Picked up this tip from Swaylocks a while ago and tried it on one blank - wow - this is great. Forgot about it for a while untill this week I started cutting out some blanks again. Just wanted to post some pics - this makes it so easy to cut a blank by yourself and you dont have to worry about the hotwire cutting into your template wood - really really nice!
Cut some spacer pieces ( i used stringer wood offcuts) and drill a hole in them - stick em between your foam and rocker profile. Now your bobbins ($1 for a pack in the sewing section of your local store) can ride smooth on your profiles! Fantastic! Thanks Swaylocks!
Push down with the bow going forward and pull up on the bow pulling back and you have yourself a super smmmmoooooth cut - no snags!!
All my hotwires have them!Even the mini handheld for fine tuning an outline has one so I can lay my outline template on the blank and run the roller(bobbin) around the edge of the template cutting the foam to match perfectly.Home depot has double sided tape in the carpet section and its great for sticking rocker templates to the side of your foam block,no flexing of your template even at the ends where they are thinnest.I think it cost like 1.50 a board to use the tape.See if you can find a guitar tuner to replace that spring on your bow,youll love it!
no perimeter stringers on this one - I have a batch of boards that are all center stringer eps - a lot of surfers seem to want something that looks and feels just like their normal boards they are used to but are attracted to the eps/epoxy construction because of its durability.
Bobbins created more problems when I tried them a few years ago. Didn’t roll that great and often twisted, crabbing down the edge.
I use .025" SS wire. It slides down my tempered hardboard fine. Although on my last template, I switched from Home Depot hardboard to Lowes. The Lowes stuff sucked. Broke too easy and the wire didn’t slide as nice. Back to Home Depot next time.
You can grab a pack of welding tips at home depot they slide into the bobbins perfectly,then the wire through the welding tip.Your blanks come out a little thicker but theres no harm in that.
i made some templates that have a full length attached spacer instead of seperate spacers just under the nails. really solid - works really well and much easier to attach to the foam!
