Trash Boards

This board came about after I found an old delammed 6'4" in a trash can as I was driving to go surf one morning. Me being me I grabbed it and figured I'd do something with it one day, if nothing else I would toss it myself if I couldn't find a use for it. Original dims were 6'4"x 20 1/4"x 2 1/2"+ so not really any room to reshape. Thankfully the glass peeled off very cleanly 

After I peeled the glass off of it I let it be for a while until I figured out what to do. A few months later I shaped a board for a trip that came out too narrow so I scrapped it after setting the fin boxes. Since blanks aren't cheap I thought of ways I could make it wider. My solution was to splice it together with the board i found in the trash. I snapped chalk lines and ripped it along the stringer. 

The glue up. I wish I took more pictures of the blank making stage but this gives an idea of what I did. My biggest mistake was using an epoxy slurry to glue it. It made shaping harder and left a hard line down the deck that later had to be repaired after a few surfs. The finished blank was pretty funny, 6'4" x 24" with varying thicknesses. The rocker was also screwed up and had to be fixed after the fact with more scraps. Oh, and it already had a center fin box set at 3 3/8" inches up from the tail that had to stay put 

The cut outline. Notice the center box. 
 

This is a blending curves template. A few of the old timers on here gave me shit a while back for not making my own templates. Saying I wasn't a real shaper. And you know what, they're right. I'm a surfer who likes to tinker with surfboards. If I wanted a board that worked I'd get Al Merricks' sons' ghost-shaper's computer to make me one. 

A pic during the shaping, I used a pawn shop black and decker planer to chop through the epoxy cabosil mix because I was scared to mess up the blades on my hitachi. You can see here how many pieces of foam went into this and the craters that had to be filled where the epoxy glue ripped out the foam. All of these were filled with Dap fast-n-final. 

Glassing. Standard 4/4+4 with epoxy resin. Since this was an experiment and the blank was hideous I decided to try out the tinted hot coat sand through effect I've seen before. I did black for the lam and grey for the hot coat. I also glassed it at work one weekend without anyone knowing so I didn't have to take over my garage like usual. Shh don't tell anyone. I'm also quite proud of this pallet glass rack I threw together on the fly 

The finished sanded through board. I love how the glue lines showed through, even though one had to be grinded down and repaired from it not compressing under my front heel. You can see the black patch in the first photo. At this stage all it needed was a $14 Amazon track pad and it was ready to surf. 
 
the board is a blade, thinner and narrower than what I usually ride but it really goes. Has a bit of flip in the tail and which I think makes it feel more nimble than I'm used to. Feels incredibly snappy and I was able to lay down some pretty decent turns in chest high plus surf. It has me rethinking some things about the boards I've been riding. 

It's getting late so I'll post case 2 tomorrow

Thanks Bill! That means a lot coming from a guy with your history of board making. 
 

case 2: 5'8"x19 3/4" x 2 3/8" 

note that this board has yet to be surfed. It was just finished yesterday. But that might change in an hour or two once the tide fills in.