So I'm dedicating this next post to some of the mistakes I've made along the way in building. Hopefully, someone else who is building a board for the first time can learn something. It will also serve as a reference for myself should I decide to build a second one. I also hope to get some comments from Mike L. at Grain to see if he can recommend some fixes.
The first mistake was something I mentioned earlier. When gluing the chine log, I didn't quite get a fair line all the way back. On the left hand side of the board towards the tail, there is a small bump. You can see the bump in this picture here:
Another reason for the bump began when I first set-up the chine log. I noticed that the pre-cut notched for the chine log where a little small. So I took a piece of 60 grit sand paper and wrapped it around a paint stirring stick and open up the notches a bit. However, some of the notches were very shallow. When I glued the chine log, a few of the frames had the chine log just touching, rather than nestled into the notch. This also complicated the railing process. On the left side, the chine log was far enough away from the frames that it made it difficult to maintain the curvature of the rail and still mate the bead and cove strips to the frames. I was concerned the gap between the frame and the rails would create a weakness in the board, so I used some scrap pieces of rail to make a shim inside the rail. I covered it with glue and feel like it improved the strength. Plus, I figured it would give more wood to work with when I feathered the rail to meet the frame.
The nose of the board is a little funky. I didn't flex the bead and cove strips to meet the tip of the keel exactly, and thus the bottom planks end before the end of the rails. My joinery skills are not something to be proud of, so I kind of assumed I would be making a nose block for this board. I'm a little unsure how this affects the strength of the board and how much I should cut off. It just seems that a nose block won't have a lot of wood to latch onto and again will be an area of weakness.
Lastly, the big mistake. The tail of the board. There are multiple things that went wrong in the tail. First, I think the tail blocks needed to be trimmed. The board is a 6'4" but as laid out currently it measures 6'9". The blocks seemed long, but I assumed that was the length they were supposed to be. I think I should have trimmed down the tops nearest the keel.
Second, when I glued the blocks on, I used 5200 instead of tightbond. Reading further in the instructions there was a part that mentioned using tightbond over 5200 so that the white of the 5200 doesn't show through. Well, my board will definitely show through. Call that tail mistake number 2.
Next, I failed to pay attention when I was gluing the frame to the bottom planks. There is a small split in the bottom planks that runs right through where the tail should be. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that when I glued the tail blocks on, the 5200 squeezed out through the split. I need to figure out a way to either fill the gap or shape the tail so that it doesn't show. Lastly, I also over shaped the tail blocks. I had just bought this great new hand plane. I was shaping and creating and having a good old time. I felt like a true craftsman. Unfortunately, I got a little carried away. I shaped the blocks to match the line of the keel. However, I forgot that the rail pieces needed support. So the tail pieces are way too thin at the point. My guess is that it shouldn't be that big of a deal. The board looks as though it should be pretty thin in the tail anyways if you follow the line of the last frame. I'm just nervous that I will create a pointed tail that will proceed to remove chunks of my heel everytime I ride it. My friends and I used to surf an old board called the Hamish, shaped by a local San Clemente shaper. We all have matching heel scars from that one so I'm trying to avoid recreating the same scenario. I'm open to suggestions on how to fix the tail. I was considering making tail blocks. I think I saw a picture on the Grain site with tail blocks, again I'm just nervous they will be weak and possibly snap off. Hope the pictures help make all this more clear. The tail is a mess, but I'm hoping I can work out some good solutions.
The shaping is complete and I put the first coat of glass on. It's amazing how much the grain pops out once you get the glass on. The pictures are of the first coat. I'll post some of the hot coat tonight. Two things that I did that were recommended by Brad at Grain Surfboards:
There isn't much to say in this post, I'm mainly just adding pictures. Finished up the bulk of the shaping and added the fin plugs. It was just a matter of drilling three 1 inch holes on each side. I was thankful that my method for gluing in the blocking worked as all the holes I drilled found solid wood inside the board. I set them in and used epoxy to glue them in solid. The one mistake I made was that I put too much epoxy in the hole. When I fit the plugs in the epoxy pushed out and went all over. I was scrambling to wipe up epoxy and make sure that I didn't end up gluing the fins into the plugs or epoxying over the fin screws. Once the epoxy had hardened it took a few wiggles and a sharp box cutter to break the fin free but nothing a tad bit of sanding won't clean up. I was happy with the results. Next step is putting on the top coat of glass.
Here are just some pictures from the new shaping stands. Thanks to Surfersteve.com for the rough plans I used. I Just cut the 2x6's that I used for the rocker table to make the stands. All that sanding is a lot more work than I expected, but then again I am proceeding cautiously using mostly block sander. I've become better with block plane, but I still have trouble in some spots with it causing chips. I don't know if this is because the blade is getting dull or if I need to move in a different direction relative to the grain of the wood. Anyways, I pretty excited about how the board is turning out so far. You can see from the pictures there is still a decent amount of shaping because you can still see where the board is uneven and of varying thicknesses.
So today was a breakthrough. I took off all the clamps and began the shaping process. My goal when I finished today was just to get everything trimmed up and get a rough sand on it to remove excess glue, bumps, gaps, etc...I first trimmed the top and bottom planks using a jigsaw. This was a somewhat nerve racking experience when trimming the top plank since I was holding the saw at a weird angle and trying to keep it from eating into the rail. I erred on the side of leaving too much material. I followed this up using the hand plane to remove most of the remaining material on the top planks until they were close to the rail strips. The bottom planks I trimmed flush with the rail. 
I measured out the fin blocking and glued everything in place. I found it much easier to visualize the placement having the fins in my hand. I just measured the distance from the tail and the distance from centerline and then placed the fin in that spot. I traced around the tabs that will fit into the board and then used a compass to draw 1-inch circles where the blocks need to be. I drilled a small hole in the center of where each plug will go and used this as my reference. Then on the inside I drew a cross at each hole and centered the blocks onto the cross. It should guarantee that when I drill the plugs they hit directly in the middle of the backing blocks. 
For all the readers who have made it here from the Grain website, thanks for stopping by. Hopefully you won't feel daunted by my mistakes. I would like to point out I had very little wood working experience before this. This project was as much about the learning experience as it was about the finished product. Thanks for taking the time to read this and for all the positive comments. Thanks again to the guys at Grain for linking to my blog. It's nice to become part of the Grain community. Feel free to post any questions you might have about my experience and I'll answer them in my posts.
For the nose block, I first glued in some backing blocks in empty space and let those set. I decided to use redwood. It's light, has some great grain patterns, and I thought it would look cool. I quickly learned that it is fairly fragile. It chips and breaks a lot, so you would not want to build an entire board out of it (I think they build canoe's out of redwood though, I wonder how that goes?) I then cut off the front of the nose and glued another block onto the front. I decided to do this before gluing the top plank on. You will be able to see the nose block from the bottom of the board, but it will look solid from the top. Seemed cool to me. The picture at the left is the sanded and roughly shaped new nose.
The tail blocks took a little more work. I took a big piece of redwood (it was actually a stairway support for a deck because it was cheap) and traced the old blocks. I cut them out and then tried to fit them into place. I read the post from Brad and the blocks just didn't seem to fit. If I trimmed the top, then the ends of the blocks didn't extend to the outside of the chine log. It was as if the radius of the curvature was tooshort. Anyways, after cutting out the replacement pieces I threw those out too.
Lastly, the tail blocks. These were such a mess that I decided to remove them. I took Mike's advice, got out the blow torch and a putty knife and began jabbing underneath the blocks. Nasty stench from that 5200 burning. After a lot of muscle and some singed spots on the board, I finally got the tailblocks off. I proceeded then to scrape off the remaining adhesive and then sand everything down. The board may be a tad thinner in some areas thanks to my lousy chisel skills, but nothing major. I've included the before and aftershots to the left.
The first mistake was something I mentioned earlier. When gluing the chine log, I didn't quite get a fair line all the way back. On the left hand side of the board towards the tail, there is a small bump. You can see the bump in this picture here:
Another reason for the bump began when I first set-up the chine log. I noticed that the pre-cut notched for the chine log where a little small. So I took a piece of 60 grit sand paper and wrapped it around a paint stirring stick and open up the notches a bit. However, some of the notches were very shallow. When I glued the chine log, a few of the frames had the chine log just touching, rather than nestled into the notch. This also complicated the railing process. On the left side, the chine log was far enough away from the frames that it made it difficult to maintain the curvature of the rail and still mate the bead and cove strips to the frames. I was concerned the gap between the frame and the rails would create a weakness in the board, so I used some scrap pieces of rail to make a shim inside the rail. I covered it with glue and feel like it improved the strength. Plus, I figured it would give more wood to work with when I feathered the rail to meet the frame.
The nose of the board is a little funky. I didn't flex the bead and cove strips to meet the tip of the keel exactly, and thus the bottom planks end before the end of the rails. My joinery skills are not something to be proud of, so I kind of assumed I would be making a nose block for this board. I'm a little unsure how this affects the strength of the board and how much I should cut off. It just seems that a nose block won't have a lot of wood to latch onto and again will be an area of weakness.
Lastly, the big mistake. The tail of the board. There are multiple things that went wrong in the tail. First, I think the tail blocks needed to be trimmed. The board is a 6'4" but as laid out currently it measures 6'9". The blocks seemed long, but I assumed that was the length they were supposed to be. I think I should have trimmed down the tops nearest the keel.
