I met Ben at the Wooden Surfboard Day in August , he is a young guy who came up for the weekend from Goolwa in South Australia.He brought along his first ever board , a very nice chambered Paulownia fish. Great job for a first board. But he has stepped it up with this second one." Gday Grant, it was great to meet you at the WSB Day in August, and I've gotta say I appreciate the trouble you went to to put on the day. I learned a lot, met some top blokes and all round had a great time! It was also a pleasant surprise to see my photo up on your blog so thanks for that too!
Finished my second board the other day, thought i might send you some pics if your interested to see."
" Chambered paulownia fish with some modern contours on the under and rails. Again (like my first) i used no glass and this time used an ultra hard wearing polyurethane/polyester product to build up a super gloss finish rather than epoxy.5'11'' x 20.75'' x 2.5'' 50/50 and slight concave in nose leading into deep single concave and 70/30 rails in the front foot region to moderate spiral vee and hard rails out the tail..
I put in plugs for a thruster setup and some for a set of "D's" that can double as a quad option so the possible fin setups are infinate.
In the end the total weight including fins was 5kg, .4 of a kilo heavier than my 7S Super Fish.
Surfed it at the Middleton Point down here on the SA South Coast in some 1-1.5' glass at dusk the day of completion and had a blast! Speed + Manuverability = Red Fish."
" I've started work on my third, I'm in the process of copying a friends 9'0'' 'Stephen Slater' Donald Takayama all-rounder, this time in the Hollow Wood style of construction. I like the chamber method a lot for the strength, the look and for the fact that i can actually shape the board by hand but the waste is unbelievable so its time to give another method a go."" Great work on the blog Grant, its a real source of inspiration to me and I'm sure many others."
Ben Smith
Ben, thanks for the kind words and for sharing you thoughts and great board with us.
