D.I.Y. HWS

General Discussion
1

i’m from the philippines where there are lots of new world-class surf spots still being discovered (i started surfing in 2005 btw).

i’m looking for a surf shop on the california coastline that’s willing to take me in as an apprentice, so i can learn how to shape boards well enough to set up shop back here.

i’m very much willing to learn all about surfcraft from end to end, by initially doing ding repair.

my ideal shaper-mentor would be someone whose expertise includes custom-built HWS, so i can learn how to utilize environment-friendly materials (bamboo & other natural fibers) that are easy to source here.

if there’s a way i can help out in marketing & selling your boards in exchange for an end-to-end surfcraft apprenticeship, i would appreciate your feedback soonest.

thanks

2

Life Lesson: no one is going to hire a low entry level worker who is not already present in a locale.

You present yourself as currently being in the Phillipines.

Reason: Their thinking would run along the lines of: You probably dont have much of a support structure

or money in a new locale and they wont want to be the reason

to send you packing back to where you came from in case you dont work out. Firing someone can be risky and stressful to the employer especially if the person being fired is going to fall off a precipice.

In the past during job searches when I wanted to relocate…I am a skilled IT worker.

I always used local # pagers,and local mail boxes to present myself

as currently being local. Once the call came through

for an interview, I’d arrange enough time for travel,

and represent myself as already relocated and looking

for work in the area. Frequently employers are looking

for workers that are local and are averse to calling #'s

that would imply a long commute or a worker that would need to relocate, and having this technique

would ,irregardless of anything else, enhance my chances of getting called, interviewed and hired.

3

[=1]

Quote:

Life Lesson: no one is going to hire a low entry level worker who is not already present in a locale.

You present yourself as currently being in the Phillipines.

Reason: Their thinking would run along the lines of : You probably dont have much of a support structure or money in a new locale and they wont want to be the reason to send you packing back to where you came from in case you dont work out. Firing someone can be risky and stressful to the employer especially if the person being fired is going to fall off a precipice.

In the past during job searches when I wanted to relocate…I am a skilled IT worker. I always used local # pagers,and local mail boxes to present myself as currently being local. Once the call came through for an interview, I’d arrange enough time for travel, and represent myself as already relocated and looking for work in the area. Frequently employers are looking for workers that are local and are averse to calling #'s that would imply a long commute or a worker that would need to relocate, and having this technique would, irregardless of anything else, enhance my chances of getting called, interviewed and hired.

howdy otis, thanks for the heads up; however the life lesson on your IT jobhunting & relocation experience may not apply here.

if you took the time to read my post carefully, i’m looking for a master board builder to take me in as an apprentice at crafting hollow wooden surfboards, so i can set up my own shop back here after learning the necessary skills in board design, wood selection, wood shaping/assembly & glassing/finishing.

initially i was concerned that the issue of grooming future competition would pose a dilemma to HWS experts : would they rather keep the hard-earned knowledge to themselves or share it with future boardbuilders in good faith?

i was surprised to get emails from HWS builders from the US & NZ, who believe that the world would be a much better place if there were more boardshapers out there switching from foam to wood, as they had done, for the sake of the environment.

a few of them suggested that i take the DIY approach in pursuing my ‘mission’, as they call it, to build 100% renewable surfboard components using plant fiber from grasses, vines & reeds, which are far cheaper to obtain here and easier to re-grow compared to wood.

a couple of them also suggested that i sign up for their week-long HWS-building workshops, and while it’s a good way to start, the initial step would be insufficient since i would still need to apprentice with an experienced board builder to master everything from end to end-- the tools, techniques & raw materials that go into making HWS that perform well-- which i would have to modify extensively since i will be using tropical plant fiber from available raw materials here.

[ 2]hopefully there’s a master HWS builder from the california coastline who shares this mission and will take me in as an apprentice.[/][/]

4

Surfibar - I think Otis’s point is very valid. Plus I think you’ll find it hard for a few other reasons: first off all theres is the reloction issue, you seem to have a fairly limited experience working in the surf industry and your basically saying “please train me up then as soon as you have I’ll be out the door and setting my own business up” this give the empolyer no insentive to teach you as you’ll be wasting their time and be a potential competitor.

HWS is still quite a specifit market, there are no real massproducers due to the labour intensive building process. Any master crafts man is only going to empoly someone that they think will be loyal and carry on working for them once they have been trained.

You’ll only learn so much by working in a mass production factory setting and the real craftsmen will only employ someone with experience and will probably only have 1 or 2 guys in each room, until one moves on they won’t need to hire any more people.

You can however pay to go on courses, Rob bucker (foam long boards) does one for about $500 and i think and Jenson holds HWS workshops. They also sell instructional DVDs, I would recomend getting as much experience as possible. build boards then aproach other hws craftsmen as a peer, sharing is a 2 way street, they will be happy to share info/tips if they can see you are making an effort to learn under your own steem. you can bounce ideas off of people adn If you have anything new then people will be willing to colabirate on a project.

Instead of trying to get an apprentaship straight off the bate, do some research on people that you would like to work for, get in touch with them, be friendly and they may let you spend a week or 2 in there workshop, you’ll learn a lot in this time.

Of corse Sways is a hugh resource, If you pit the money you would spend on re-location into setting up a small work shop and on materials then you can start learning and experimenting straight away.

5

Everything is right on this website. You don’t need to move away to learn to make surfboards. All you need to do is start making surfboards, you need to jump in. Swaylocks is a Master apprenticeship program, you just need to look, listen, research the website. Most of the guys on this site are self taught and refined from this site.

People think that by watching a master make a board is going to make a difference in there craftmanship. I might help speed things up a bit, but there is no subsitute to actually making the thing. You will know very fast if you have the eye and talent to make a great looking & great riding surfboard, or just another white peice of foam with fins. And to be honest, most masters won’t give you the time of day. I know of one guy that Owl Chapman helped learn, the guy was from Japan, and to this day he sends Owl a check for a couple grand every year. Now thats student / master payback.

Get Jim Phillips Master Shaper video, and Rodger Bruckers Master Glassing video. save yourself the airfare and relocation costs. learn the basics well from these video and you’ll be making surfboards better than 90% of the guys out there.

if your still hot coming to So Cal. I’d get in contact with Jim P, or one of the other masters in the area. Set up some kind service agreement, something like to Owl arrangement. Everybodys got to eat, and selling surfboards has never been harder.

6

Or what about the most likely scenario.

Boy meets girl, girl gets pregneant,boy loves new country, boy and girl marry,

boy goes nowhere and competes in same locale with his mentor.

Even negating the above,

an employer would want to keep legal about the whole

thing and the govt. makes these things a headache and expense to sponsor a worker from abroad. Even if you have somone who is ‘under the table’ and you both have an understanding, if they get hurt you have to worry

if they are going to report you for any/all employment violations.

It would be a heavy temptation to anyone who has just sawed a finger or two off to report their ‘employer’ so they

could be covered under the normal state sponsored plans

and get proper medical and rehabiliatation services.

Further, it would be a nightmare to meet and/or talk to a potential apprentice from abroad and have to cover all these potential issues. Further, you’re likely to only elicit trained positive answers to their financial resources,

whether they have health insurance and how they would handle moral dilemmas. …Cant do this with well meaning strangers.

Its a sticky wicket from any angle.

Yet, someone might throw caution to the wind

and have a new unvetted friend from abroad, who has no posting history on this forum or seemingly hasnt developed any relations on this forum, hanging about all the time.

But,I wouldnt bet on it.

7
Quote:

Or what about the most likely scenario.

Boy meets girl, girl gets pregneant,boy loves new country, boy and girl marry,

boy goes nowhere and competes in same locale with his mentor.

Even negating the above,

an employer would want to keep legal about the whole

thing and the govt. makes these things a headache and expense to sponsor a worker from abroad. Even if you have somone who is ‘under the table’ and you both have an understanding, if they get hurt you have to worry

if they are going to report you for any/all employment violations.

It would be a heavy temptation to anyone who has just sawed a finger or two off to report their ‘employer’ so they

could be covered under the normal state sponsored plans

and get proper medical and rehabiliatation services.

Further, it would be a nightmare to meet and/or talk to a potential apprentice from abroad and have to cover all these potential issues. Further, you’re likely to only elicit trained positive answers to their financial resources,

whether they have health insurance and how they would handle moral dilemmas. …Cant do this with well meaning strangers.

Its a sticky wicket from any angle.

Yet, someone might throw caution to the wind

and have a new unvetted friend from abroad, who has no posting history on this forum or seemingly hasnt developed any relations on this forum, hanging about all the time.

But,I wouldnt bet on it.

oh boy, talk about negating the above. see http://www.grainsurf.com/…/viewtopic.php?t=880 for the latest. cheers

8

howdy woody & resinhead, i’ll see whether those videos are available here. i emailed a local chemical firm last monday to ask about their epoxy & resin products, still no reply. hopefully that gives you a clear picture of my difficulty here, nobody seems to be in a position to understand the process involved in surfcraft. so yeah, locally i’m a pioneer of sorts.

cheers

apparently the grainsurf link doesn’t open here, sorry.

here’s the content :

[/url]Surfiber

proletarian

Joined: 09 Sep 2008

Posts: 7

Location: Metro Manila, Phils.

Posted: Wed Sep 24, 2008 3:41 am Post subject: HWS DIY : can you help?

hey guys, could you help me get started?

i’m taking the advice of a couple of established HWS builders to go DIY, instead of waiting for an apprenticeship offer that may never come.

i’d really appreciate your DETAILED INPUTS on the ff :

  1. in terms of wood selection, what specific properties should i look for to make the rails?

  2. what specific hand tools should i get for building (cutting, shaping/carving, finishing) my own HWS prototype?

  3. how thick or thin should the top & bottom decks be?

  4. as an alternative to fiberglass, are tropical plant fibers (like pineapple, abaca, & banana) fit for glassing? these strong, translucent fabrics are used here in the phils. for formal wear (easy to find, although a bit expensive).

  5. what chemical products do i need to get for bonding HWS sections together & for glassing the finished board? (pls indicate the brands so i can source them locally)

  6. as an alternative to vacuum-bagging and/or using factory-made clamps that i see in a lot of projects posted here, could pairs of bamboo, wood or metal tubing work in clamping down the top & bottom decks to the rails during curing time?

  7. what size & type of board should i build for my own custom HWS prototype? would appreciate suggested dimensions, rail & rocker profiles that will work well for me.

sizewise, i’m 5 ft. - 6 & 1/2 inches tall, weighing about 170 to 175 lbs. in terms of surfing skill, i’m somewhat in between a beginner and an intermediate surfer, surfing only beach breaks with 2-4 ft waves for now as i don’t have the confidence yet to tackle larger waves or to paddle out into overhead surf conditions.

since 2005 i’ve gone surfing on 9 separate 3-day weekends to various beach breaks here, renting boards everytime; i have yet to learn how to do tricks that long-time surfers are able to do, which i’d also like to master.

with your help, hopefully i could finish building a HWS hybrid using 80% tropical plant fiber (local grasses, vines and/or reed species) with wooden rails.

thanks !

9

  1. That it is easy to bend, is light, has a tight grain and is easy to sand, balsa, cork and bending ply are commonly used

  2. A sharp stanly knife, I guess you’lnn not stretch to a band saw so good fine toothed saw, a pull saw will gice a very straight fine cut but won’t do curve, a good hand plan, draw knofe or spoke shave, you’ll need lots of clamps, cable ties are also usefull.

  3. depends on the wood used, you can go thiner with ply or if you glass the inside, I used 4mm ply. for cosmetics you can buy faced ply or use veneer. if you use the jensson/grain method of laming stips of dif wood then you need to go a pitt thicker.

  4. I know you can use muslin, cotton or hemp so I don’t see why these cloths would be any dif but you will need to test for cosmetics. I dont think Roy uses cloth I think he oils his boards.

  5. Gorilla glue, good quality wood glue (exterior) or epoxy, do tests with local brands

  6. Yes, or spring clamps rounf the edge and wieghts in the middle, I use a stack of books or bricks.

  7. The same dims as a foam board but you can make them slightly thinker and achieve the same boauncy.

There are plenty of good build threans in the discution forums and archieve I would suggest you read all of these.

As far as the epoxy goes, you should be able to get it imported.

10

hi woody, thanks for the initial inputs.

method-wise, i’m not yet convinced about any particular approach but i’m considering the way hess builds his surfboards. his theory seems sound although i prefer using natural bamboo decking instead of having foam inside the frame.

my plan is to modify his rail-anchored boardbuilding method. i’m thinking of attaching the pine nose & tail blocks i bought last weekend to a central wooden stringer, then adding rails built the way jensen, blundell, grain guys do it (is it called bead & cove or strip & feather?), frm slats made of either bamboo or rattan.

that way the whole framework ends up light at the sides and solid at the nose & tail sections. that’s what can be done cost-effectively given the materials currently available here btw.

but i haven’t decided yet on the sub-structure or layer in between the decks, since i don’t want to use plywood sections (machine-tooling required for accuracy) per the jensen/blundell/grain method.

what do you think?

11

you mean like this:

the rail matterial will add the most wieght to the board the skins and frame are act quite light till the rails go on.

I think you may find it easier to start off with the frame first and then add the skins, if you have an internal rail then all you have to do is use a hand plane to take them down to the plane shape. I used a flush trim router bit and it was done in minutes but its not really that difficult by hand.

As for the internal frame I used a Knive, a plane and a pull saw, machines facilitate consistancy in reprodcution and speed, the same way they do for foam blanks but they are not neccicary at the stage.

12

hey woody,

you really nailed it with that drawing, thanks for the insights. following hess’s approach-- displacing weight away from the decks to the rails-- would then work right for my hybrid prototype, bonding hand-bended bamboo/rattan slats to mimic solid wood rails for subsequent planing. since there are no routers or other machine tools available here for rental use, i’m set on using hand tools all the way.

anyone here who could suggest the right board shape, dimensions, rail & rocker profiles that would work well for my size (and for the intermediate-level beach breaks that i surf here) would be a huge help going forward. cheers

13

Bamboo is quite dense and also a bit heavy.

The one thing I would add about using bamboo is that is has a habbit of dulling blades very quickly and you will need a very sharpe tool to work with it. building up and shaping the rails will take about 80-90% of your time. for the skins I think isa a great choise of wood but for the rails I think you would be better off using something similar to balsa or cork = light,flexible and easy to shape.

Be aware of the time scales involved in making each board is going to be about a months with power tools, (band saw, hole saw, router, belt sander,) we hand tools it will take longer, if you use bamboo for the rails I would gues it will take atleast a month or even two just for the rails.

Other points re shape to consider, it is easier to make a board with a pointed nose then as full round nose as there is less bendding involved

14

wow, i guess i’ll have to find alternatives that are easier to work with. busy busy weekend.

re board shape, swell.com’s board anatomy guide was very helpful as well. also discovered a detailed writeup about the wonders of a bonzer setup with 5 fins. how that might work for my HWS prototype, i have no idea. for now i’ll either go with a fun gun or a longboard gun, with some slight modifications at 8"8". it would be interesting to know whether any of the builders here ever attempted any hybrid of this sort, let alone carve double-concaves for HWS ?

btw, thanks again for the precious HWS reference!

= )

15

howdy guys,

finally! my akushaper-assisted custom hybrid prototype template can now be viewed in pdf.

how do i post it here for your comments or edit suggestions ?

16

any comments on the template before i start building my prototype?

17
Quote:
any comments on the template before i start building my prototype?

Hey kid, here is a comment.

It looks like you should have started a new thread for this in the general discussion forum about 6 posts and 2 weeks ago.

18
Quote:
Quote:

here is a comment

Hey kid, it looks like i should have started a new thread for this in the general discussion forum about 6 posts and 2 weeks ago. How do you rename & move this thread over ?

19

are there trolls here too? hope not.

20

statistically? about half, based on what little exposure i’ve had in this forum thus far.

it’s a good thing the boost i got from the helpful half far outweighs the output of the harmful half. a matter of upbringing IMHO