Surfboards and repairs

So I begun massing quite a collection of surfboards, the current total is up to 7. Many of them have requirred minor repairs and such. I really love retro surfboards, especially twin fins from 79-85 ish... maybe thats because of all my battles with the star system fins. Which btw I finally got a pair of fins that I will soon make molds of (keep checking back with the fin post). Anyways, heres some pictures of my boards.

Before repairs

After Repairs

All my boards!

(in order from left to right)

CB Challenger III shaped by Dan Ollila 5'9" tri fin with Star system fins

Rusty C-5 Shaped by Bill Johnson 5'10" 5 fin

WRV 5'11"-ish twin fin with Star system fins

C.W. Surfboards 6' single fin

Timpone 6'4" glass on tri fin

San clemente Surf co 7'6" tri fin

8' Single fin

Nintendo Game Shelf

Sorry its been a while since I posted... classes and work keep me occupied. I'm going to try and put up a few of my older projects soon, as well as the project I'm working on now for my new truck... and if it all goes well some updates to the surfboard fin post. So about a year ago I built a shelf with slots specially shaped to fit all the different nintendo cartridges, dvd cases, as well as a few other random game cartridges. I also made a chamber in the bottom with red rope light inside and put a plexiglass piece in front of it with the nintendo logo spray painted on it. I don't have any photos of the process, its pretty simple though. I still need to make wooden blocks for the N64 games so they don't slide too far back into the slots, I already made the SNES blocks.

Giant SNES table: Video and final touches

I'll keep adding any changes that I make to the project to this post. I'll also try and answer any questions that I see from other blogs/ sites. Heres 2 videos of the controller in action.

Me


Me and my roomate


Judging from some reactions, I think alot of people missed the point of this entirely. I love woodworking, and saw this as a big challenge for my craftsmanship. I also love video games, though I'm usually too busy to play them much. I also thought this would be a cool novelty/ conversation piece. I might eventually make it into a table w/ legs, but for now I like it as a stand alone controller. Its not 4 feet wide, its 40 inches. I did this so it would be more ergonomic to play with one person. The D pad and buttons are a comfortable arms length.

So heres a few responses to comments from some of the other blogs that posted an article about the controller.

1. "Props for the man's craftmanship, but I think he needs a job. Possibly, a wife too."
   -I have a sweet job as an intern as well as being a Senior at UCF for Engineering, and I'm 21, not lookin for a wife.
2. "So is this that guy's bid at becoming King of the Dorks?"
   -I don't think I'm 1st in line, but "the dorks" welcome me with open arms.
3. "He should have just spent the time building a life sized girlfriend."
   -I might be wrong, but wouldn't that be more pathetic?
4. "Surprised no one has said "OMG THE BUTTONS ARE THE WRONG COLOUR!!" I was expecting someone who grew up playing the PAL or Japanese SNES to at least come in with that comment."
   -I've said this a few times now, but I grew up with the purple toned SNES. I like the 4 color PAL/JAP colors better, but its not near as nostalgic for me. I've lived in FL all my life, not too many people around here would recognize the other color set.
5. "the best controller just got bigger :P"
   -I totally agree, my favorite controller as well.
6. "SCAD Inc., which I will charitably call a garage-based novelty enlargement collective"
   - Wow, pretentious much? First off, I live in an apartment without a garage, so I work on my front porch and store the tools in my room. Also, we don't claim to be anything but a couple guys that like to build things. We thought it'd be fun to give our not-so-company a name and logo. This was a project I took on myself, but many of the other projects on here were done by all 3 of us (surf fins, sub box... which I'll put up at some point... etc). We just build the things we want that can't be found anywhere else... not "novelty enlargement". But thanks for the post and link to my blog, I appreciate the hype.
7. "How is this the least bit pratical? How do you use a 4 foot wide controller?"
   - Its not practical... its fun. I use it just fine, watch the video.
8. "Yeah, thats a gag for my console but it really works. But mainly I play DAoC on the big machine. " He remarked. " DAoC ? What is DAoC ? " She asked. "Ahhh, you have to see this, it is the best RvR MMORPG on the net!" He answered. "Oh!" She exclaimed. "Nevermind, I play WoW, I think the little cartoon people are sooo cute!">>> BASH <<<>>> Thud <<<<(or date killer if you are a single guy)I like dual purpose hardware."
   - What?
9. "didnt they do a working nes controller?now this will be even harder for just 2 people to usewhos going to be hitting the l1/l2 and r1/r2 buttons"
   - Yes the NES was done, thats why I did the SNES, and again, watch the videos for playability. Oh, and there are no L2 or R2...
10. "not when you are over compensating and have to produce something like a 4 foot snes controller to make yourself sleep better at night."
    - I sleep fine, but thanks for the concern.
11. "someone needs to work on their jig saw skills..."
    -really? Didn't realize Bob Vila over here was judging me.
12. "all i can say is "why?"
    - A bad question deserves a bad response. Why not.
13. "So this is only the.. what… 1000000th giant game controller?"
    - Third to my knowledge, though theres also an atari stick, not sure if it worked.
14. "Those springs look too weak to support enough push for the buttons.I would like to see him fabricate a giant silicone membrane :P"
    - (this was a comment on a pictureonly showing the button mount, no buttons) The springs your referring to don't support the buttons, they are the grounding side of the contact for the button. Each of the ABXY buttons are supported by 3 springs wrapped around bolts cut off and nailed into the buttons. The other buttons are different. If you're interested read the older posts.
15. "this creation is only 15 years overdue. Do you realize snes hasnt been around since 1993!?"
    - Old systems don't disintegrate when a newer one comes out, though clearly some people don't appreciate that.

Heres just a few links, there are so many more. If you know of anymore definately post them for me!: http://www.ripten.com/2008/08/29/geeked-out-giant-working-snes-controller/

http://www.examiner.com/r-1875102~Four_Foot_SNES_Controller_Actually_Works__For_Shaquille_O_Neal___Modding_.html

http://gonintendo.com/?p=54269

MAKE!!! My favorite so far.
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/08/worlds_largest_snes_contr.html

http://gizmodo.com/5043619/four+foot-snes-controller-actually-works-for-shaquille-oneal

http://kotaku.com/5043796/at-last--a-4+foot-snes-controller-that-works

http://www.rssmeme.com/tag/giant-snes-controller/

http://digg.com/nintendo/Four_Foot_SNES_Controller_Actually_Works_PICS

http://digg.com/nintendo/Giant_SNES_Controller_Brings_a_New_Meaning_to_Tabletop_Games

there are so many more, google around if you're curious. Also, theres a "links to this post" section that you can see a few more.

Giant SNES table Phase IV: Wiring, Button Adjusting, Detail Painting... etc

The Controller is finally finished! It has taken me all summer to do it, mainly because of classes and the new job... which by the way also helped me build the controller.

Button Mounting and wiring. The mounting was a bit tricky getting all these clamps in while it dried... but I somehow made it work.
This one shows the clamping of one of the bumper mounts. Its hinged with a single spring/ bolt at the other end.

Soldering for the SNES controller card, actually quite easy.

I used these screw plates to connect each button so I could disconnect each seperately for potential repair/ maintanence.

I used stencils made on the computer and cut on a machine to get the lettering just right. Turns out that the SNES font is almost identical to Hattenschweller, I think thats how its spelled. Its a standard font italicized. I also made a few stencils for the skateboards I'm making (the ones that say "meret"), and the Lost logo for some potential surfboard airbrushing.


I also stenciled out the circle for the A B X Y buttons, came out pretty clean. I had originally tried a rubbery brush-on material for the start select, but it stuck too much on the sides when pressed.
You can see the contacts are just springs, and the other side of the contact are metal plates.

You can see my sharpied arm chair here.

TADA!!!




It looks a little off here, but it actually sits straight, but it looks weird because it has to rock about the center.

Like the definition around the D-pad? I do.
The plug is normal sized, and fits in a normal size SNES.

Giant SNES table Phase III: Button Construction and painting

Its a long one guys... I'll add comments later. I still have a little ways to go, though its all wired up as well. I'll post pictures of the wiring next.

Giant SNES table Phase II: Bondo and Sanding

I used my belt sander to first sand the curves down even. It dosn't get them super smooth, but it sure eats up the mdf quickly! I got it down pretty close, then used my mouse sander to smooth it out nicely.



Mouse on the left, belt sander on the right... Nice curves, huh? it gets better.

I then covered pretty much the entire outside curves with bondo. I recommend if any of you use bondo to only mix up a little at a time and do it in segments. The stuff dries up wicked quick. I used a putty knife to smooth it down, to ease the sanding process later.

I then spent about an entire day sanding the sides smooth. A little with the belt sander, but mostly the mouse. The belt sander eats up the bondo even faster than the mdf. I came out of the process looking like I had just killed frosty the snowman. Seriously, that stuff got everywhere.

I also cut out a back plate and started sanding it down smooth. The curves on the edges of the back plate are going to be much larger than the top. I've also decided to either go with legs screwed onto the backplate, a temporary box-like support, or no support at all and set it on my audomin for now, which will most likely happen until I figure out how to permanently support it. Any suggestions? I won't put any support on it until its 100% finished anywhays. I would like to avoid making a chest out of it like Kyle did on his NES controller simply because the curves on the side would make the chest too small, though it works beautifully for the NES controller. I'm thinking about going with the 4 simple table legs so it looks like a coffee table while still maintaining that controller look. It would also make it look nice if I end up going with the glass top look.
I'd say 40 inches wide is about the right size... its scaled up by 7.2 times the size of the original controller.

Note: (june 26 2008) I have actually done quite a bit more work on the controller, but havn't posted pictures yet. They should be up soon. Shes lookin quite nice, a pretty niceeee...

Giant SNES table Phase I: basic shape

So heres the big one, this is the most insane project to date. Inspired by the NES coffee table (http://ultra-awesome.blogspot.com/2008/05/nes-coffee-table-final-post-rah.html) I decided to give a try at the large nintendo controller. I am a huge SNES fan, its what I was raised on, so even though the curves make it a much more difficult controller to shape, I decided to give it a try... and heres the outcome.

This is phase I: the basic controller shape, next I'll post Phase II: Sanding and bondo.


I actually CAD'ed the entire controller with the help of Andre and took it up to office max to print it up full size (I'll post a picture of the CAD drawing when I get a chance). I then traced the outline and details, then cut it out with my jigsaw.



I cut another controller shape out of yuca board in order to give the circle around the D- pad a little definition, then glued and clamped this to the mdf. I cut these curved pieces out of 3/4 mdf with my scroll saw and used wood glue to attach them so I would have a clean top to the controller with no screws. The back plate will screw on though so it can be removed for repairs and such.
Clamping the straight pieces on.
Clamping the 5th curved piece, I had to buy 12" clamps for this... the gator clamps lost their use after 2 or 3 pieces.

The last pieces glued in place
There she is, though very rough and unsanded. This was a funny looking piece of scrap from cutting out the circular outside pieces. To fit them best I made them in a spiral pattern, and this fetus creature came out of the middle.

First project: surfboard fins

So this was our first project ever, and it came out impressively nice. I had an old early 80's WRV surfboard passed down to me by my Dad. Its an awesome board, but I came to find out they no longer made fins for it (G & S star system fins).



This is the original fin I used as a master copy... It is no longer made and I had to go to 13 different surf shops to even find this one... but only one. It was in a scrap fin box, but they still charged me $25... so I decided to try and fabricate my own fins.

This is the board, quite a nice looking board if I do say so myself... and i do.
This is the MDF fin we cut out and sanded. At this point we still had no idea how they would secure to the board.

The fin was then fiberglassed and sanded back down to shape.
And then they were painted, We are all quite big checker fans, and the blue blends so nicely with the board.

.... ya.

And now on the board.

So this was a failed attempt to later make fins out of plexiglas, not a good idea, they looked sweet and fit perfectly, but snapped on day 2.

First day of testin' them out, quite nice. They ended up lasting over a year, and only because the fiberglas eventually rubbed down and the MDF split, this has been since remedied by putting a little bit of fiberglas resin on the tips every now and then. I've also made a set of batwing fins that I currently have on, I'll post pics of them at some point.

beach fun.

Edit: (June 26, 2008) So apparently the locks I made for the batwing fins didn't hold up well enough, because I lost one at sea last time. I made another set similar to the original checkered ones, though these I didn't paint. They actually look kinda cool, you can see the weave of the fiberglas cloth a little, and they have a greenish tint. Quite sturdy as well I must say. These ones better stay in. I've streamlined the building process, but they still take about a day to go from blank mdf to fins secured in the board.

Edit: (August 21, 2008) The fins I made started bending because there was a small hole in the fiberglass that allowed water to get into the mdf and swell. I dried them out and sealed them up, but still wasn't too confident with the mdf… My new plan of action was to find a way to make the fins entirely water proof, thus removing the mdf core. A solid fiberglass fin makes sense, seeing as that’s how most of them are actually made, but the fiberglass I can get a hold of is not as strong as the what real fins are made of… A compromise was reached. First I vacuum formed the first set of fins (the checkered ones), creating a lexane mold. The good thing about this is that each sheet of lexane is about $2.50, so they're pretty much disposable if they don't make it through the entire mold process (One ended up surving, and one cracked in the mold release stage, but the good one was so gunked that I trashed it anyways). So with the molds I used petroleum jelly as a mold release, coating the insides of both of them. I then layered the molds with resin and cloth. I used 2 sheets of cloth per fin, so I layered them with resin-cloth-resin-cloth-resin… then placed a sheet of wax paper over top to get a clean surface. The entire process suprisingly worked quite well. The mold release worked pretty decent, though I wasn't to worried about breaking the lexane to get the fin out. Once I pulled out the fin I scrolled off the edges that needed to be straight, with vacuum forming its quite tough to get 90 degee edges, but no biggy, just needed a little cleaning up. I then tested them for strength, they seemed to bend a little easier than I liked, but seemed quite tough, so my solution was to cut them down. Now that I think about it I could probably make the lexane fins again, but make them a little shorter as well, its worth a shot. Either way, I've successfully made a fully water proof set of fins that look sweet and have survived a 3 day surfing camping trip with no complications. If these ones last a year without any problems like the first set I'll be happy. I'll give the lexane fins another shot eventually. Oh, and on a side note, I saw an old twin fin Challenger surfboard at COS surf in Jax beach with two perfect clear G & S Star system fins… but the owner had it as a collector board, not for sale! I just about flipped out, the only complete set I have ever seen with my own eyes, and they were unattainable. He said the only valuable thing about the board were the fin box/ fins… ya, tell me about it.

Well I'll put up pictures soon of the whole process, and the final fins on the board. As well as posting the SNES controller pictures soon.

Heres the new process.

I've also been trying some vacuum bagging of prepreg carbon fiber... Here's what I've got so far

welcome welcome!

I've decided that I need a better place to post all of my project pictures, facebook just isn't cutting it. So along with pictures you will get a little commentary as well, how fun is that! So anyways, I will try and post again today with some actual project related stuff, either froom past projects or current projects.

By the way, SCAD inc. is the customs company that I attribute most all of my projects to. It consists of myself and two friends of mine. It is named from our three nicknames; Sugar CaBBage And Doug ... and the inc. just makes us sound so professional. So I will put pictures of both my projects and projects made by the rest of the crew... they may even make posts themselves, who knows.