Well i have skinned the blank and reduced the blank and foiled it to approximate dimensions suited to me. Cut the outline out last night under the night sky and 12v battery powered flouro lights. for the record I am building a fish which is 6’0 x 22 x 17 x 16.5. Its supposed to be around 1.75 at tail and nose and 2.75 thick. Here are some of the things that happened:
The hand planer I bought to skin the blank has a bluntish blade so it did take the skin off but also gouged some lovely tears in the deck and bottom of the blank. Subsequent sandpapering removed some of it but a few little craters and lines remain.
also, using a hand plane as opposed to a small block plane to reduce the stringer leaves trenches either side of the stringer which subsequently have to sanded level and therefore taking off more foam than i would like.
Its relatively easy to keep the deck flat but up towards the nose I used a small foam block to get onto the curve as the wooden block wouldnt do it. But the end result was a slight concave/scooped out area about 1 foot or so into the nose area.
It doesnt take long to mow the foam down and unfortunately I think i took too much off the tail and instead of 1.75 as i wanted, its now down to 1.5. Thicknes is about where I want it which is a small victory.
so, can anyone offer me some advice as to what to do next - ie - do i get another blank and start again? or do i keep going and persevere and see what happens. I guess i was too keen to get started and tried to do too much at once. I am tempted to start again as i really want to make it well but since its my first board maybe i just have to admit it wont be perfect?
ps - for all you fish people out there - is 1.5 thick in tail and nose still ok (sounds too thin for my weight - 95kg)
Yeah - i’ll keep at it. Getting myself a really nice and sharp block plane to properly bring down the stringer. Might start on the rails this weekend. Might make a fred too. see how i go. Dont really know how to go about doing the rails but i figure i can use the fred to tuck the rail under and then shape the rail bands by marking them from the edge ? Live and learn!! Im sure that in the end it will surf ok.
Seroiusly mate every one make those mistakes on the first shape, no real big deal. You’ve done well to get this far.
You only notice them because your trying too hard for perfection, no board is perfect, even if its only the shaper or glassed that can identify the mistakes.
Just glass it, post some pic, then get it in the water, once you surf it you won’t care any more. Its a whole different experience.
When I made my first board there were dozens of small imperfections that I wanted to improve on, I still have the board and its one of my favorites, but I can’t remember where the imperfections are now.
You’ve already learnt a lot from this one so the next will be even better.
If the gouges are really deep you could fill them with spackle or glass microspheres. You can probably still make a rideable board. Go ahead and glass it. You’ll learn glassing techniques and you’d rather muck up on #1 than on #2. Glass it ride it and then come back to sways and scoure the archives, I guarantee you #2 will show significant improvements, mine did, thanks to the great stuff here in the archives and the comments by our happy bunch on sways.
…if you’re free tomorrow , would it be okay if ‘sandgroper’ and I come and visit ?
I’d like to see it , [?and maybe photo it? , if you’re happy with that ?]
and …also , I have some q-cell [please …DON’T use spackle on your polyurethane blank , okay , mate ?!] and if you like , we can fill the ‘tears’ , if you’re happy with the deck and bottom so far ?
I’m stoked you’re getting into it , Aido !
Take your time on the rails …they are SURE to turn out 100% better than my first [pre John Carper video] board did …
i would second on not spackling the blank… and not using the whole elmer’s glue/foam scraps cocktail for fill-ins. i had heard that the elmer’s keeps a white color but found out different.