thirsty fish

All it needs now is a hot coat and a gloss coat - can you tell this fish is itching to get in the water!

How I shape my "Bahrman rails"

Since the rails on my boards are solid, some people have inquired as to how I shape them. Here's a brief video that shows the tools and methods I use. I'm sure there are many ways to do this, but I use what I have available, and what feels most comfortable and efficient to me.

getting close to saltwater time!

keels get slotted in too

fins mortised into hull of board

I cut slots into the bottom of the board, and mortised my fins, then epoxied them in place, for a stronger attachment without a bulky fillet.

s-cloth and sb112

I've glassed the hybrid with 4 oz. s-cloth, and sb112 resin from Merton's. The s-cloth is stronger than regular e-cloth, and the sb112 resin, while expensive (about $100 per board), comes highly recommended. It bonds with polyester resin with only sanding, and it has uv blocker. Its a slow setup, 12 hours, accelerated only with heat. It's purportedly good for lam coat, hot coat, and gloss coat.

mermaid under glass

fish fins - sunny side up!

flying fish!

hull artwork ready to glass

dolphin emblem - handpainted

fishdeck - ready to glass

yellow sunshine

the prime thing

fish skin!

ready to deck

Craftsmanship is dead in our society - murdered by corporate greed!

http://www.utne.com/Spirituality/Crafting-a-New-World.aspx

In the above referenced article, sociologist Richard Sennett describes craftsmanship as an “enduring, basic human impulse, the desire to do a job well for its own sake.” He adds, "It’s also an impulse that contemporary culture, with its obsessive embrace of efficiency, financial reward, and the bottom line, has devalued—to its own detriment."

Another quote from the article: "Part of craft’s anchoring role is that it helps to slow down labor. It is not about quick transactions or easy victories. That slow tempo of craftwork, of taking the time you need to do something well, is profoundly stabilizing to individuals.

"When people are forced to do things quickly it becomes a type of triage. In the process of working very fast, we don’t have the time for reflection and being self-critical. We tend to go into autopilot and mistakes increase. Self-critical faculties decrease with speed, and the brain does a better job of processing when it goes slowly than when it goes rapidly.

"The capitalist economy sacrifices the logic of craft, which results in poorly made objects and a degraded physical environment."

And further in the article, he observes: "On a more practical matter, I think that craftsmanship flourishes in small-scale business and I’d like to see our government, like the British government, invest more in small-production businesses. That’s an absolute necessity. To support craftsmanship you have to support enterprise on the small-scale level."

The article concludes with this salient observation: " I think the web is a fantastic medium for craftsmen. It is a means for mutual support, skill sharing, and problem solving. There is something inherently workshop-like that dwells on the web; it is a great technology for craft."

fins and fish ribs!

fins shaped for hybrid (bonzer), and back to working on my fish!

Trader Joe's wall hanger

I swear this thing looks like a wall hanger for Trader Joe's!

File under "not likely to happen again anytime soon". Turned out to be WAY MORE WORK than I anticipated. But its basically done now, according to me. My wife, on the other hand, says it still needs work - my greatest critic. She'll tell me stuff like "her hair is too brassy", "make her mouth more friendly looking - and soften her eyes, she looks too mean" or "what is this worm doing in her eye?".

This morning I just sandpapered the face completely off and started over. She kept bringing me pictures from her clothing catalogs, saying make the eyes like this, or make the mouth like this. I swear I spent as much time on those eyes as a woman spends in the morning! I don't see how they do it every day hahaha!

I didn't want to continue the mural into the fin area, and finally came up with the simple design you see here, after a lot of thought and sketches and a few false starts. I thought it would be funny to make the tail part look like foam - you know how you see foam boards painted to look like wood? So I painted a wood board to look like foam!

I don't know if it shows in the pic, but I painted it gray, then sponged white over it, to give it that stippled look of foam. It really does look like foam up close. And I added a fake "stringer" - and to complete the look, I carried the bogus stringer across the board, you can sorta see it in the blue water behind the mermaid. (might have to click on the pic to see it larger).

painting moves slowly!

I added a deck emblem to distract from all the sandpaper scratches! (I gotta start following up with finer grits!)

White oil based flat, then acrylic artists' paint, then clear polycrylic.

And the bottom painting is progressing...slowly!

Shakira goes surfing

For my hybrid, I decided to give some thought to painting the bottom. I had already decided to paint it (because the bonzer channels looked ugly in plywood!), and thought I might get creative. I ran the idea of a fish or a wave past my wife - she suggested a mermaid (with modest long hair if you know what I mean LOL). Immediately I thought of a Shakira-type mermaid (my wife is a Shakira fan). So here's my sketch, needs a lot of work, but its a start.

deck stain