In late 2015, Downwinder, or "Iron Phil", Phil Gregory advertised his custom built hand shaped on Maui 17' F16 for sale.
A unique, one off board from SIC Custom.
Now I can't believe that at the time I ummed and ahhed for I think several weeks before deciding to buy it.
Consigned to Richard The Kayak Courier, it was delivered from Queensland to Melbourne on December 20th 2015 at 7.00 a.m.
Excitedly unwrapped - Christmas come early.
Phil had even included spare steering bits.
I was used to F16s, and 17'4" Bullets, but this was something else again.
Several years old, it was well cared for but obviously well used, and had spent a lot of time in the Queensland sun.
Underside of board pretty much unmarked except for a faint circular depression towards the centre.
But what a board!
Named the board Iron Phil in honour of the original owner.
Deck pad a bit oxidized, small paddle scrape on the left side.
Larger scrape and a few chips on the right side.
Iron Phil certainly had an imposing presence on the beach or water.
As a first improvement, I added a second paddle loop to carry the board with the paddle.
Looking at that, I scrubbed the deck pad with turpentine, removing most of the oxidized layer.
This unfortunately removed a lot of the grippiness, but improved the look.
A bit later I added a drink bottle holder to the front.
And I was happy!
Had an awesome unlimited board, a one off.
Meant to be a downwind board, but I just use it for general paddling, upwind / downwind, cruising.
To be continued...........
Episode 2.
In March 2016, after a lot of use, I decided to have a try at repairing the scrapes.
Filled a dint in the nose.
Tried filling some chips with yellow tinted glue.
Masked up the scrapes and sprayed with spray can paint .
Which I judged a failure.
Wiped it off again - colour wrong, never went properly hard.
Sanded, masked and sprayed the nose repair.
Which was more successful.
Had a go at patching the yellow.
Spray can paint absolutely crap.
I don't know how the kids that paint the railway bridges put up with it.
Ended up better than the orange after about 30 coats.
But still not happy.
Gave up on repairing, concentrated on paddling.
Iron Phil inspired the colour scheme on my new skateboard.
Continued to be my "Go to" board.
To be continued........
Coming in to May 2016, Melbourne getting colder, nice to be well clear of the water on Iron Phil.
can do a quite challenging paddle, get to the end and realize you haven't got your feet wet.
Unless you're standing next to the board taking a photo.
As I have described alsewhere, I was working on skateboard deck projects at this time.
Still using spray cans, as June came around, too cold for paint to set.
Solved the spray can problem by buying a spray gun and switching to marine enamel - much better colour and coverage.
Solved the cold problem a bit by putting up an outdoor gazebo in my factory to contain a bit of heat.
Practiced on a skateboard deck.
Let that dry - the marine paint did.
Re masked and tried orange.
Happy with colours and my improving ability, brought Iron Phil in to the tent.
Repeated coats as I sprayed the skateboard.
Not perfect, but better.
As July began, the tent was nice and warm inside.
Declared my spray job on the skateboard pretty good.
Declared the job on Iron Phil good enough.
I could do better if I started again now.
But I'm not going to.
To be continued.......
Shopped around for deck pads - that was going to be the next project.
Could find grey cammo, re cammo, no solid colours.
Consulted Downwinder, sourced I think the same pad he got for Low Pressure.
Traced a pattern off the old pad.
Showing surprising foresight for me, cut the pad and checked it against the old one before removing it.
Even traced the various holes required on to the pattern.
Found a tool that my creative daughter left behind that would even cut the edge of the pad at the old 45 degree angle.
Cut undersize holes in the new pad to allow for imprecise positioning - adjust once stuck down.
Time to start removing the old pad.
Had read various methods - heat, turps, etc.
Started with a heat gun.
Slow, tough going.
Burnt fingers and bruised knuckles.
Something was written on the bottom of the old pad.
Now this was getting strange.....
A message from a psychic SIC worker who knew "Nossa" (Hawaiian spelling) would one day own the board?
Ahhh - with the deck pad pointed at both ends they label the front.
Still pretty cool to find.
Slow progress....
Which stopped.
Change of tactic - go for the turps soaking.
Towells on the deck pad.
A use for the gallons of left over turps from spray gun cleaning.
Soaked and covered with glad wrap.
Had masked off the stickers to protect against the turps.
Left overnight.
Started to peel from the back - lifted easily.
A bit of further clean up with turps and scraper to get the glue remains off.
July 31, 2016, cleaned up and ready to reapply.
To be continued.........
hey phil,
what was the sup race in hawaii today ?? thought molokai was next month .
First week of August escaped Melbourne for Merimbula.
Was mid August before I returned to Iron Phil.
Time to stick down the deck pad - had 3m adhesive on it with peel off backing.
Did some research, got some ideas, but it seemed like it was going to be an all or nothing exercise, and could easily go very wrong.
Probably easier that I had 3 pieces.
Started at the front.
That went OK, everything lined up.
The bigger bit was more complicated, steering and things had to line up.
I think from one video, I got the idea to slit the backing down the middle.
I positioned the pad, duct taped the right hand side down.
Peeled the left side backing, and stuck the left side down.
Untaped the right side, lifted it and peeled the backing with a bit of difficulty.
Stuck the right side, all went well.
Final bit at the back relatively simple.
Easier than it could have been, and looking good.
It was here things went a bit wrong.
Couldn't get the steering wires back through. Should have threaded before the pad.
Initially couldn't find the exit holes at the front, cut more pad away.
Managed to push the right hand wire through, couldn't get the left one out.
Confusingly, I could push about 5 metres of wire in to the board on that side.
Finally figured the irrigation tube the wire runs in had come away from the deck, wire disappearing somewhere.
Figured they may router a slot in the blank, lay the tube in that pre glassing, and that was where the wire was going.
Drilled the deck hole out bigger, I could see the tube in there, not get it out.
Finally pushed a bit of garden tie wire up the tube, and my mate Dennis wriggled it from the back while I fished with tweezers at the front.
Finally got it out.
Sealed up the hole with silicone.
Repaired a crack in the tiller with carbon, glued up the bottom of the rudder fin that I had damaged on one of my reasonably frequent hitting things just below the surface exercises.
Re fitted the steering.
Attached the wires and covered the bitey bits with irrigation tube.
Towards the end of August I had trimmed back all the various pads and loops.
I had covered my less than neat tiller repair with a sticker.
Next step was going to be fitting railsaver pro, both to protect the sides and hide my paint repairs.
This is something I have had a lot of difficulty with in the past, getting bubbles, bends, or lifting paint.
More research, you could do it dry or wet.
Decided introducing soap and water was just going to complicate things, would try it dry.
But start with a practice run on a China built F16 I have sitting waiting to be a future project.
Masking taped a line to follow, peeled half the backing, stuck the front.
High stress, but did the back, followed the line, no bubbles, all good.
Just to prove it was no fluke, did the other side.
Still high stress, but went OK.
Now for Iron Phil - jumbo clear for him.
Applied front half, not too bad, the back half wanted to go anywhere but along my line.
Bends, bubbles.
If anything, the second side went worse.
If I tried removing it, it was going to take my new paint and more with it.
Decided I would have to live with it, and once I got over staring at it the failures are pretty unnoticeable.
I have since made stands to hold a board on its' side, and used the soapy water method with great success on several boards.
To be continued......
Next I turned my attention to the stickers on the board.
The ones on the nose in particular were very sun faded.
I didn't think SIC would send me some more, had to make my own.
I had a hollow F16 in near perfect condition to copy.
Photographed it, measured it up and plotted the basic shape in my surveying software.
Dredged some Adobe InDesign skills from the recesses of my brain, imported the shape and the image, traced and plotted.
Sent it off to the creative daughter for colours, test plotted on paper
Got a sign writer to print for me.
Turned to Iron Phil again.
More high stress, used the heat gun to remove the old stickers.
faded big sticker was next.
All cleaned off.
Applied the new stickers.
And on September 20 2016, I declared the renovation of Iron Phil to be complete.
To be continued...............
Now for the paddling. Still need to learn to downwind properly, but Iron Phil was looking good.
Lots of paddling, fitted a weed deflector in anticipation of a trip to the West that didn't come off.
More paddling.
Merimbula and Huskison November / December.
Back on Port Phillip.
And Westernport.
Awesome board, wrapt to have it, pleased with my work, Thanks Phil for selling it to me.
But wait, there's more.........................
Episode 8 (maybe)
Sometime in January, with Iron Phil upside down on the roof of the car, I noticed water dripping out of the steering.
Didn't worry much at first - water going in then coming out.
The I started noticing salt on the windscreen.
Strange.
Then spotted water dripping out of the vent plug.
Iron Phil had developed a drinking problem.
Sat him upside down in the factory.
Where he dripped.....
And dripped for weeks.
Early March I moved him back in to the tent and started heating.
Did some investigating and figured the irrigation tube that the steering wire runs in had come away from the skin at the back on both sides, and the front on the right. My seal at the front on the left was also leaking.
Let him sit and pondered, at the start of April admitted I had to investigate further.
Removed the tiller and cut the deck pad at the front.
Peeled it back with heat only - didn't want to damage the surrounding pad with turps.
Thought removing the 3m adhesive would be easier than the original stuck down with contact cement.
Not the case.
Cleaned remains of the glue off with turps.
Decided to cut a patch out behind where the tubes exited.
Hoping I wasn't destroying the board here.
Lifted the patch and was a bit shocked.
A lot shocked actually.
A big void in the board, all the way through.
Was it meant to be there?
Was it something I had done?
Baffled.
The surface of the foam looked like it had been finished with resin, suggesting it was deliberate.
A mate who used to build windsurfers looked at it, suggested maybe acetone had gone in the steering holes at some point, dissolved the core.
I quizzed Downwinder later, he couldn't offer any suggestions.
But the circular dint in the bottom of the board you will remember from episode 1 lined up with it, so it had been there for a long time.
Turned to the back of the board with a fair degree of trepidation.
In stripping the pad, noticed my relatively new steering wire was broken and rusty.
It's thinner than original, but all I could find.
Did some searching, ordered several alternative wires, even some bike gear wire.
It would be a lot better if I could get spectra rope through, but I have tried and failed to do this several times.
Marked another cut.
No big surprise this time.
A little bit of dissolved foam one side.
Pushed some paper towel down as a wick.
And left Phil in the heated tent for 4 weeks to get as much moisture out as possible.
To be continued......
End of April, enough drying, time to start again.
Dug a bit more foam out at the back.
Removed the wire, pulled the irrigation tube out.
Discovered at this point the tubes would slide up and down inside the board.
Decided to poke them out the back for better sealing and scrape protection, bring them out at the fron in the area I had cut out.
At this point I found some thinner rope that would push through.
On to a winner now, would be worth the exercise to end up with better steering than before.
But now the rope wouldn't go through the other side.
Nothing would, not the old wire.
Couldn't push the rigid tie wire through.
This was a disaster.
Pondered trying to get a new tube through.
The tube I had wasn't going to go through - too soft.
Bought some bike gear cable tube, then found some rigid irrigation tube.
Figured I had little to lose - board was no good as is, and I could always cut more holes.
Pushed the tie wire in and pulled the old tube out.
Now I just had wire through.
Threaded the new tube on at the back, pulled the wire back.
Success!
Not really that hard to force back through.
Curious, I cut the old tube at the blockage.
Blocked with strands of broken wire from when I pulled the old wire out.
Now I had a slightly bigger tube through, I could get bigger rope through.
And the new, longer tube meant I could use the old hole.
But not on the left side.
Dilemma - do I push my luck?
Fortune favours the brave - pushed the tie wire through.
Threaded the new tube on the wire at the back, duct taped it to the old tube.
And pulled.
It stopped with about 200mm to go, but pushing from the back, and brute force got it through.
Threaded rope both sides.
Very pleased now.
To be continued.......
So what to do with the void at the front?
had to fill it with something.
I bought some two pack pouring foam online.
When I read the instructions, you had to mix part A and part B, stir for 20 secomds, and then you had 20 seconds or something to use it.
What could possibly go wrong?
Decided that was a bit ambitious, bought some single pack expanding foam.
Sensibly I thought, did a test batch in a plastic container.
And the foam wouldn't stop coming out the nozzle.
Let it bubble for a while, see what the test run did.
Seemed to be doing the job, the can was still bubbling foam, didn't want to waste the can, make a start.
Filled the void 1/3, then 2/3 as suggested on the can.
Threw the still bubbling can away, watched the foam expand.
Quickly found a tube of silicone and sealed around the tubes front and back.
Thought I better put the lid on, make sure the foam was forced in to all the cavities.
I think at this point Helmy cheerfully suggested the board may explode.
The foam continued to grow....
And grow....
Retrieved the bubbling can from the bin and squirted some in at the back.
While the front continued to grow...
Scraped the excess off to let it continue expanding.
Getting to be seriously late home for dinner by now.
It continued growing...
Scraped it off again and things seemed to have settled down.
Left it at that and went home.
back next day after the morning paddle.
Seems it hadn't been finished when I left.
The back had been growing too.
But nothing like the evil looking snake headed snowman at the front.
To be continued........
Bugger me I am totally mesmerized by this story.
What "normal" man would do this? Who has this much time? Who has this much room to do this type of **? Where do you find enough energy to worry about ** like this?
Nozza you area better man than me that's for bloody sure. I would have had one look at the dings and taken it to a board repairer.
I would have taken one look at the painting and taken it somewhere to get it painted! I would take one look at the steering issue and found someone to fix it as far away from me that I could manage.
I start to do ** like this and all that happens is that I make it worse. I get a headache. I swear words that never existed before. My neighbours call the Police because of the bad language coming from my place.
I have to say that you must be up for some sort of award for this story and the repairs you did.
In fact I thought DJ was the SUP story king. Well he was, now this position has been taken by Nozza.
Oh yeah one more thing, who thinks of taking photos of every stage of whatever they are doing?
I am totally buggered by this.
Good job son.
ET.
Got a hacksaw blade to deal with the alien growing out of Iron Phil's belly.
To discover the foam wasn't finished growing.
And it had pushed the deck up a bit at the front.
Weighted it down.
When the foam was finally finished, sanded back the patches.
Glued down, sanded and filled.
I now set off on my PSH collecting adventure, May 21 before I got back to Iron Phil.
Sanded the filler.
By the way, the standing area of the board has a timber veneer laminated between layers of carbon.
Patched with some carbon.
Sanded the carbon, put some saddles over the tube to stop movement between tube and board.
Learning from last time, trial fitted the steering.
Not sure how to attach the rope to the tiller - either the knots, or adapt the old adjusters.
Cut some deck pad patches.
I've since scrubbed the grubby old pad.
Re assembled everything.
And went for a shakedown paddle before Narnia winter again engulfed Melbourne.
THE END.
(I hope, apart from stories of paddling and downwinding)
Well.... I am totally exhausted. I now need a long holiday!!!
nozza - can you walk us through how you go about mowing your lawns and washing your car.......
Select to expand quoteSmash1 said..
Well.... I am totally exhausted. I now need a long holiday!!!
nozza - can you walk us through how you go about mowing your lawns and washing your car.......
As Cobra has noted, my lawn is poorly cared for, and my Kombi is generally unwashed.
Select to expand quoteE T said..
Bugger me I am totally mesmerized by this story.
What "normal" man would do this? Who has this much time? Who has this much room to do this type of **? Where do you find enough energy to worry about ** like this?
Nozza you area better man than me that's for bloody sure. I would have had one look at the dings and taken it to a board repairer.
I would have taken one look at the painting and taken it somewhere to get it painted! I would take one look at the steering issue and found someone to fix it as far away from me that I could manage.
I start to do ** like this and all that happens is that I make it worse. I get a headache. I swear words that never existed before. My neighbours call the Police because of the bad language coming from my place.
I have to say that you must be up for some sort of award for this story and the repairs you did.
In fact I thought DJ was the SUP story king. Well he was, now this position has been taken by Nozza.
Oh yeah one more thing, who thinks of taking photos of every stage of whatever they are doing?
I am totally buggered by this.
Good job son.
ET.
Thanks ET, glad to entertain.
A couple of years ago I wouldn't have attempted anything like this.
I think the turning point is accepting it doesn't matter if you stuff it up, and you are doing for the process, not necessarily the result..
And no one has claimed there wasn't Police summoning bad language at times.
Reminds me of the time I read the entire internet. Know I did cause it said The End
Select to expand quoteNozza said..Smash1 said..
Well.... I am totally exhausted. I now need a long holiday!!!
nozza - can you walk us through how you go about mowing your lawns and washing your car.......
As Cobra has noted, my lawn is poorly cared for, and my Kombi is generally unwashed.
What about walking us through your daily shower and toilet session? :-)))))
Select to expand quoteSmash1 said..Nozza said..Smash1 said..
Well.... I am totally exhausted. I now need a long holiday!!!
nozza - can you walk us through how you go about mowing your lawns and washing your car.......
As Cobra has noted, my lawn is poorly cared for, and my Kombi is generally unwashed.
What about walking us through your daily shower and toilet session? :-)))))
That would be a bit weird, even for me.
Although I do have a rather good outside shower at Phillip Island........
Select to expand quoteZeusman said..
The Saga Of Iron Phill
I hope it's over.
He's on the roof of the Kombi now as rain squalls and 20 knot winds lash 9 degree Melbourne.
I may be up early for the longboard.....
Select to expand quoteE T said..
Bugger me I am totally mesmerized by this story.
What "normal" man would do this? Who has this much time? Who has this much room to do this type of **? Where do you find enough energy to worry about ** like this?
Nozza you area better man than me that's for bloody sure. I would have had one look at the dings and taken it to a board repairer.
I would have taken one look at the painting and taken it somewhere to get it painted! I would take one look at the steering issue and found someone to fix it as far away from me that I could manage.
I start to do ** like this and all that happens is that I make it worse. I get a headache. I swear words that never existed before. My neighbours call the Police because of the bad language coming from my place.
I have to say that you must be up for some sort of award for this story and the repairs you did.
In fact I thought DJ was the SUP story king. Well he was, now this position has been taken by Nozza.
Oh yeah one more thing, who thinks of taking photos of every stage of whatever they are doing?
I am totally buggered by this.
Good job son.
ET.
Another thank you, you make me feel good.
The photos have become important the last couple of years - a bit of "do I believe I am doing this?"
Or, "How could I be this stupid?"
nooza. when you saturated the board in turps to lift your old deck grip. that's when you got your voids. the holes were leaky to start with. turps went in and ate your foam
Select to expand quotechucktheskiffie said..
Very cool stuff.
Out of interest, how does the spectra go with the steering?
Only one short paddle so far but seems good - no more friction.
I think main benefit will be no bitey bits and longevity.
