Solo In the groove

[Cleon]

60th of Spring, 522 AV

There was nothing quite so centering as working with his hands. It was part of why he liked his job at the surf shop. His side work, when he wasn’t clerking upstairs. Putting these surf boards together gave him a peace that was hard to find elsewhere in Syka. He liked starting from nothing and ending up with a completed surfboard although he was far from accomplishing that on his own just yet. Because he was still learning, Cleon mostly helped with the tedious parts of the process. Cutting out the right shapes so Randal could put them together, then helping with the parts where an extra set of hands was helpful.

This morning he started out by tracing the outer shape of what would be the top of the surfboard. Since he was using a cut out, this wasn’t particularly hard. He just had to follow along the outside with a charcoal pencil making sure his line was heavy enough to follow with the saw later. Once he had drawn the top of the surfboard, he went ahead and traced its base before moving onto the individual pieces that would comprise its middle. The middle pieces were the trickiest to cut by far. They required a precision that he lacked, even with the lines drawn out for him. He just wasn’t that good at maneuvering the saw in that manner so until he was, Randal didn’t want him touching that part of the process unless it was just to practice with scrap pieces of wood.

With both sides of the surfboard drawn he laid the wood on the table before pulling one piece so it was halfway off the table. Then picking up a handsaw he worked his way towards his outline. Cleon was still getting used to gripping its curved handle as finding a hold that remained comfortable as he sawed his wrist back and forth wasn’t exactly a sure thing. It changed day by day, so Cleon figured it must be something he just had to get used to. Just like he had to get used to how rubbed raw his hands felt sometimes after a day full of cutting wood. His hands were fine now, but already he could feel a familiar ache along the base of his knuckles.

Shifting his grip so the meat of his palm was against the back of the saw’s handle, he worked on turning the blade to follow the curve, giving it a sharp twist before he continued to saw his way down the curve. The line was far from smooth. In fact it was rather jagged from where he occasionally lost his place on the line but Cleon made sure not to dip into the line, only away. He would smooth out the edges later after he had finished making the cutout. When he was about halfway down the surf board he decided to take a much needed break for his hand as already it had started to cramp up from all of the effort. While flexing the fingers on that hand, he paced around for a couple of ticks before returning.

WC - 523

[Cleon]

Starting from where he had left the cut, he leaned against the table with his hip as he worked his arm up and down to saw at the wood. While he did that, he worked on trying to keep his pressure evenly distributed which was hard as the wooden board kept jumping in his grip till finally he laid his elbow across the back so it at least remained still while he was sawing into it. He decided to keep that in mind for the next board that he needed to find something heavy enough to lie across the back of the board, or at least tie it down so it didn’t move. That might help him keep his lines smooth which would cut down considerably on the amount of work he had to put into each cutout to get it properly shaped.

For now though since he was already working on shaping it, he continued as he was using his weight to make it easier to cut out the surfboard. Because of his new position he was able to really able to get his shoulder and back into the motions which certainly helped. Already he was near the bottom of the board where it cut across horizontally. Instead of turning into that line though, he went ahead and sawed the rest of the way to the bottom of the wood panel so he could free that side of the board before sawing off the bottom. He knew from prior experience how much easier that made working with getting the rest of it out when he didn’t have to deal with dragging a loose piece of wood that was hanging on by an inch or two. An when he took a tick to think about it he realized that it was also necessary or he might risk ruining the board if that loose piece of wood broke off the wrong way.

When he had completely separated that outside piece from the rest of the board, he picked it up and tossed it on the floor as he moved to stand on the other side of the piece of wood he was working on. Then pulling the wood off the table at an angle that put it back in front of him, he made sure to lean against the table again as he started working on sawing off the end piece. As it was a straight line, this went much more smoothly than the first third of the board had. Because he was braced it didn’t jump under his grasp as much so he was able to achieve a relatively smooth line though he really had to work for it after he past the middline as the strength in his hand started to flag.

Once that section had been cut off he stood up from the board, walking a little ways away as he set the handsaw down on the table. Then he stripped off his shirt and used it to mop up the sweat on his forehead.

WC - 507

[Cleon]

Even with the windows open it had gotten particularly hot in the bottom of the shop. His skin was covered in a thin sheen of sweat, and a swim was sounding like just the thing. He had to wait on that though because he wanted to get a certain amount of work down here before he went out to play in the surf. The only way to resist such temptation now was to throw himself into his work, but first he considered securing that board properly so he could maybe be more efficient about it.

Looking around the shop he found where Randal kept his hemp cord, and after wrapping a length of it about his arm he went back to the table that he had left his boards on. Because he only had one side left to work on with the first board, he moved that section of wood so the uncut half was hanging off the edge of the table. Then he wrapped the cord around it crosswise, jiggling it a little to see how much give it had before he pulled the cords as tightly together as he could manage. Then with the two lengths of cord held at as about as far as they would go, he worked the ends together in a rough loop before cinching it all together.

When he got up from where he had been kneeling he was panting from the brief exertion as he leaned against the table, then checked the board again to see if it had any give. His knot wasn’t nearly as good, or accurate to the one Randal had shown him but he figured it would do for now. The board didn’t have much give to it, and looking around he found a few pieces of scrap wood to lay across the other half of the board to weigh it down.

With that done, he picked up the handsaw and worked on cutting that last bit out. He started by sawing his way to the flat edge, and since he was able to use both hands, he use his left to hold the outer edge of the wood to keep it steady while he cut his way down the line. The rasping hiss of sound was almost musical to his ears as he worked, really putting all of his body into it while using his wrist to keep the blade straight. As it came time to match the curve he stopped, reset the blades of the saw to follow the angle before pulling it across the slope he had made.

Once again his hand as cramping something fierce but gritting his teeth, he worked his way through the pain as he followed the outline to completion. Once his saw had passed through that final inch that remained between where he had made his first cut, that half of the board sloughed off onto the floor, and Cleon took a tick to admire his handiwork. Breathing in deeply through his nose and out through his mouth, he relaxed for a moment as he fixed his next task in his mind.


WC - 522 AV

[Cleon]

With its new shape he didn’t even have to undo the cords to pull free the surfboard. Instead he just slipped it right on through before propping it up against the table. Then picking up a file he went to work smoothing out the bits that hadn’t gone so great with his cut. This part of the process was almost therapeutic as he worked at filing down those spurs till they were in line with the gentle curves of the surfboard. Because this was less about precision that cutting was, he could really work his arm into the motion of grinding the rough flat edge of the metal tool against the wood, taking great pleasure as those rough edges flatted out to look uniform with the rest of the board.

However that wasn’t even close to the end of the filing he had to do. Once he was finished making sure his cut looked even from top to bottom he then had to file down the square edges for the board so they wouldn’t drag in the water when the board was all put together. For this he had to lay the surfboard back across the table as he then worked at putting a curve on those square edges. It was grueling work and he had to take more than a few breaks for his hand as it was starting to really stiffen up. He suspected he would be using his left hand for the rest of the night after this, which was fine as he only intended to do some drinking and maybe a little bit of smoking too.

The tricky thing about filing across the entire board is it was incredibly tedious so it was easy to loose your concentration and make a mistake. Tooling a smooth curve was fairly difficult when he couldn’t see both squared sides at the same time and so he had to go back and forth several times to make sure his curves matched up. All and all it took him around a bell to get it right. By the time his was finished his hand was aching more than usual, sending up shooting pains through his arm that varied in intensity depending on the way he flexed his hand.

At least he had a finished product he could be satisfied with. It looked pretty good. Even if it was only the first step. Still it gave him a better appreciation of the process that Randal went through for each board, and knowing what the completed product looked like was pretty good incentive to work hard so that one day he could make one of his own. That would be the day he would purchase a surfboard. One he had used his own two hands to make. He could think of nothing else more satisfying. There might be quite a lot of work ahead of him before he got to that point, but he considered the goal well worth the amount of work it would take.

WC - 503

[Cleon]

When he had given his hand enough of a break, long enough that it felt about as good as it was going to get, he decided to wrap things up by putting the internal ribs on the board he had just cut out. This part was simple enough. First he took out the sheet of wood that they used to line up where the ribs should go. On this wood Randal had cut out the slots so that it would be easy to mark the positions with a charcoal pencil and keep their work uniform. Laying this sheet over top the surfboard top, he then marked out the places with the charcoal pencil, making careful bold lines as he traced along the outer edge of the slots, then replaced the sheet where it had been when he was finished.

Next got the pieces he would need together before bringing out the bucket of tar they used to glue the pieces in place. He started with the large horizontal line down the middle. Lathering the tar on before taking the large angular piece, and laying it across. Pressing it firmly down, he held it for a moment until he was sure it wasn’t going to move before doing the horizontal strips. Placing these pieces together was a little more tricky as there were thin slots cut into each piece so it could join up with the middle line so he had to take extra care in placing each one.

As he did so, he had plenty of time to appreciate this experimental design. He had to wonder how Randal had come up with such an idea, although he had to admit, it seemed very fitting for such an environment. With them having so much access to the beach which was spectacularly beautiful, he liked to imagine many Sykans would be out there soon trying their hands at the hobby. While he had yet to go out on the sea with a board, he was very much so looking forward to it as he expected the experience would be very memorable. An he could use the refreshment. Once he was wrapped up with this, he very much so intended on going for that swim though he would refrain from going very far into the water.

Joining those last pieces together wasn’t all that hard, though he made sure they were stiffly in place before he moved on to the last bit he needed to do to wrap up. That being the most delicate part which was putting over top a heavy piece of wood that would keep the ribs firmly in place with enough pressure to make sure that they were seated well. To do this he took this rough section of wood and lined up its flat base with the surfboard he had on the table before gingerly sliding it over top. He had to make sure each of the ribs was seated well so he had to do it all gradually but when it was done all he had to do was to wrap the cords over top, and leave it to set. An with that done, he could finally take a break and cool off, which was something that he was very much so happy to do now that he was sweaty and sore.

WC - 555

[Cleon]

Grade Award!

Cleon:

Skills:

Carpentry: 4
Drawing: 1
Observation: 2
Planning: 1
Knotwork: 1
Surfboard Making: 5


Lore:

Carpentry: Holding a pole saw
Carpentry: Following an outline
Carpentry: Stabilizing the wood before you cut
Knotwork: A single loop knot
Surfboard Making: Smoothing the edges with a file
Surfboard Making: Preparing the shell

Feel free to pm me with questions or concerns about your grade, and don’t forget to edit your grade request!