Titans of Mavericks 2014-2016:

Surf Competition Trophies

Building the trophies for the Mavericks surf competition for 2015; variations on Cruz the Wave burning man 2014 project.

Building the Trophies
If I was smart, and a TechShop member, I could have had the shopbot cut all the pieces for these trophies in an hour or 2, but I still use the old ways-paper templates glued to stacks of wood, cut with a bandsaw (at my friend John's excellent shop in SC, machine sanding (and a new oscillating spindle sander to do the inner curls of the wave), hand sanding, more hand sanding, and even more hand sanding, Drill press work to cut bolt holes, screw guns to attach things, finishing with stain and lacquer coats.

The metal work was done mostly by my good friend sCary (Cary McHugh) who used a plasma cutter to blast out the 1/4" thick steel plates on the front and back, and chop saws and tig welding to make the metal spacers for the 1st place trophy. The metal look they wanted was old and rusty, so I had to clean the metal part to shiny newness, and then rust them using Hydrogen Peroxide, salt and time. The plated steel bolts needed tohave their plating disolved away with strong acid before they could be rusted. Baking the rusty parts helped stabilize them, and the spacers were soaked in a penetrating epoxy to keep the rust in place as well.

Also, I made a Branding Iron in the shape of one of the ToM logos. We've yet to decide at this moment whether to brand the trophies with this symbol-I'm a bit afraid of being able to do a consistent job. We should be making a decision in the next couple days...

The Steel plates were engraved using a powerful laser at a company called Zap'O Marks; a hilarious name for anyone old enough to cherish the Marx's brother films of the 30's & 40's.

Toss in a couple of pauses to enjoy the company of out new dog Luna and see an awesome handmade car in SC, and Voila! you have this page.

Photos

The beginning: Cruz the Wave | Titans of Mavericks Kickoff dinner | 3D Models | Building the Trophies | sCary's Metal Works | Photo shoot of Finished trophies | Boldest Drop | Opening Ceremony - wizzard | Opening Ceremony - Gwen | The Event - wizzard's photos | The Event - Gwen's photos | The Event - RedBull's Live Coverage |

I didn't take any photos of cutting out the ribs on the band saw, but this is just after I had done so. All of the similar ribs were screwed together and cut at the same time to a paper template that I used a glue stick to attach to the wood.

med | big | huge

The next step was to begin the arduous sanding process. These shots are taken at John's shop.

med | big | huge

Clamps are a necessity to make the sanding easier. One clamp to hold the wood, another to clamp the clamp to the table.

med | big | huge

Back at home, I shot a few photos of the still attached ribs. It would make a pretty cool trophy just as is!

med | big | huge

The larger 1st place ribs were printed on 2 tabloid sheets of paper. Here I'm using a light box to align and tape the pieces together.

med | big | huge

Here is the Best Barrel trophy pieces with some Excelsior packing material I attached to see if it would look like water spraying up in front as the wave crashes down. Looked kinda ok, but decided it wasn't the right look.

med | big | huge

The metal front and back plates will be attached to the stack of ribs with 2 bolts running through them. I needed to set up a jig to drill the bolt holes through all the ribs in the exact same position as the holes in the plates.

med | big | huge

Once all bolted together, I sanded the upper surfaces of the trophies to get a nice smooth shape. It started with a rasp and progressed to coarse then finer and finer sand paper grits down to about 320.

med | big | huge

My new toy, an oscillation spindle sander, greatly helped to get the trophy ribs to the right shapes.

med | big | huge

The spindle sander is even more helpful on the inner parts of the curl where my big fat fingers can't reach.

med | big | huge

Powered tools can only go so far. many spots need to be sanded by hand to get the right shape. The whole surface of all the trophies was finished with manual sanding-gotta feel what you're doing, and machines can work a little to fast and deep if you're not careful.

med | big | huge

Beginning to stain some of the ribs.

med | big | huge

I went to the TechShop to watch sCary TIG weld some of the 1st place spacers together in front of a videographer documenting some of the steps in trophy construction, and the only shot I thought to take myself was of this big piece of equipment, a water jet cutter that was making a huge amount of noise 20' feet from us.

med | big | huge

Taking the mill scale off of the spacers that sCary had welded together.

med | big | huge

Before and after

med | big | huge

Rusting the first batch of nice clean steel surfaces of the 1st place spacers is easy with some salt and hydrogen peroxide

med | big | huge

Elapsed time less than an hour at this point, but I did submerge them all in salty water for a couple days.

med | big | huge

Sarah,Dosa, Gwen, Luna and Sam hanging out on the couch with some monsters looking on.

med | big | huge

Baking the rusty spacers to fix the rust. Left them in for a couple hours at 300-350 degrees.

med | big | huge

Looks like more thn a few days of rust, doesn't it?

med | big | huge

Next, I snug fitted some wood into the spacers. Holes will be drilled to match up with the holes in the steel plates and ribs to which they need to align.

med | big | huge

I made a branding Iron to burn the crossed surfboard logo used by the Titans organizers. This was the first test heating.

med | big | huge

Added some copper sulfate to the hydrogen peroxide to see if I could get some greenish cast to the metal in spots. Nope!

med | big | huge

To rust up the bolts and nuts that hold the trophies together, I needed to remove the plating that is made to cut down on rusting. I started by filing it off, but that took waaay too long. The next method was to soak them in strong acid, in this case some hydrochloric acid in a toilet bowl cleaning product. This stuff is potent stuff. (I dumped a container of it and reached in to the spilled mess to rescue the metal and my hands started burning right away-even after it had been chewing away at the steel for half an hour. Nasty!)