First Board

General Discussion
1

Finished my first build last week, I’ve taken it out a few times and it feels really good. 5’8 x 19’ x 2 1/4, really mild single concave. I know the tail is a little uneven, and I blew it a little with the fin plugs. I marked the rear plug too far back… I marked it again in the right position, but I ended up using my first measurement. Ive never loaded pictures before, so if they dont work i’ll try to fix it. Let me know what you guys think, I think my next board will benefit from making some better templates, I used brown paper which I traced an old board on for this one, but the blank was such a close tolerance I could only template the nose and tail and had to kind of eyeball the midsection. Let me know what you think! it may not be perfect, but it is really satisfying to surf something you made yourself…

 

2

I think you should clean up your room, though I guess a dirty sock on the floor is better than dirty undies!!

Seriously though, it’s looks like a nice board, particularly for a first attempt. The outline looks pretty clean.

That’s the name of the game, keep at it, it only gets better!

3

haha yeah my place can be a little messy. 

thanks man! I am pretty excited to dive into #2, I’m going to hawaii in a few months so I’m gonna make a 6’2. I am thinking about buying a power planer, i already ordered sanding pads and a cheapo sander/buffer. How do you guys get templates, other than making them yourself from other boards? I imagine that they are pretty guarded by shapers…

4

Make them. take different widths from different points on the board(ie. 1’, 2’ wide point, etc.) plot them on a piece of 1/8" masonite. use a bendable piece of wood or fishingpole(good idea from someone on here) to make the curve…stare at it, change it, and keep doing that until it is perfect.

good luck

5

Nice Job!

6

Nice one Grasshoper02, looks good. I like the elephant logo too.

7

 

oh wow that’s awesome. I’m definitely gonna do that, I couldn’t figure out how people got the curves right, but that makes perfect sense. thanks!

8

 

thanks. I was going to try to get one of my more artsy friends to do the elephant, but it was simple enough that I just did it on ms paint. 

9

Your board looks way better than my first one!  Just finished #7 and I’m making less mistakes each time.  As far as templates go, check out this site:  http://www.blendingcurves.com/

Whoever created it is amazingly generous.  I used one template and it turned out really nice.  Just print, spray glue onto masonite, cut and fine tune curves with sanding block.

10

Wow, thanks. I actually had thought about printing out pics of well known boards and having staples blow them up to 6’ and then doing the same thing with them, but that is way better. I also didnt know if it would come out properly, or how I felt about taking outlines from production shapers…  where do you go to print these full size?

11

Great job on the first board Grasshopper02? The outlines on Blending Curves are in PDF format and are tiled I believe. You can just print them out of any old printer on 8.5x11 paper, line them up and assemble them for a complete template.

12

I just print them out one page at a time and glue it onto the masonite that way.  Pretty easy to line up.  I’ve heard of guys taking a disk to Staples, but haven’t tried myself.  Here’s one I made with the 5’ 9" x 19.75" diamond tail template.

[img_assist|nid=1063263|title=5' 9" Diamond Tail Quad|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=427|height=640]

 

13

 

That looks great, thanks for that link. I’m really excited to try some of them out, hopefully I can put another useable board together. for some reason i think a step up will be harder to make than a step down

14

Thanks for the tip on blending curves. I made three templates (well more like two, I didnt turn of printer scaling on the first one so its a 5’5 instead of a 6’1 lol) Have you guys noticed at all that the shortboard templates seem a little nose heavy? LIke even once the nose point and midpoint are lined up, they seem like the bulk of the volume is forward of the midpoint. 

I’ll post pics once I glass this board, I finished shaping a few days ago so I gotta spray n glass it. No matter what, a masonite template from one of the blending curves printouts its >>>> my paper template I used on #1 lol

15

looking good man!! i have been looking at this template on bending curves for a while now, and definitely going to make myself one of these!! i was wondering if you could explain a little bit about how the diamond tail works? and what concave you have going on there?

cheers,

16

Thanks Billythekid, I made that board for a friend and I’m still waiting to get some feedback from him.  He’s had it out a few times, but bad conditions only.  He wanted a quad and I noticed a few quad online that had the diamond tail so that was the first deciding factor.  I read that the increased surface area in the tail creates more lift and the points shorten the rail length making for tighter turns.  I’ve had a couple boards with single concaves that I really like so I just stuck with that.  Have yet to experiement with the double so for now I just stick to what I know I like.  Good luck with the board.  I’m making a template for the 5’ 6" version. 

17

Grasshopper02, I’m glad that site was helpful.  I’ve only used one of the templates out of the handful of boards I’ve made and the one I chose definitely had the widepoint forward of the midpoint.  I’ve seen a few other small wave (wide and short) designs like that and although I can’t articulate the reasoning for it, I believe it’s supposed to help with mushy waves.

 

 

From fellow Swaylokian:

18

@wbrame

That makes sense, and kind of explains better the way I feel about wide point location. Another factor is surf style. I am rear-footed to a fault, so I usually like a board with a wide point set back an extra inch or two. I’ve found that, for me, too much volume forward of middle makes the board sort of ‘boat’ out of the wave right before the lip, making it hard to get vertical. It works for this board, because its for bigger days where it’ll be nice to have a little forward volume for paddling purposes. I think I may make a template off a board I have, and use the blendingcurves templates for the back half of future builds.

19

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 How do you guys get templates, other than making them yourself from other boards? I imagine that they are pretty guarded by shapers..

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Make them. take different widths from different points on the board(ie. 1', 2' wide point, etc.) plot them on a piece of 1/8" masonite. use a bendable piece of wood or fishingpole(good idea from someone on here) to make the curve...stare at it, change it, and keep doing that until it is perfect.

good luck

[/quote]

Excellent post.  For the life of me I can't understand the rationale that says "I can shape and glass an entire complex 3D surfboard using my hands and eyes, but with the same tools I can't shape a simple surfboard outline from masonite, I need a computer and printer for that".  Guys - I KNOW you can do these by eye and hand, I just wish I could convince all of you!

20

Your board looks great! especially for your first one. Im making my first one and i hope it comes out as good as yours. I made a template for my nose and tail from two different boards and my main template from another board. So 3 different templates of my favorite boards and blending them into one. I hope it works out... I used 1/8'' masonite and just traced the outlines onto it then cut out w/ jig saw and cleaned up  w/ surform and sanding block..