I have a general question about properly foiling a blank. Im a bit confused as to the best way to get an even foil without thinning out either end and leaving a belly in the middle (bit like me). On my fish, i thinned out the tail too much so much so that there was a sort of abrupt slope into the tail from about the last 2 feet and sort of stayed flat till the end of the tail. How do you get a nice flowing foil? Do you just follow the rocker you want from nose to tail until you are at your desired mid thickness? thanks in advance
Not to sound esoteric… you have to see the foil in your head or minds eye then fit what you see into the blank.
Spend boat loads of time looking at surfboards. Study the foils, get mental pictures. Then carefully shape your board. It also helps to have an idea of thickness points. 6” from nose and tail, 12” from nose and tail etc.
Long flowing strokes from nose to tail are a good option I think. If you just scrub area at one particular area your going to get a nice dip in your board. Also longer tools tend to pass over dips and cut through bumps and make for a smoother curve I find. Learning how to open and close your planer will help too. Lastly I believe that foiling is generally done by planing the deck, not the bottom, so not sure if any of this helps.
Or you can take the easy way out and hotwire your foil in with EPS and rocker templates. No way I could do it with my non-functioning ‘mind’s eye’. You do have to make the rocker templates, but it’s easier since you can measure and draw it out before you cut.
I am not a good sculptor/shaper, but hotwires and EPS blocks make it a whole lot easier to get mediocre (as opposed to bad) results. I still managed to screw up a few at first, though.
Hi Dennis - no you are not being esoteric - it makes sense to have a mental blueprint of sorts. I’ve been looking at a few boards in the resources section and what ive noticed is that it seems that what ive been doing is not keeping the thickness of the blank into the tail…I think:) - man this board making business is frustrating!
I’ll agree with the hotwired eps point made earlier, it does make life a tad easier…
However, the other bit of advice is crucial in my humble opinion, measuring your thickness at key intervals. This is easier with constant density EPS than PU because PU has lower density towards the core of the blank and hence you can really screw the pooch if not careful here… Anyway, if you have the right blank chosen for your shape then you should be ok (in future check you blank supplier beforehand about thickness, or go for EPS) and once you have the blank skinned to the thickness for each point you could just cut your rail bands (more of them towards the stringer, shallower each successive pass for a more rolled deck…) and blend the curves with sanding passes over the length of the board, passes over the length of the board, passes over the length of the board, yep you get the picture… Jeesh just describing it makes my hands twitch to torture some foam…
I think everyone does it a bit differently, but I like to know how thick the blank is to start. Then I like to know what the final thickness is going to be.
I know a full hog out on the planer is going to be 1/4 in so if I have a 3 1/2 in blank, and i want a 2 3/4 finish thickness I take 3 full passes with the planer. Or for the faint of heart, 6 half depth passes. Now I thin out my nose and tail, then put in your bottom contours. This way you don’t get a funky chunky monkey foil. Do this and your boards will pull into the waves better…more smooth. Last thing you want is a chopped up staged bottom.
those tips all make sense. I havent been measuring the blank often enough at various intervals during the shaping process of my last board. One thing, once youve foiled to your desired mid thickness, how do you thin out the nose and tail without making it to abrupt or wonky at each end and make it flow into the rest of the foil? Generally is there a standard for how far up at nose and tail to start the thinning out?
Sorry for all the questions, some of which are probably obvious to the experienced board makers - just want to make my next board better.
I havent been measuring the blank often enough at various intervals during the shaping process of my last board. One thing, once youve foiled to your desired mid thickness, how do you thin out the nose and tail without making it to abrupt or wonky at each end and make it flow into the rest of the foil? Generally is there a standard for how far up at nose and tail to start the thinning out?
I’m not exactly “experienced” by any means, but I think you may solve/avoid alot of these problems by choosing the appropriate blank for your shape.(???) There’s alot of thickness/length/rocker combos out there.
On my second board, I planed the bottom close to thickness, and did the foiling on the deck, which made a world of difference.
For the nose,I took a couple light passes there with the planer after my initial planing of the deck - from the thicker area to the nose. Then I foiled the nose with the long surform. If you use the surform the right way, it flows quite nicely here.
I myself don’t worry to much about exact thickness, I’m just not skilled enough with the tools yet to do so.
In terms of thickness, I shoot for a >greater than/less than< kinda thing and spend more time looking at the board, thinking about how the board will surf vs. measuring to an exact dimnension.
Maybe the most important thing is to just visualize a nice flow, and make your tools an extension of that visualization.
What I do to make the nose and tail thinner is overlapping passes with a 28" wide sanding block. I do not trust myself with a planer just yet. Here is a diagram of what I do, the black line depicting the passage of the block over the foam to progressively thin the nose or tail:
After making the pass, stand back and see if you are headed in the right direction, go back and measure if you need to, and continue. In the diagram I hope you can see how it would thin out the blank with an even curve…
I haven’t done this with a planer, as most of my foil is done with the hotwire, I only modify it if I need to, so this is how I do it.
It’s all in the twist of the depth knob. It all depends if you want more tail kick, or more nose kick, and how far you want the kick to start…12 in, 16 in, 18 in??? After a couple of boards you’ll know what it feels like. It just a rythum, and a fluid feel to the blank. It’s like telling someone how to play a guitar…I can tell you how to play Smoke on the Water, but it takes practice to play like Ritchie Blackmore.
Thanks for the advice guys. Im sure that my next board will have a better, more even foil than the previous. I guess its just a matter of the old practice makes perfect adage. Im making a fun gun and i have to work out the concaves, vee etc - more stuff to learn. Its an amazing process, so much to learn.
