What I am doing for Internship?
I am going to a surf shop that a friend of my dads owns. A surfboard making shop in Oceanside called Salt Water Surf Glass, This shop makes production boards and custom boards for various companies and people. Ill be interning here with the owner Mark Mehtlan who will mentor me through the four weeks of internship, hes a older looking fellow whos worked there for a very big part of his life. For what i will be doing for the time being there, is learning how to make a surfboard from start to finish. Which is also what ill be excited for learning about for the most time that im there. But what i am really nervous about for this internship, is if i do start working on shaping boards, is im afraid of messing up and wrecking the whole board becuase
Interview with my mentor: Mark Mehtland
What should i know about you before i start working here?: No, not really, besides that i love making surfboards.
What is your job title?: Owner/manager of the shop, and I glass and shape boards too.
What are your main duties and responsibilities?: I glass and shape boards and manage the shop for the most part.
Why did you choose to work here?: Ever since i was a teenager, ive loved making surfboards, and have continued it to this day.
How did you end up doing the job that you do?: I use to shape boards when i was a teenager, and then i started working in surf shops, and then when i was going to college i studied to be a architect, and after college, i spent some time working in the field that i studied for but i didnt like it, so i went and bought a shop, and started making boards.
What skills and training are necessary for your position?: you need to know how to shape boards, fiber glass them, then glass boards with epoxy, theres a lot to making a surfboard.
How did you acquire these skills? Through school? On the job?: I use to shape boards all the time when i was a kid in my garage, and then i started working in a surf shop.
Do you consider a career in this area satisfying? In what ways?: Yes, i love my job, theres a lot of personal freedom here making, shaping, and designing boards.
Is there anything you wish you'd realized about the world of work when you were my age?: No, i love what i do, and im making a living off of it.
What is your job title?: Owner/manager of the shop, and I glass and shape boards too.
What are your main duties and responsibilities?: I glass and shape boards and manage the shop for the most part.
Why did you choose to work here?: Ever since i was a teenager, ive loved making surfboards, and have continued it to this day.
How did you end up doing the job that you do?: I use to shape boards when i was a teenager, and then i started working in surf shops, and then when i was going to college i studied to be a architect, and after college, i spent some time working in the field that i studied for but i didnt like it, so i went and bought a shop, and started making boards.
What skills and training are necessary for your position?: you need to know how to shape boards, fiber glass them, then glass boards with epoxy, theres a lot to making a surfboard.
How did you acquire these skills? Through school? On the job?: I use to shape boards all the time when i was a kid in my garage, and then i started working in a surf shop.
Do you consider a career in this area satisfying? In what ways?: Yes, i love my job, theres a lot of personal freedom here making, shaping, and designing boards.
Is there anything you wish you'd realized about the world of work when you were my age?: No, i love what i do, and im making a living off of it.
Day One: First Impression
My first day on the job was very basic and simple, i spent the first day, getting acquanted with everyone in the work space, and the work space, i got to see what they did what in every room, and a little about what everyone does in the work space. In the beginning of the day after i was acquanted with everything, i observed make glass a board a little bit, and then i recieved a job to start working a little, which helped becuase i got a little bit more familiar with the workspace, and i had to sweep out two shaping rooms where i had to sweep out a lot of EPS foam shavings and i swept out a couple of other rooms, an near the end of the day i went back and watched Mark glass a little bit more. So my first day was very simple, What striked me about the workspace the most, was it was all very relaxed, everyone kept to there own duties, but it was interesting. My colleagues in the workspace all kept to there own space working making boards, there all pretty nice and helpful, whenever you needed help with anything they were gladly able to help, and there all joke around with each other, you could tell there all really cool people. I havent started doing much work but i am excited to start learning and hands on experience with shaping boards. This week i think is starting with work and observing and after wards ill start getting into shaping boards. I enjoy the work space though, like they said its very free, everyones pretty diligent and works well, and i think ill enjoy working here for the next four weeks.
The picture to the left, is one of the workers at Marks shop, his names Jason, and hes glassing a board that he just covered fiber glass with.
The picture to the left, is one of the workers at Marks shop, his names Jason, and hes glassing a board that he just covered fiber glass with.
Internship Journal May 22nd
My questions i may have for my internship is, when everyone comes in to do work, does everyone have to pick a selection of boards that come in to do for there own rack, do people here get paid depending on how many boards they make or how many hours they put in working. What i do at my internship isnt much of like what i do at school, the aspect might be the same, becuase were interacting with the things im learning, which is what we kinda do at school. Being in the shop is a cool place to be, everyone there are just the funniest and nicest people youll meet, they all love joking around with each other, especially jeff, hes this dude whos the guy who has to paint all the boards, and hes always smilin always telling jokes, ive never seen that guy once when hes in a bummed out mood. What ive learned about what they do at marks shop is they love making boards everyone there loves making boards, and thats there mission and purpose, my dad tells me that making surfboards is a labor of love, becuase it takes so much craftmanship to make a surfboard, and you only make so little money off doing it. In this internship i learning a great high skill in craftsmanship, making surfboards, is definitly one of the highest forms of art and crafting, its a very great skill to learn how to do.
Internship Project 2014
At my internship ive talked to my mentor and what im going to do, is actually for my project im going to be making my own surfboard, im going to make my own demensions and templates for it myself, shape it myself, and even glass it myself. The skills i will need and have been learning over the past week, is knowing how to shape the board, and i will need to know how to glass it as well. for this project my mentor will help me walk through each step and have me preform each procedure myself, except for only a few that requires expert skill to do which my mentor knows how to do, but are very small, whereas he needs to place the fins in my board, but besides that i am essentially making my own board. The cool thing im actually going to start doing to my board or what im going to do to make it look cool, is im going to try and shape it into the shape of a robot and paint a robot on it, and itll me a piece of art slash surfboard crossover, i already have a design set up and i think itll look really cool.
Self Advocacy
In my workplace, i dont think there were very many situations where i really had to stand up for myself, im always learning something, i havent been afraid to offer work to anyone, and ive been able to learn alot just even with the jobs ive been given on how the boards made, for the first week he showed me the basics of making a board last week we got the materials together and the designs and this week i have been able to start shaping my board and hes been walking me through it, ill soon be able to glass it and itll be ready to go. I think i have a been having a great experience in the work place even meeting and getting to know my collegues very well ive always offered jobs to them and anything i can lend a hand with to them, the people in my work place are all very cool and excepting to you, there always cool people.
College and career connections
theres a lot to making boards that helps you understand a lot of hydrodynamics, and especially takes a lot of skill in crafting to make, it takes a lot of patients and a lot of persistance, you have to visualize how the boards going to look, and how itll work in the water, and be able to work with the water, you have to look at it when your shaping it on how itll, create speed and stability, so theres a lot in making a board then could help in other careers or in college, it helps understand hydrodynamics let alone even aerodynamics, it can help understand how to structure something well, it makes you become a very meticulous person.
Internship photos
throughout this last few weeks have been exciting ive learned a lot from my mentor he guides me through a lot of techniques and tricks to what it takes to make a surfboard.
This is mark here, he started glassing the board by putting on a fresh blanket of firber glass over the board.
Here he starts to put on the layer of resin over the polyurethane foam and goes back and forth with a squeeegee to spread out the liquid resin evenly thoroughly around the board.
Heres a close up shot of what the fiber material looks like while mark glasses the board.
This is Jason, one of the many workers here, he does a lot around here, he glasses boards, sandblasts them, etc. He does a lot of the small to big things that need to be done/\.
you cant see much of him but this is Jeff, hes one of the most joyful people i have met on this planet, hes a super cool dude who paints the surfboards all day, before they get glassed.
throughout the past few weeks, its been a real adventure, ive enjoyed talking with a lot of the people there, they' re all goofy and really nice characters, so its been a good experience and really great just being able to work with these people and learn how to shape boards, and even glass them.
Heres a picture of my mentor mark, here you can see him lamenating(glassing) a board right now. He takes the cup of resin or epoxy depending on the foam odf the board and then pours it on top of fiber glass which is laid on top of the foam where he bonds the fiberglass to the blank(shaped foam).
In this photo it shows what i was talking about in the past photo, and by the way he bonds the fiberglass , he goes up and down the board spreading out the resin, with a squeegy.
Heres the picture of a rack of boards mark had to glass that day.
Here i am, as one of the jobs mark frequently gives me, is im doing detail, im cleaning up or getting rid of marks in each board, im kinda like polishing up the board before its, completely finished up.
Here i am shaping the blank i have for my army robot idea.
Here it is again where im finishing up the final taouches before i cut it again and shape again.
Here i am standing next to it, the full hieght of it before i reshape it.
Here i am carving some of the stringer out so its all level.
Here is the tail of the board after its been cut, and im still smoothing the board out a little on the sides.
Me continuing to smooth the sides out a little bit, with a better view.
This is the tail end when i was halfway through painting the robot board.
This was it when i had to package it to bring home to airbrush.
This is my board after it was done, i wanted it to look like a old world war II robot, im not sure if i think its that great lookig but i did alright.
this was the backside of him, or the deck of the board.
Internship project
When i started my internship project, since i was working at a surfboard shop, i thought it would be a cool idea to make a surfboard, so i talked to mark on the idea, and he said it would definitly work out, but i would need to go buy the blank from a shop across the street called Arctic foam, where they sell surf board blanks, now i had two options i could go buy a second blank which is a cheaper blank and its just regular polyester foam which vary from 30$ - 50$, or a first blank, which was better material called EPS, which varies from 70$ - 80$, but since it was my first board, i just ordered a regular 6.4 polyster foam board, so two weeks into internship i bought the board, and started shaping it immediately, at first i wasnt sure, what i wanted to shape, and then after awhile i had the idea to shape it into something outrageous, and after awhile i thought of a can, i thought of a coca cola bottle, i thought of tons of things, and then i had a crazy idea to do a robot, and then i thought what if i ddid some old world war II robot, and it started to click with the idea and how it would come together, i thought how it would look and it would look a little weird, but it ended up pretty good, i started it out by just shaping out a regular shaped board, as seen in my photo essay, and then after i had shaped it out and everything was all sanded to measurement, i had begun drawing out how it would look on the deck and on the back of the board, and then started cutting out the shape of the robot soldier, and had to repeat the process just at a much more complicated circumstance, the process of shaping a board, is all with precision and patients, you can press too hard with certain tools or youll put dips into the board, which will wreck or ruin the board, its all got to be even, thats the one thing i remember most what they told me when i was shaping was that, you can always take off as much foam as you want but you cant put foam back on. at first i had to use what they call a plainer, which is a power tool they use to shave off the surface of the foam to even out the layer of foam, and then what you have to do, is take a tool called a sureform, which is like a long thin cheese grater that you take and shave in the sides with to make it more round, and then you have to go in with just sand paper and round it off all around, sometimes you have to use different materials of sandpaper though to clean it up a bit. after i had finished sanding it, i redrew the robot on both sides as a guide and continued to paint. In result to that robot seen above.