Shapaholic: Just to put this in perspective, I made 34 boards last year, about 1/2 were all hand shaped and 2/3 were longboards. I’m just a backyard guy and this is not my main line of work.That’s a little bit less than my yearly average and I’ve been doing this for a while. I used both my Hitachi’s and Skils for the hand shapes. There is a lot of info on the Hitachi’s on this site if you just look. Here’s my 2c on the Hitachi the way you are using it. First, get a set of sealed bearings and put them in the planer. When, and if you spin one of the unsealed ones, you will have a $100 piece of green plastic sh!t that is worthless. Do this ASAP! McMaster/Carr or another dealer has them as well as some surf supliers. Second, go to Harbor Freight and pick up a cheap reostat to reduce the cutter speed to reduce tear-out. That way you don’t need a $300 grit barrel. That’s cheaper than what your date would order at McD’s. My third recommendation is to check out the thread posted below. Modify the handle, your wrists will thank me after your 3rd board. Save your coin, check swap meets & ebay, and get a skil after you have done 10+ boards with the hitachi. When you find one under $300, buy it if the shoes are straight and it hasn’t been dropped (a common problem with the cheap ones) and have Pete C recondition it for you. Every hand shaper I know will tell you that the Skil is “the tool” and they all use hitachis too. Gui (Balsa) is a good guy and trying to help you be a stoked newbie and after a few boards, a true shaper. Again, just my 2c…
…hello man, a mod Hitachi is not only the depth mechanism; go ahead and do the simple mods that I d mentioned to you some days ago.
5.5 Skills are not so good for real foam mowing, 7.5 is the way to go with the Skills. Modified Hitachi f30s are excellent; more power too.
Yes, you can shape a board with a stock planer or a mod planer; with an stock one, is more difficult (and more things to fuck up if you do not have the right techniques), but I did hundreds of shapes with stock planers.
Here couple of photos shaping a Balsa board with an F30 and a foam Fsih with a mod sp20:
Guilhem; have you seen this one. Pete Casica’s, Modified Bosch 1594. It won’t completely replace our Skil’s and Accurate’s, but it’s awsome and blows the doors off any of the Clark Hitachi’s. I love it, Rail banding has never been easier.
…hey Jim, seems you are a bit confused about what Im talking; I mean, Im not talking about the planning techniques, I d mentioned couple of mods to DO to your STOCK plane man, you need 0$ to do that and about 1 hour of labor or so.
-Hello Oldphartshaper, I never used that Rockwell, so I do not know if this is similar.
Thanks for the heads up. I realize now that there are better options, but I don’t have the dough right now.I did
six mos ago, but my rent just got raised…so for now, I think w ingenuity, and certain techniques I can carefully zero out in areas the build calls for. Good thing some folk’s are describing dif planers bcuz not all planers are equal. That said, I think a guy bent on shaping a good board can do it - even with a - stock Hitachi planer. T c
I just wanted to note that there are some shapers that swear by the stock style planers. I know of one prominate AU guy in particular. No names, but as a person who was taught to use a planer that you can adjust on the fly… it’s always been interesting topic for me. For instance, you can use one hand to hold the plane while the other is freed up to manipulate the blank. Seen it in action and it’s pretty impressive.
Like I said, different strokes for different folks. I also have to say that the first 10 or so boards I made was with a stock makita… you couldn’t have told me any difference back in those days. It’ll work. More important to start hacking at a blank instead of hacking at these forums!
My first planer was a Skil 100. My Dad bought it for me when I was 15, that was 1975. I learned to use it with the generous guidance of a local shaper in my area. Who freely shared his knowledge with me and let me sit in and watch him shape. In 1983 My beloved Skil planer was stolen. I didn’t have the money to buy a new one. There was no internet and you couldn’t find a used one if your life depended on it. New ones were about $325.00 after sales tax. I made $8.25 an hour as a carpenters apprentice and couldn’t afford that. So I bought a Makita planer for $65.00 basically it was exactly the same as the Hitachi F-20. To add rocker to the tail or the nose I had to use a technique that I called stepping down. Take a pass, say 14in. up from the tail and stop, then another pass 8in. than another 3in. up then blend with a full pass over the steps you’ve created or with a sureform until you have your desired rocker and thickness. I used it til 1988 When Clark came out with the Modified Hitachi F-20A. I bought it for a$140.00, it was much better, I could adjust on the fly again. But it just did not compare to the Skil. By this time Skil had discontinue the Skil 100. And I still couldn’t afford a new one that may still be on the shelf at the tool store. In 1992 I met a guy on a job I was working on. I was talking about shaping and how my Skil was stolen when he told me he had one and he never uses it. He sold it to me for $125.00 I finely had another Skil 100, so much better. Anyways do yourself a favor and save $10.00 a week. In 1 year you’ll have $520.00 You should be able to find a decent Skil 100 for that. and when you learn and get use to using it ,you finally will know what Balsa is talking about. Here’s a pic of the Clark modified Hitachi I bought back in 1988.
These forums are too opinionated. The media seems to blind us all into thinking a tool is no good bcuz it’s stock. Like you said - some swear by them, they do work. I know it’s not ideal, but! It’s good enough for basic diy shaping. T c
I actually thought about this topic more over dinner. Having a planer that is powered by electricity is a far step in a positive direction compared to the days of a simple block plane or draw knife. (Not that I was there, and I feel blessed to have skipped those “good old days”) To get worked up about if it’s the best tool for the job when you’re still working on your first 10,100, or even 1000 boards is simply silly. There’s techniques out there to utilize any and all tools. Be stoked with what you have. I remember when having 100$ to spend on tool was a good month, and am humbled by the thought. Get out of your chair and go shape. :)
It CAN be done with just about any stock planer. Some guys on this forum even use cheapo Harbor Freight planners and get the job done. Eventually if you stick with it though you will see the advantages of a planer that is set up for Surfboard shaping as opposed to a planer straight out of the box that was intended for planing wood. While I was on Maui for several years I used a Clark Modified Hitachi. Though I owned a Skil; it was on the Mainland and I didn’t want to risk shipping it or having it stolen out of my checked luggage.(You cannot “carry-on” a Skil 100). Believe me baggage handlers in the Islands know a $500–1000 Skil when they see it. Hitachi modified or not has lots of issues if you are really going to do much shaping with it. Not for production. A blank here a, blank there is fine. But day to day shaping of five to ten blanks is too hard on the Hitachi bearings. They are famous for melting the plastic body. Lots of guys in Australia favor unmodified Makitas. and they have devloped technique to work around it. You’ll eventually see the light so start saving your cash now. And keep your eyes open at the yard sales. Modifiying an Hitachi depth adjustment is no easy or cheap modification. I have done a couple with parts that I scavenged from burnt up Clark Hitachis and it was no easy feat even with the right parts The statement made by reverb that a five amp Skil isn’t adequate for mowing foam is complete bull shit. Lowel.
McDing -thanks for the info about how planers work + model’s …
I am not one to ask about model’s, or what planer is good or what’s not. That said, back in the day the shapers I think were using skil 100’s, but it’s an amazing machine no doubt. Like I said, I was going to buy one back then one week but didn’t.
I think just I was short 50 bucks, but couldn’t ask my folk’s to lend me the bucks as I thought I should drum up the bucks myself for it. But man, I dreamed about picking it up at the store! No joke. Later on my Dad sadly had a nervous breakdown as something in business went totally south for him. Anyway, at the time a neighbor of mine who was a surfer who kneeboarded, well I didn’t know him but I’d just commented on his cool knee board. A week later he gave me my first job painting interior walls. It was k, but it was short lived bcuz my neighbor was just backed up, and was just getting caught up. Plus he said he didn’t have enough work to be able to pay anyone. So I asked Dad if we should just paint houses ourselves - so my Dad and I bought a cheesy 15" extension ladder and got sum jobs! Then we got a client that sold power tools-so we got to trade for tools as my dad asked about it.anyway, Dad asked if I could use a planer if they have um…well, they did! I ended up with a bluish Makita planer! I knew nothing about it, but it ran sweet I only shaped one board with it. Sold it because I wasn’t using it. It seemed very similar to my hitachi. I’m glad it’ll get me by. Do you think I should switch out to sealed bearings? If so, is it hard to do? I’m not very mechanical, and would hate to ruin a working unit…
It’ll work. More important to start hacking at a blank instead of hacking at these forums!