My shaping room…all wood. Built it in about 6 hours with my brothers help, about 8 years ago. Ugly but functional…
Ah, well, that at least I can help you with, Sean. And it’s useful for anybody building a hollow wooden board or laminated structure with anything that’s much thicker than veneers.
Bending wood is best done with steam, and for info on that I can’t do any better for the basics than Gregg Germain’s steam bending FAQ: http://www.wcha.org/tidbits/steamfaq.html and it’s also copied on other sites.
I’ll also note from my own work that a wood steam box or one made of insulation foam works pretty good, less heat loss than the PVC pipe some use. I use a plumber’s furnace ( originally made for melting lead) for heat, a small steel gas can for a boiler and a radiator hose to connect the boiler to the steam box.
Best to use unseasoned wood, fresh out of the tree, and for thin stuff it’s best to have straight-grained wood riven ( split off, like a shake/shingle) and then planed flat, as the grain will be as straight as you’re gonna get it. Option B is to split off an edge and then saw your thin strips with a bandsaw run along paralell to that split edge. Once it’s steamed ( 200 degrees F or more) and then cooled it’s effectively seasoned and dried.
hope that’s of use
doc…
Well, I would’nt call it crafted. My buddy and I back during the starving student days built an outrigger canoe using old corrugated roofing tin, plastic piping, an old surfboard, and lots and lots of bondo. Filled up quite a few bags of rockfish as long as we had someone to continuously bail out the water. He sunk it somwhere with no loss of life. Mike
I worked for a couple of years as a woodwind repair technician. While I was there I made all kinds of crazy instruments. I made a couple of horns we called the “Go-def-a-phone” series. It was basically parts from various old brass horns curving and twisting all around, and on the first one, it ended with a huge trombone bell aiming right back in your face when you played it. Hence the name. It looked like something straight out of a Dr. Suess book. One idea I never got around to trying out was making a digeridoo with keys and toneholes, kind of like a saxaphone. I never got around to experimenting with that, I still may some day. One idea I had was making a catamaran kind of deal with two longboard blanks set up with some kind of hardware to attatch a lawn chair on top. and maybe a battery powered boat motor on the back like they have on canoes. like some kind of leisurly fishing rig. maybe one day…
I’ve always been interested in how things are built. When I was thirteen, I drew up the ruff drafts for the house my father lives in. I started college as an engineering student. I managed a custom boat yard and got to over see the creation and recreations of many high end projects. Now, I design and build molds for custom plastic parts. Just last week I cut my first set of mold cavities from start to finish. It’s pretty amazing going from concept to someting tangable. I’ve always admired the abilities of the specialist craftsmen in every area I’ve been involved.
Yo Ten,
Did you ever run into Larry Breedlove over at Taylor…he works in new products and was involved in the development of the classical guitar. Great guy, good shaper and regular Cliffs guy. He made a lot of longer quad fish…
Have ya finished sanding yet?
Hmm…I’m a diehard recycler or more appropriately described as one who hates to throw something away if there is still life in it. Retail sucks too, I spent way too many years behind a counter. I got a lot of pleasure over the past month in sidestepping the headache of a recently discovered leak under my concrete slab. I fixed a five figure plumbing repair for $86.00 and few weeks of R&D.
My wife is getting a lot of pleasure from another recent project. I was dismantling the kid’s WalMart trampoline as they had outgrown it. The circular components were calling to me and they never made it to the junkyard. Later, tom.
Life is an art project last month a ply glass wheel barrow,before I finished it and mounted it on the frame iI used it to mix the concrete to make the rack stands its not done yet and the sand and concrete abrasion sanded the hatcoat …last year the wooden box project I made about twenty boxes and crates topping off with two cash drawers with contrasting woods light outside dark mahogany inside,sculpted ends on crates with inset handles,these are primitive conatruction …nails…no dove tails and crooked with high finishes the kind o’ box to drive real wood workers to distraction… the paddle project made a modified samoan paddle 7’long for paddle training self abuse ,self built house on going no mortgage building loan plan to live building,and learning processes … occasional stool projects for excercise , conversaion , stepping up to he top shelf,future plans fiberglass orbs to be internally lit,light fixtures with translucent fiberglass lenses…ambrose…lets build somthing cool…
Ive designed and helped build many many things in my day. Projects in college saw me putting input on design and then doing the manual labor for bridges and houses in the Charleston area.
Surfboards, in comparison, seem a bit easier and much more fun
ambrose - yeah lamps, light, love, very cool medium. Made a floor lamp - love the mobility, self sufficiancy of the motief - in art school with a drinking glass set in plaster and burlap, against a bit head size balloon,all wrapped in plaster and burlap (the poor artists glass and resin) sits about 6’ off ground on 1" pole, hole in top. Put in 150 watt bulb - to blast the white light up out of the hole, and out through the “eye” (glass). Made it to aim the light out of the eye on to a desk - kind of a combo lamp (floor/desk). painted all black and purple w/old wetsuit pieces hanging off w/purple paint as leaves or… Keep up the good work.
Got into making cedar half block models of old sailing and motor boats. Found a book of boat plans at a second hand book shop. Had to rework all the offsets down to a size suitable for a model and do the loftings.platty. 
Wow, very nice! Especially as you worked from the offsets rather than just making a decorative item as so many do. That’s hard, especially on that scale.
doc…
Yup. I know Larry real well. I rode one of his quad-fish board things, and LOVED it. Larry is THE man at Taylor.
Been building custom handcrafted beer. Get some at SA04.
Gary Geist
Looks like a lot of us like guitars.I worked for my good buddy Randy Wood.I mainly do woodworking and restore antiques nowadays.Check out some pics of what comes out of this little Guitar shop.Taylors are pretty nice for a mass produced guitar.Check this… www.randywoodguitars.com .
Hokey Smoke Bullwinkle…thems some mighty fine boxes! The archtops are simply amazing. Must be talking $10,000-$15,000 no? Do they sound as good as they look?
Randy Wood’s guitars sound really good.His Mandolins are what everyone want’s…2 year backlog.Randy is a great guy.kicked back southern boy.Heres the deal with Guitars…it doesn’t matter who made it as long as it aint plywood like the new ones.I have owned Martins,Gibsons,Epiphones,Galaghers you name it and the best one I ever had was an early 60’s Yamaha FG100.nothin but a Martin copy but it was Magic.Guitars are like surfboards…some are magic some aint.
framed out the interior and ran electrical for one of my houses
built a waterski (trick ski)
build snowboards in the early 80s
wood go-cart (no motor)
skate ramps
assembled computers
clocks (and other wood shop/metal shop projects)
skimboard
plan to build my bed frame, surfboards (foam and wood hollows) and who knowes what else.
I’m sure once I get started I’ll build a lot more.
–4est
I started building sandboards. The price of a board in the store was too much for me, so I decided to build my own. After trial and error, I was capable of build rideable boards and started a bussiness. Then I jump to skimboards, they were also too expensive for me, so I built my own and incorporated skimboards to the bussiness. That’s how actually I get the money to build my wood hollow surfboard. And if the hollow works, I’ll incorporate it to the bussiness and then build something bigger…and more expensive hehe. Jack.