Here’s the story: I realized that I spend way too much time on swaylock’s just looking at design ideas and such to not make an attempt to shape. (Typically, I just bring my research to my shaper and have him do the work).
Here’s the plan: I’m going to go for it. I plan to go talk to my shaper; ask him if I can watch him shape a few boards and ask some questions (perhaps buy him lunch when I show up for compensation). Then, I’m going to get a few basic tools and the materials and shape. (and I’ve got about 50 threads filed on swaylocks that should help with various steps along the way).
Here’s the problem: I live in a tiny one bedroom apartment with no garage.
I work at a park that has a decently sized shop that could work, but I’m not sure if I’d get the okay to set it up as my little hobby space, and anyway, it’s really dirty, and I don’t trust the other rangers to keep their dirty hands off my blank.
I suppose that I could ask the shaper to use his shaping room when he’s not there, but I don’t want to be a bother.
actually, that sounds pretty cool and suits my style. There is a yard at the apartment; I’d have to set up away from the mango trees to avoid a mango disaster.
or, I could set up a little make-shift tarp shaping bay (got a few ideas in the archives).
A problem:
Shaping appears to be an extremely messy activity, and I don’t think that getting bits of eps all over the yard is a really environmentally friendly thing to do. Any thoughts on controlling the mess while shaping outside?
Here’s the next problem:
where to store the blank when I’m not working on it.
Ha. I have to shape outside since my parents garage is stuffed full of junk. After every shaping session I vacuum the area/grass where I have been shaping. I get most of the EPS that way. Keep the blank anywhere. I sometimes store them in my room.
I remember when i was searching for such things as i do not have a garage. I do have a bunch of land around me to utilize, so i ended up getting one of these (they go on sale fairly often for like $160). But i remember someone posted about shaping in a camping tent. Made perfect sense…and it’s small yard compatible.
also search “shaping outdoors”, you’ll find a bunch of stuff.
Sometimes EPS beads are used in topsoil to promote drainage and keep grass heathy. Some golf courses use ground up EPS to regenerate the greens faster. So shaping EPS outside might theoretically help your apartment buildings grass…theoretically. Just keep the mess to a minimum.
You’ll be fine glassing with epoxy in your room, just don’t let the cat jump on a wet board
nice! greenlight’s giving the green light to yard shaping with eps.
Seriously though, I appreciate the thoughts.
Now that I think about it, there are little bits of foam balls in the potting soil I have my plants in.
A screen house sounds good for glassing.(?) I could glass on the mornings of my day off and just leave the tent up all day. (Don’t know if I want to risk the security deposit; anyway, the very first thing the cat would do is jump on the board).
Perhaps, I can build some sort of little shelter with racks of some sort to place behind the fence with a padlock or something to store the board(s) when I’m not working on them. I still don’t like the idea of storing it all inside. Really, I think it would get ruined pretty quickly.
While there may be little foam balls in your potting soil, and while EPS is relatively benign stuff…you don’t need the hassle of what’s perceived to be a mess/ecological disaster. In West Palm, you prolly have more litigious types per square foot than anyplace else in the US, lawyers with time to spare or just knuckleheads who have nothing better to do than making your life difficult.
So, maybe something like that plastic temporary garage, plus a plastic ground sheet ( tarp or what have ya ) plus some screen ( or better yet an air conditioner filter taped over an opening) going in and a shop vac pulling air, foam dust and what have ya going out. One of those portable screen houses - well, just some pollen in the air and you have instant ruined glass job, y’know?
You’d be amazed at how many of those plastic canopy rigs and etc wind up at the local landfill or scrap pile - or make something equally temporary out of pipe, scrap and plastic.
What to put the blank in between bouts of shaping? Dry cleaner bag, maybe. That stuff comes in rolls umpteen feet long, or take two and put one on from the nose, one on from the tail. Providing the cat doesn’t start to think of it as prey, you’re good there… it’ll keep the fingerprints to a minimum.
Uhmmm- just for laughs, ask your landlord if he has a shed or something somewhere’s near and offer him a few bucks to use it for a little while. Might be the easiest and cheapest way out.
And…lastly. http://www.thomasmoser.com/ - the guy who started this ( now quite large) furniture company did it on an enclosed 8’x12’ porch on a rented house. You never know where it all may go.
Well, perhaps you’re thinking of Palm Beach (or some other spot in West Palm), but in my neighborhood, no one’s going to be worried about the guy walking in and out of a tent with tools. There’s real lunatics just a block away at all times. Seriously.
Point taken though. No need to come home in my state park uniform then head outside and scatter plastic about the yard.
So here’s an idea. Visqueen. Lots of it.
I get one of those screen tents (either get a used one from someone or cheap one on ebay or fashion one with cheap materials, whatever’s available).
I line the inside of it on three sides with visqueen (duct tape?), leaving an exit and vantilation screen on one side (placed according to wind directions). Visqueen the ground where I’ll be shaping. (Maybe on really nice calm days, just visqueen on the ground).
When I’m done shaping, I can take the visqueen down to clean up and re-visqueen for glassing, leaving the opposite side of the tent unvisqueened, since some dust will probably have made its way into the screen during shaping.
How’s that?
Also, saw some guys recommended renting a storage unit for a month at a time. Not a bad idea as a last resort, but something about this doing it all myself thing sounds like fun.
i just shaped my first board in the backyard and i found it to be considerably less messy than people suggested it would be. i was a hardwood staircase guy for years and sanding certain filthy exotic woods create a REAL mess with all of the sticking and staining and what not.
buy a $65 shop vac and clean up after your shaping and sanding.
as for the glassing. screened in little tent thing and you’ll be set!
With FRIENDS you will be all set, and they may be able to teach you a few things too.
Soooo. make more specific your location and perchance someone will pop up and say “yer only a couple blocks away, come do it at my place, I make boards alla time”.
Just remember to leave the place cleaner than you found it…
Friends are good to have. I have a friend about 3 blocks away that has a shaping room built in his garage. He said he’d let me use it anytime. I haven’t taken him up on that offer yet but plan to this summer.
I’m going to look into the storage room thing as a possibility (probably a last resort). I think I’ll talk to my shaper next week and see what he has to say about the whole thing (never know what could come of that). This project will be on hold until next week. (got to finish my master’s thesis this week).
On the plus side, I just scored some tools from the old man who has absolutely every tool known to man.
Here’s what I scored:
torpedo level
old sears block plane (needs to be sharpened or a new blade)
mini-plane (needs razorblades)
old 5.5" stanley surform (needs new blade)
black and decker autotape (needs batteries)
STOKED!!!
Agreed on the Friends thing guys, I’m going to start asking around a bit to see if I can get any of my friends (especially the ones with garages or sheds or big backyards, etc.) interested in shaping.
Also just got my copy of Essential Surfing by George Orbelian, waiting in my mailbox when I got home.
Now, we were chatting about this and that and the other, and he mentioned that he wanted to start doing resin tints and asked me if I knew of any 101-like videos that cover resin tints.
the master glassing video goes into some basic resin tinting techniques. check out the “show me your resin tints” thread here. its not a step by step but if you read the thread it will give you almost everything you need to know to start experimenting.
i was wondering whatever came of darthvaders dvd project…
Yeah. I’ve seen the thread and know that it’s helpful.
I’m not ready for tinting yet. (Still working on an outline).
I think I’ll get the master glasser vid for the shaper and then cut and paste the good stuff from that thread into a word document and print it off him. That should be helpful.
