riding the rainbow
it all started with a phone call from Will..while he was working on a northern beaches building job."you wanna surfboard blank for $30?theres a guy selling some cheap"...I've been surfing for about 15 years and although not knowing the first thing about surfboard shaping, I've got this notion that its something that myself (and every surfer for that matter) should try at least once. Coupled with the fact I consider myself a pretty handy 'give it a crack' sort of guy and my genetic inheritance of a fair dose of the 'tight arse' gene, i had to think about it for about 3 seconds. "yeah sure grab me one". Later that night after a few celebratory drinks for the hunters' birthday..I picked up my newly aquired slab of foam from wills car and staggered home with it. Don't quite know if it was the the beers but I immediately saw the potential and became quite enthusiastic about the whole shebang. By chance it was a 6'6 fish blank.I'd been into the whole retro thing for a few years now,single fins,fishes and recently bonzers. I'd been riding a 6'6 Dick van Straalen Fish for a year or so and really lovin it ...but there was one board I thought was the most aestheticly pleasing board to watch someone ride. I saw it the movie Glass Love by Andrew Kidman (if you haven't seen this film please go out and buy it) Garth Dickinson rides a red fish with a tapered in tail...my surfing goal is to surf as fluid a this..I'd also done my fair share of drooling and fondling some fantastic boards at the quicksilver board store in Manly and the Six Ounce Boardstore in Bondi .Michael Mackie,who I reckon is one of the handful of progressive,soulful and genuine shapers making boards at the moment,had boards that that were just pure inspiration! Mick had done a version of the 'glass love dicko" fish...so it was settled! the ambitious, but very sexy curves of the fish that Garth Dickinson rode in glass love.The absolute deal sealer was reading a copy of switchfoot given to me by a dear friend and fellow soul surfer,Adam. Reading about guys like Van Straalen and other elders of the surfing world...I couldn't wait to get that foam flying!! !There was just the small matter of where to create this baby. The only real solution was to use my shed. One problem....although the state and quantity of shit in the garage would generate admiration,smiles and nodding from most true blooded Aussie males, it didn't lend itself particulary well to the shaping, airbrushing and glassing of a surfboard.With a hint of resignation the shed clean out ,stage 1, began.
................will............................sorted!!!.................................welby fishing on a fish he made with Ross Dillon...................
A good mate had previously made a fish with kneeboard shaper Ross Dillon from Copacabana so with Yo ventured over for a crash course in surfboard constuction.Ross is a cool guy and was only to happy to share his knowledge,tips and ideas.basically I got the jist that if I kept the bottom pretty simple and flat and didn't try and put single to double concave channel bottom fang tail flyers in it (tempting as they sounded) there was a good chance the thing would plane ..and I'd already decided to keep the thing 3 inches thick in the body (to make it easier to haul my 'middle age spead' otherwise commonly refered to as a' beer gut' through the water) so I was pretty sure she would float...so with my hastily scribbled notes,my newly found technical knowledge,a fresh dose of enthusiasm and johan,my partner in crime (who was gonna let me go test pilot on the first attempt at a board) we headed back thinking we had it all sussed and failure was not an option.....well I was gonna give it a go anyway.
The next zen grasshopper master to contact was Ty...the same goodfriend,all round nice guy and walking book ofknowledge that had given me a crash course in black and white photography and darkroom techniques that started another passion of mine 15 years ago.He came up from Sydneywith some airbrushes, gave me the low down,some lessons,some technical advice,a pat on the back and then proceeded to fall asleep on our lounge for an hour..(I guess imparting that much knowledge can really take it out of ya)..
The whole thing basically got kicked off the following week with attacking the blank with a saw to get the basic outline..things just sorta took on a momentum of their own and a week and a half later.....Behold the 5'10'' rainbow fish!!!!
.the boys helping..........blank......................formworking ply.............Fin with a fin...............taking shape....................
shaping.........................shaping...........................shaping....................shaping...................so far so good
first blue.........................................template shades..airbrush..........ready for resin.............6 oz cloth............
here we go.....................cloth.......................resin................................glassing.....................glassing......................
logo..........................................done.........................................done and...........................done
My first friggin board..my first shaping....my first air brushing and my first glassing ...who would've thunk it....at times messy but overall an incredibly rewarding experience
her maiden voyage was on a small and very average 2 foot close out Sunday morning at Umina(sans any recording devices after hearing the story of welbys first wave on his first board)..the fact that I did two turns and handled a floater on wave No. 1 was much more than the worst case scenario of going for the first bottom turn and face slapping the water in a superman pose while the board continued on a bee line straight towards shore...it could only get better.......and it does...