The new modifications I made to the rocker table made this a breeze.

First I laid up two halves and the stringer like this:

Then I used a bunch of cross clamps to keep things from twisting and a few bar clamps to tighten it up laterally. Like this:

The plastic sheet is folded over to prevent the cross bars from getting glued to the panel.

Here’s a shot of the finished panel:

Next I got back onto the frame.
I set up the rocker table to match the curve of the stringer and used right angle clamps to make sure each rib is exactly perpendicular to the stringer. I used CA glue to set this up because its quick and this is not a load bearing connection. Once the frame is glued to the panel the ribs will be permanently locked into position. This stage is just to hold them in place until then.

Here’s a shot of the frame sitting on the bottom panel.

Before I attach the frame to the panel a couple of things will have to happen. First that bottom panel will get hit with the belt sander and then coated with epoxy to make it water tight. Next, each one of those ribs will get some drainage channels cut into them to allow air and (if disaster strikes) water to pass freely through them.

Then I cut them out with the reciprocating saw and water proof them with a coat of epoxy like this:

Later on I’ll drill some holes in these to reduce weight and allow for air flow within the board not to mention water flow in the event that the board ever takes on water and has to be drained.

Next I started on the bottom panel.

I want to do a sort of fish-bone angled pattern on this one.
That called for some creative clamping.

No matter how I tried though I couldn’t clamp out all of the gaps.

Where light gets through water gets through so this is a real problem.
In the end I decided to scrap this effort and go back to a tried and true method of using thickened epoxy with no clamps.
Like this:

This worked out nicely. Here’s what it looks like so far:

And no more gaps which means no more leaks.

This will be one half of the bottom panel. The other side will angle in the opposite direction and there will be a narrow stringer down the center.

I’ll try to get that done and get some pics up asap so you can see what I’m talking about.

Edit: Ok, its gonna look something like this…

It is a tri-fin thruster in the 6’6″ range.
She performs very well in the steep pounding shore break that we get so often here on Fire Island.

Here’s what the AkuShaper spec sheet looks like:

And here’s what the output from HBTM looks like:

Of course this is a scaled down image.
The actual image is almost seven feet long (6’9″ thruster right?)
Since I don’t have a plotter my only option is to “tile print” the full size image. That produces 27 pages in this case which I then have to paste together like a jigsaw puzzle.

Like this:

Next I’ll cut that all out and then use some spray on contact adhesive to paste it onto my re-claimed door skin and then cut the pieces out using my reciprocating saw and band saw.

Here’s a shot of that door skin.

Remember, this was a closet door that my neighbor threw in the trash.
It will be just the ticket for frame material.
Very light weight and plenty strong for it’s purpose.
I’ll water proof it with a coat or two of epoxy before I assemble the frame.

That’s all for now.

The cedar was painted grey on one side so I assume it was some sort of out door application.

The door skins were interior closet doors that I took the hardware off of and literally peeled the skin off of.

I will use the skins to cut the internal frames and I will mill down the cedar to use as deck strips.

I got a bit into it before I thought to stop for photos so I failed to capture the whole process.

First I cut off the tongue and grove edges:

Then I ripped each board in half length wise and then re-sawed each in half again for thickness:

That left me with a nice pile of strips about two inches wide, a quarter inch thick and four and a half feet long.

Since we’re recycling here I try to keep waste to a minimum.

Saw dust is re-claimed and will be used for thickening epoxy later on in the build process. Dust from one board goes into the next so there’s a little bit of the Squalyboard family tree in every build!

And I wont run out of stirring sticks anytime soon either:

So stay tuned as I attempt to transform one mans trash into another mans treasure.

The new layout makes it a bit easier to showcase our finished boards and keep the boards under construction further down on the page.

It also makes room for our foam boards which have been gaining in popularity.

Yeah I know, foam is evil and wood is good but lets face it, foam is here to stay so we might as well play nice.

I’ve been working on ways to recycle foam and I think I’m close to perfecting a process to make a board almost entirely from reclaimed foam so keep an eye out for that! Believe it or not one of the problems is getting enough foam to work with. Imagine that? Imagine if the biggest problem we had was not ENOUGH foam? It’ll never happen but a guy can dream right?

So anyway, here’s the new site warts and all. Hope you enjoy it and I hope you can be patient with us as we go through some growing pains.

PEACE!!!