First Attempt

General Discussion
1

First attempt at shaping my own board.

Recycled foam from junky old yellow delammed log.

Inspired wholly by this site and especially Chipfish

and the boards he’s been recycling. Thanks Chip!!

I stripped it, cut it out with a template I made from

some flexy molding, and planed for hours to get to this stage.

The only tools I have used are a handsaw, small block plane

and some 80 grit sandpaper. The real challenge lies ahead

to see if I can do the rails without buying an electric planer

[board has 3 stringers] or karate chopping it in half in frustration.

Any comments on that would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks-Paulie

Sorry the pics are bad. My camera is junky.


2

very clever how you made a 6’2 board out of what look like two 1’ long pieces of surfboard .

…would you consider going on a magic programme on t.v. ? I know a few guys with 2’ bits of surfboards lying around …

inspirational stuff mate !

ben

re:

" The real challenge lies ahead

to see if I can do the rails without buying an electric planer

[board has 3 stringers] or karate chopping it in half in frustration.

Any comments on that would be greatly appreciated. "

…I definately recommend NOT doing that, Paul !

… it looked like it was already karate chopped , before you fixed it …

3

That board looks really nice paulie. Don’t worry about not having an electric planer for the rails. I, and many others on here prefer to hand shape the rails. Use your sanding block… mark off your railbands first and use long strokes with the block. Then buy a drywall screen and use that to blend your rails…it will go easy. Looks good.

The triple stringer is nice too…I was in the process of building a trip stringered fish when clark closed…they still owe me a refund for the custom blank I never got…

4

"or karate chopping it in half in frustration.

Any comments on that would be greatly appreciated."

Well, OK. If you must… place blank on two supports, close eyes and meditate for a moment or two before taking a deep breath and chopping really hard - it does have three stringers you know.

5

Chipfish

I will gladly go on TV and explain this amazing phenomenon.

Thanks for the advice. I will take my time and not become frustrated.

Paulie

6

“MMMMMmmmmm… magic shaping …”

7

sbvfive-

Thank You. That’s what I wanted to Hear.

No power tools on the first one.

The cuts are so slight with the hand tools,

It’s hard to make a major mistake.

JohnMellor-

If I karate chop it, I will use your technique and post pictures.

Thanks Everyone-Paulie

8

…no planer was used on my recent “bushfire fish”, by the way , Paul . I usually find when a board is stripped , the rails are usually pretty easy to shape , because [unless you have to narrow the board , as I had to do with that pig of a kneeboard !] , the rails are already well shaped.

Can you please post pics of the board’s progress ?

…I’m interested to see and hear how it develops , its dimensions , the fin setup you’ll use …

congratulations on your “first attempt” …it looks good from here !

cheers !

ben

[strike][strike]

[/strike][/strike]

9

Hello All

Chipfish-

Thanks for replying to this. It was your bushfire that

really made me do this. The boards dimensions are

6’2 X 16n X 21w X 16t X 2 3/4 thick. It really is like “magic shaping”.

Like like taking a fallen mate and bringing him back to life!!

More and better pictures coming soon.

Paulie

10

Paulie, better NOT to use a sanding block for shaping the rails (sorry for the guy who said that) as you will most likely create bumps, especially near the side stringers’ joint with the foam. What you need is some kind of CUTTING tool: block plane with a very sharply honed blade or a surform (preferably equipped with a Microplane blade, those cut WAY better than the regular blades) These will cut evenly through foam AND wood, whereas the sanding block will go deeper into less dense areas. Just my two (Euro) cents, but I bet anyone who has ever shaped a multi-stringered board will agree.

Of course, the really good tool for the job is a power planer. Wonder why most people use it? Only practical way of cutting even, clean rail-bands.

11

Ditto on what Balsa contributed; if you try and do it with just a sanding block, you’ll get get nubs that disrupt your rail line. Try the surform method, or you can get a rasp and file the stringers down to your desired rail shape and then, with a light touch, sand down the foam to meet the stringer. I use the latter method when I’m working with a pretty thin rail-usually in the tail section. Aloha, M