What happened to 2015...?

 It's been an El Nino year, when SST's  ( that's what the weather guys call sea surface temperatures ) are higher in the northern pacific.  And because ocean temperatures affect weather, for us Californians it means we could have a very wet winter.... and maybe plenty surf. Stay tuned to that.

As far a that water temps.... I only wore my winter wet suit once all year, not counting the week spent at Secos. The water was so cold that first week in June while we were camping.... a 1 hour surf was all I could handle. As opposed to the year before? I wore a spring suit the whole week. A real head scratcher... if that's a word. The water has cooled now though, we've had wind. 

A few surfboard things this year.  I did a reissue of the very first surfboard I made as a teenager and called it the Model 50. And, added 2 more models, the T&G Slider and the Dream Bar Double "E". Both of which I'm really happy with. I made myself a Double "E", I've only gotten it in the water  a couple times so far, and a nice ride it is.

Maybe the most significant thing for D.R. Surfboards this year....?  to some anyway,  I finally entered the 21 Century late July and got myself a smart phone.... it was a business decision. And ok, I like having it, so far anyway. The nice thing about the phone is the camera. I can take pictures all the time, and amazingly enough, I think there are some 284 pics on the darn thing already.

The other thing about the phone and entering the 21st century.... I got tired of my son bugging me about the social media thing, finally gave in and started an Instagram page. I'll be posting pics there as I acclimate.        

That's 2015 in a nut shell. Thank you to all my customers through out the year and all that have followed my blog, or is it notes from the shaping bay?... If you've just surfed into this spot, come September 2016 will mark the 10th year I've been doing this, a fare amount of writing and reading fyi.

Happy New Year!

D.R.

Model 50 photo by David Puu

Having a surfboard blank, the first step in making a surfboard is shaping the darn thing. Most people interested in surfboards shaping is the part they're most interested in.

The finish of a surfboard is the last step. It will be either sanded or polished. People interested in making surfboards are seldom interested in the last step of making them. Shaping a surfboard is considered the creative part. Though I'd argue that if the board is CNC cut then the creative process is done already and finishing the CNC cut is more labor than creative. Sanding and polishing a surfboard definitely fits into the labor part of surfboard construction... So who cares about that?

In the old days we didn't polish our boards the way we do now. The process of glossing a surfboard ( the final coat of resin ) leaves a seam along the rail apex that needs to be sanded and then polished. In the old days the seam was sanded and then just the rail was polished, we called it rubbing rails.

Now the whole board is polished from rail to rail, nose to tail, deck and bottom. And it's a lot of work. especially if you want to get all the tiny scratches out from the very fine sand papers that are used before the rubbing compound is applied and polishing starts.

In my area Cooper Fish surfboards really set the bar high for polished surfboards through the fine work of Jeff Pupo's very shiny without a scratch polish jobs.

I've never really liked polishing.... it was stressful. Aside from being hard work and taking a fare amount of time, and back when we started polishing the whole board many boards had glass on fins, some with 3 glass on fins. If you caught the polish pad on a fin while it was spinning at 5000 rpm the board could get thrown across the room from the force. Those heavy Milwaukee grinders can do some serious damage.

Now with the removable fin systems it's not so stressful. There is some time to the process but the end result... a shiny new surfboard... it's worth the effort. I've got these cool ear muffs now that have an audio input so I can listen to music while polishing. Smooth jazz... I remain focused on the job unaware of the time passing and relaxed. It's still hard work though.

D.R.