1st fully shaped board ready for glass, new

General Discussion
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Some might remeber that I posted a few weeks ago about help choosing a blank for a stubby/egg. I really appreciate the help I got from everyone.  Since the friend who the board is for wanted a multi-fin I ended up going with a US 5’10" RP with -1" nose and -1/2" tail rocker.  It seemed to work out pretty well.  This is my first fully completed board that will be glassed.  Did a few beat up blanks a few years ago that I re-shaped recently as practice for this.  I have been working with my hands and with power tools for a long time so I feel I have a good hand-eye-mind coordination, that said I know that I’ll make plenty of mistakes.

So I figured I’d share some pics of the finished product. Final dims are 5’6-1/2" over the bottom, 17-1/2" x 20-1/2" x 16" x 2-7/16". Nose rocker is a little over 2" tail about 1-1/2" (they kinda just ended up that way, not through any control of mine).  Wide point is 2" up from center.  Made the outline on boardcad by eye-ing the sahpe I wanted with only a widest point to guide, then printed a template. My friend is 5’11" 155lbs.

I’m happy with the final product but there are definitly some known issues that I need to work on. Had to stop sanding and shaping things and just let it be otherwise I’d have no foam left.  All in all I think it’s pretty good.

Some issues I know I need to improve on, and questions I have, will appreciate advice/remarks on all of these:

-Planer blade gouges when shaping the contours. Standing at the back trying to shape the spiral vee into the back half of the board I would make passes from closed to open to closed to blend the double convaves into the middle of the board, then when I pulled the planer back to start another pass the edge of the blade or the edge of the shoe would leave gouges in the foam (could also be on the cutting stroke, don’t know). Using a hitachi p20sb that I modified to have the large cutting range, and smoothed and faired the shoe edges, might be a knife alignment issue, have to check.

  • I know my spiral-vee is more of a vee with small doubles on either side, oh well, had to stop shaping, will get more accurate with time.  Nose is belly into a single.

  • Rails came out more 50/50 than was my intention, probably too much taken off the bottom tuck.   Top bands went well I think, but rail apex was higher than I wanted.  I did two top bands at 2 and 4, and 1-5/8" up from the bottom.  Bottom tuck was supposed to be 3/8".  That would leave 1-1/4" of square outline left, how do I round this? I used a 80g screen from that point, focusing more on the top, but still ended up with almost 50/50. Would prob help to watch a skilled person do rails. Anyone in Bay Area or Santa Cruz that wants to take me under their wing?

  • Any tips on how to get a nice smooth outline with not dips or flat spots? There’s one small flat spot in this board up forward.  I used a jig saw to cut as close to the line as possible, then smoothed with a long block making full even strokes, and stopped as soon as possible, I figure more fussing = more flat spots.

  • Using the planer to cut the rocker and concaves I need to learn how to close the blade more smoothly and evenly and in better relation to where I am stoping my arm movement.  This resulting in rail/rocker lines that had transitions that weren’t as smooth as I’d like, had to smooth them out with the block. Especially hard was the transition along the outside of the bottom of the belly nose into the single concave middle, this ended up with a hard break (not actually hard but abrubt) in the rail line nose rocker into the middle.

  • Along the same lines as planer control, I foiled the board as best as I knew how, then began to cut bottom contours in stages (nose, middle, tail).  This kinda ended up creating the rocker in the board on its own, and modifying the foil.  I kinda don’t like that I didn’t have control over it, it just happened when I was doing my best to make the contours.  The result is ok because this is a first board, its for a friend, its kinda experimental, and I chose a blank with rockers as close to what I wanted as possible so I couldn’t screw it up.  I think I would struggle if I was cutting a small board from a big blank and creating everything myself.  I guess this is where experience comes into play.

  • Could really use some help with fin placement, I know nothing at all about fin placement.  Would like this board to be a 5 box futures.

Thanks for looking or for any advice.

 

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Hey elcoyote

Looks absolutely great for your first shape. Nice work!

When planing make sure to keep the planer at an angle relative to the stringer to help prevent gouges. Like you said check the blade alignment too. 

For the tuck and flawless outline we make a tool called the Rail Runner that does the work for you. The bottom tuck is on of the most critical aspects of a board since it determines how much “grip” into the wave the board will have so it’s best to undershape it to start and screen it to the radius you want. As soon as you cut that tuck railband a little too much the foam is gone and you’re intended rail shape is altered.

For fin placement here is a general guide to fin layouts. You can move the trailing quad fins in 1/2 the distance between the stringer and front fins if you want. It’s a more popular current quad setup these days. No numbers for that since it all depends on your tail width. The quad fin layout shown in the guide is what we call a “split keel” and is faster and looser in my opinion / experience. 

 

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Yeah - Nice job! Hard to believe it’s your first completed shape.  Will try to answer a couple questions…

“-Planer blade gouges when shaping the contours. Standing at the back trying to shape the spiral vee into the back half of the board I would make passes from closed to open to closed to blend the double convaves into the middle of the board, then when I pulled the planer back to start another pass the edge of the blade or the edge of the shoe would leave gouges in the foam (could also be on the cutting stroke, don’t know). Using a hitachi p20sb that I modified to have the large cutting range, and smoothed and faired the shoe edges, might be a knife alignment issue, have to check.”

**When you hit the edge of the foam your planer no longer is supported by the front and back of the base.  If you hold a straight edge lengthwise along the bottom and slide it back and forth you’ll see what happens when the straight edge is supported by only the front or back… it tends to rest more on the blade.  In practice, this results in a deeper cut even with the depth adjustment set at ‘zero.’  I think it might help if you learn to place the front base on the edge of the foam and slightly ‘lift’ the back end of the planer as you power on and slide it forward. **

Beware using a planer to cut your outline… same sort of thing.  The curve of the outline fits up between the front and rear shoe and will take a deeper cut than the depth adjustment would indicate.

“- Rails came out more 50/50 than was my intention, probably too much taken off the bottom tuck.   Top bands went well I think, but rail apex was higher than I wanted.  I did two top bands at 2 and 4, and 1-5/8” up from the bottom.  Bottom tuck was supposed to be 3/8".  That would leave 1-1/4" of square outline left, how do I round this? I used a 80g screen from that point, focusing more on the top, but still ended up with almost 50/50. Would prob help to watch a skilled person do rails. Anyone in Bay Area or Santa Cruz that wants to take me under their wing?"

Try getting the bottom all shaped out and sanded smooth right to the 90 degree outline edge.  It helps a lot if it’s 90 degrees all the way around at this point and true to the template pattern you used.  Figure out ahead of time how sharp you want your rail edges.  Decide if you want a softened rail up front or down rail/beak nose kind of thing.  This is when you want to know ahead of time how the final result will be, not after you’re looking at how it happened to turn out.  

If the bottom tuck is planned to be 3/8", figure out exactly where the maximum tuck will be and blend it in to that spot. Many modern boards have a sharp edge in the tail so stay away from that zone when blending in your bottom tuck.  If you plan on a down rail in front, same thing… fade/taper your tuck to a sharp edge up there as well and stay away.  I usually make quite a few shallow cuts with a hand tool and visualize a zero cut to maximum tuck and back to zero.  The trick is gradually fading your cuts before you hit the zero marks.  It wouldn’t hurt to lay a straight edge across the bottom at the spot where you want your edge to extend from the tail and put a bit of tape on each side so your edges are equal on each side.

A framing square can be used to monitor your tuck as well as your eyes.  The fading/blending part on both sides so they’re symmetrical is what can drive you nuts.

If you want a soft rail up front, visualize the stringer line on the bottom and cut it how you want it.  For a rolled bottom, you will have cut some belly bands and blended them in the bottom prior to this.  By blending the belly bands and the forward rail tuck to match the stringer, you’ll be making progress.

“- Any tips on how to get a nice smooth outline with not dips or flat spots? There’s one small flat spot in this board up forward.  I used a jig saw to cut as close to the line as possible, then smoothed with a long block making full even strokes, and stopped as soon as possible, I figure more fussing = more flat spots.”

Trace your perfectly trued template pattern with a pencil (not a Sharpie) and STICK TO THE LINE with whatever tool you feel most comfortable.  Use a framing square to confirm a 90 degree angle around the template.  This is an important fundamental step at which a lot of things can end up going south if you don’t get it right.  I have a long semi-flexible rubber sanding block I use to get right to the line.

From this stage, your bottom tuck can be monitored, your deck bevels can be monitored and you will be able to leave that magic 1/4" in between to be blended as a final step with your sanding screen.  Chasing mistakes at this point can get you in trouble so don’t make any mistakes(!)  HAHA - seriously, nice job and best wishes on your future shapes.

 

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Thanks for the encouragement and tips, I’ll definitely study what you both wrote.  I’m sure the biggest thing is practice