloth & tied with string is all you need to apply the oil - too easy!

These shots are of the :

1st coat of oil - which was a 70% tung oil 30% orange oil mix - mixed with citrus turps . Ratio 2/3 oil to 1/3 turps

2nd coat will be the same formula then-

 3rd coat will be 70/30 oil mix then-

 4th coat will be 50/50 oil mix

This is a shot of the 2nd oil coat which I did 24 hours after the 1st coat - notice the darker tone

 These shots above were taken just after applying the 4th  oil coat - thats why its lookin really shiny & wet. The 3rd coat took about 9 days to dry (lots of wet weather). So I have to be patient & wait another week  or so for the final coat to dry . All up the oiling process takes about 3 weeks. In the meantime I'm making a few sets of fins

  I'm making 2 quad sets of different shapes & a set of twinnie keels - all made of Camphour Laurel offcuts.
 I sand the wood down to 4mm thick -  then do a thin seal coat - then 2 epoxy laminate coats using 4 oz mat - followed by 2 fill   coats of epoxy - then finished with a coat of polyester finishing resin - sanded between each coat with 180 grit - then  finish sanded with grades of wet & dry up to 1200 grit - then a quick polish which really brings out the richness of colour. After all these coats the fins are slightly thicker than the 6mm fin slots & just require a bit of hand sanding of the bases to make them fit - also for the first time I drilled a slight  recess in the bases where the screw meets the fin - so I don't loose them if I hit rocks etc. ( see shot  below ). Lots of work making wooden fins, but they look good.

    The finished board with quad set - I ended up doing 6 coats of oil - mainly because the 4th coat was a bit blotchy & also because the more coats I did the better it looked  & also because the weather was dry & warm & the last 2 coats only took a few days to dry. I also sanded in between the final coats with 2500 grit paper - this made it feel nice & smooth.

   I forgot to mention that I made a plywood mold  ( shot below ) slightly larger than the fins & poured a fin halo - for colour I used some brown & yellow oxide powder - the stuff they use for grouting to colour tile grout - the trick is to mix it really well to get rid of any powdery lumps - I usually mix my epoxy for about 5 minutes anyway - so this was enough.

Final weight 5.2 kgs - happy with that - the other wooden board I usually ride weighs 6.8 kgs - so this is gonna feel a lot lighter -  the oiling only added about 100grams

Close up of vent screw - I'm using marine grade stainless steel 10mm - the bolt screws into 3 nuts that I epoxied together & set into wood -  the bolt has 2 holes drilled - one thru the middle & one at a  right angle  - so I only have to unscrew it a few turns to release the pressure. On earlier boards I used brass - but it tends to get a green corrosion that clogs up the thread - so I reckon the 316 stainless is the go

I used a bit of a paulownia offcut from the skins - to make this wax scraper/comb - then gave it a few coats of oil -  took me a whole 5 minutes 

That's it - ready for the surf