Unexpected discovery...

I ended up gluing the stringer in late last night so I'm a bit ahead of where I expected to be today.

While sanding the 4" foam down to the stringer I glued in I decided to see if my Dad had a power sander I could make use of. I found one... and next to it was a power planer - I didn't know he had one so I was pretty surprised when I saw it.

Using the planer I've taken a fair bit of the foam down to just above the stringer and will finish it off with a surform and sandpaper.

Having a planer makes really short work of mowing the foam down to a decent thickness, hand sanding it with 60 grit was taking forever.


Problem:
The glue (PVA) I used on the stringer has let go near the tail, I'm going to have a go at sticking it back again later but if that fails I might have to give in and buy something like Gorilla Glue, not ideal but I'll get it if I need to.

Problem:
Though I took a lot of care with cutting the foam for the stringer, and even sanded down the cut faces to take out the high spots I could see, I still have a couple of gaps where the foam was uneven - I'm not really sure how to go about getting the cut face totally flat so I cam get a clean glue line.

Any input on either of these problems would be a huge help.

Finally underway...

Fun fun fun.

Today I bought a 4" thick piece of EPS foam from B&Q for £20. That will be enough for two boards.
I also got a surform, a pack of sandpaper, and some timber for the stringer. Complete overkill but I decided to go for some half inch ply purely because I think it could look good in the board.

I've cut up my foam into strips about 12" wide.

I also cut the rocker and deck profile into the stringer roughed it up a bit and am about to glue it into the foam. Tomorrow during lunch I should be cutting out and gluing in another stringer into the rest of the foam (I'm making board #1 and #2 together) - then in the evening making a start on shaping the foam.


All being well I'll have these boards ready for a trip to France starting some time just after the 6th of August.


Photographs to follow as soon as I can find my camera.