Reminding myself of summer

Well weather has gotten damned cold and the first 50 year storm of the season is on the way so now is a good time to knock together a little video of some of my Dreamboat testing from the summer. The more I've used this board the more I've been impressed with it, now she's got some nice winter Langland point waves to look forward to so every cloud has a silver lining I suppose.

Instagram meet Blogger

Just figured out how to link my Instagram account to my Blogger account so you can now see my latest snaps in that handy little box on the right. Technology just keeps finding new ways to astound me. So to celebrate here's a selection of some of my pictures so far. Follow me on @rugerdier there was a reason behind the choice of name at one time. 

What happens when you double the size of a handplane?

Well the short answer is that it would be debatable as to whether you could call it a handplane. In practical terms though it was a question I thought could be best answered by doubling the size of my handplane. 

Taking the template of my latest handplane design and doubling the proportions in length, width and thickness I came up with this design. Constructed using the Roy Stewart method I utilised in my Coffee Table Sim I learnt from the mistake of last time by filling the hollow chambers with XPS foam, thereby keeping it light but also protecting against the leak issue that did for the coffee table.

Completed this board a few months ago but only recently got around to test driving it and have to say I was more than a little impressed. As opposed to the handplane which allows you lift your upper body out of the water on waves, this little rocket has actual drive, helping you into waves as well as pulling you along when you catch one. Even without flippers I've been able to catch waves, find a line and get pulled all the way into the beach. Seriously blown away and already started work on the sequel, reckon I could always find a spot in the van to keep this little sucker handy.

Welcome back with a pair of handplanes

Okay, I'm well aware I've been dreadful at keeping this blog up to date of late but there is a lot of work to catch up on so I'll start with this pair of handplanes, complete with rather dashing waxed bags made from an equally dashing shirt of mine that I inexplicably bought far too big for myself.

This time I've re-designed my hand strap from the rather low-tech strip of webbing through to the cutting edge implementation of a bicycle inner tube and old wetsuit combo. A marked improvement I think.

Alas Poor Il Joneso Superleggera

It could be fair to say that my first crack at an EPS board has been pretty much a disaster. The intention was to create a ridiculously light summer board based on the Lost Bottom Feeder.

The blank was cut from a huge block of Wickes EPS foam using a hot wire cutter that was far too small. The end result was a slightly wonky surfboard that I couldn't straighten out for fear of removing too much foam. Coated the finished shape with some polyfiller to try and seal it but wary of adding too much weight I probably didn't add enough resulting in the epoxy glass coat sucking in a lot of resin leaving a lot of pin holes. Did I mention that I nearly set the resin on fire as it started overheating in the tub? 

Think I added to much colour to the resin as the final surfboard felt as durable as a sponge. I have absolutely no idea how but I somehow managed to fit the fin plugs with the front two fins pointing towards the nose and the back two pointing away from the nose, I nearly cried. 

Nonetheless I took her out in the water minus the back fins. First couple of waves were fun, she took off easily enough, quite manoeuvrable thanks to the immense cant on the fins, albeit very loose due to the lack of back fins. Of more concern however was the increasing weight it seemed to develop, this was explained when I got out of the sea and saw water pouring out of about a dozen tiny holes on the base of the board. 

I suppose on the plus side it was a miracle she even got into the water and if nothing else I now have a new winter project lined up, Il Joneso Superleggera XT, the EPS/balsa edition, she's going to rock hard.