Winter, Washington (state). Some swell from the Northwest to surf.

Jumped in the truck., Drove below to the shop,.. Grabbed the combo sup., hit the road for 2 hrs...took some quick video shots.!   video below.!

                     Greatest drive in the world, is the drive to go play in some surf.
 Every year there's more and more of us out there.. The first plan was to be able to, supply surfboards for my self and friends.
                 As time passes the opportunity's have arrived to,,, have a possible sale or two from my surfboards..  That is a great option to have.. I'm not sure if it is the love I have of the water.? or the waters ability to romance anybody's  mind and body to complete bliss. There has not been a more complete feeling inside of me> (when a board is sold, or just finished a ready.) Just like having a warm wave wash over you laying on a soft sandy beach.

Milking some small waves, on the stand up paddle board

Straight of Washington State.

Some stand up paddle surfing,,.. On a combination flat water and surf stand up paddle board. Built by Tight knot surf shop. Surfed by Ross Carlson. Built with a S.B.T. tracking chip. please visit www.surfborad-tracker.com for more information. All surfboards built by Ross Carlson at the Tight Knot Surf Shop come with a tracking unit installed for a safe and secured %100 hand crafted and designed in the state of WA. surfboard or paddle board.

Some Washington rain cloud pictures

After the rain clouds broke away.!!

Small video below of some small waves that showed their face as we arrived.

Arrived with some mini peelers looking back at us.. What a great day to grab some surf. The start of fall felt Great. Put the wet suit on not to long after this photo.  Ended up being a all day event, left around 6:00 pm..

Small Surf Washington, Point Surf.,

Small point surf in Washington.  Some big swell out on the coast.,,. Rolls swell right down our straights.  point breaks pop up here and there..If you have been on the water for some of the breaks along the straights, while the waves are pumping its a special treat. The picture below shows a small average day.. might be 6-8 ft at the coast.. With the right direction this gives us some chest high peelers seen below.. flooding tide and yum yum... This day got bigger I think,., I remember.,.?? Removing myself from the water only once that day.

Washington surfboard shop

Recently did some small modifications to the surf shop.. made a single glassing room upstairs for now.
this keeps all the sanding and major mess with dust in the bottom part of the shop.

This modification greatly reduces any contamination from dust and the like. I would like to add another glassing station upstairs, along with some finished board storage areas on the side.

Along with glassing. The station upstairs provides a great place to paint and do small other projects..
This next summer I hope to have a the outside of the surf shop upgraded with more storage and a finer look.. even though everybody seems to like the Pacific North Western Washington woods shop look... But this has been a long run for me.. Wen I first started work the shop was covered in weeds blackberry's and totally over run. All the way up to the gutters.. No floor.. rats mice ,,,  and who knows what els..

Many years have gone by since the first idea of building surfboards and the such in Washington. Times and people have come and gone,.,., Things have changed so much from the first days of dreaming... 1990 building skim boards and such in Port Townsend WA. skate boarding downtown hitching rides on car bumpers.. Some of the first to bring plywood to the now PT skate park...

I have met buckets full of great people and have received great advice, personal and work related. As the days have past, my ideas of what this shop may become or the wave that we ride together are constantly changing,, the constant evolution of my work surf board and water craft related allows my eyes to remain open to new ideas and ways of thinking....

Thank you all for your support and advice.... Nothing would be possible without your help...

Custom surfboard, with custom logos and color.

A small fat board. Made for small waves limit in power. An odd shape. In this case makes for a super fun small surfboard . Capable of letting you climb out on the nose. The Green Cow!

This board has alot of special sauce running down the underside belly.

Washington state. Hand shaping custom surfboards paddleboards etc..

From surfing the north west waters,...This gives me the ideas needed  to design and build boards that respond to the Pacific North Wests waters. Being around the water my whole life, from being born on Vashon Island WA.. To living on a 36' steel Roberts sail boat. on the Port Townsend  docks, and main boat yard... As we always seemed to be working on that boat,... The steal Roberts was Remodeled From a old troller that fished Alaska. To a round the world cruiser..

Now some of the latest boards built.

Surf paddler.

flat water barge. paddler.

Fish surfboard.

Short board with extra float.

Surfboard painting, logos, color resin tinting.

Considerable trial and trial over and over is what it takes to figure out good ways on coloring or painting your surfboards with good methods comes good return.

There are two different boards below one is a 6' fish and the other is a 10' paddle board.

both branding the 308 degree logo for the pacific north west surf areas. Both designs are inspired by the PNW along with the art. The greens and blues, along with the big gray rails of the paddle board, with a nice green smeeer down the middle. The quad fin fish has a northwest swell hand drawing, eating up the state of washington 308 degree logo

pin line

after gloss

after gloss

some of the first sun of the year.

color tinted resin poured on

taped off and gelling up

308 deg logo with the gloomy gray north west  rails  coloring starting.

rails colored in gloom gray.

fins in

glossed the bottom.

Custom fiberglass E.P.S. & PU FOAM. PADDLE BOARDS,SURFBOARDS.

I have jumped away from only building wood surfboards, I have had the chance to work with foam, the results were great.
Using pigments and old school shaping style. Did not even use the power planer until i was able to be satisfied with my boards without using one. The one thing i do not like about the foam is the wast of foam dust. While wood saw dust can be reused into couple other uses other than garbage. Using the foam dust after being on the floor and mixed with dirt and other debris. I Do not have much use for the foam dust at this point. On the second  to last pic you can see how much foam dust is in the shop.

Below are a couple US blanks 10' paddle board blanks, along with couple pictures of shaping some lines in the blank. This is my Tanker 308 stand up paddle (s.u.p.) great for the pacific north west and Puget Sound Paddle boarding. Finished pictures with color tinted resin styling, will be on the next post.

Balsa wood surfboard build. Bottom planks and rails.

Building up the bottom deck surfboard planking. I set the planks on a pre-cut rocker table, the same Table I use to build the rails on. This gives the planks a little memory to the  shape of the surfboard, for when the planks are attached to the surfboard. I use all sorts of weights and clamps to keep the planks in place while they are glued together with only a couple cross pieces, to hold all the planks together. Don't forget your wax paper, don't glue your surfboard to your tools.

You must be extremely careful of the balsa wood, it dents so easy. The soft nature of the wood is why I lay so many weights out on the board, while it is being glued together.

The weights hold the wood pieces down without denting, all the clamps have wood in between the two heads of the clamps to keep them from marking the wood with dents all over.

After the planks setup i give 12 hrs or so before I start working with anything
 glued in most cases.
 You sure wouldn't want your new surfboard falling apart on you while you build it.

When the fiber glass resin has setup,  I cut the shape of the surfboard out of the planks that I glued together. After cuting out the surfboard template in the planks I A-line the frame of the balsa wood surfboard to the bottom planks. I always leave some extra room over lap. Using the rocker table.

This way the bottom planks and the surfboard rail line up nicely. following the same 

 clamping procedure. The frame and the bottom planks are now one piece. I will now carry this surfboard everywhere with me and show it off un finished   :) love surfboards so much....lol

So now that the bottom planks and the rails are together. I can sand some shape into the surfboards rails. I also have a huge step ahead of me putting in a whole bunch more, of what I call the surfboards skeleton.
I also have a center stringer to install down the surfboard. There will also be a-lot of cross pieces being installed. Its time to strengthen her up.

                                                            

                                               

Balsa wood surfboard frame

I use wax paper as my release surface from my rocker table, As I build the surfboard up. There are other ways of doing this.But my pocket book holds me back.

 I also use duct tape to hold the wax paper to the underside of the table, this way the paper remains tight and secure. And if you don't have to much runoff after you glass your joints, layers or however your building your wood surfboard, you wont rip the paper while you remove your surfboard frame.

  All building aspects of wood surfboard construction take time, planning, money, and some space to work.

If you do not have the tools right off hand or any boat or ship right experiences building, there is going to be a huge learning curve ahead of you.With a couple surfboards under my belt  now, with failed and completed boards, I really do like working with the balsa wood for the first time this stuff is just so great. 

Three strips of wax paper run the table,  just in case a spill.
I don't want to glue my board to the table.
Three strips works best with this width.

I use some old sockets wrapped with wax paper
to hold some of the thin wood in place

cloths pin seem to work great in this application.

      After the small thin pieces of wood are all in place as the skeleton of the surfboard.

I then begin to build the surfboard skeleton up in thickness. This is detail time, make sure everything is square and true. You need the frame of the surfboard to be extremely perfect, for a epic outcome.