that may have been part of the problem, i don't know about all of the failures tho...
but, a speed controller is cheap insurance. why cut foam at 30k RPM when you can do the same job at 10k?
Eggsacally Mr. Chrisp, Router bits are trued and balanced (somewhat) to handle the "R's". Drill bits AINT. Speed controllers are cheap insurance indeed and not only on foam. All these years I've been simply aping what I was taught (with blinders on) until the light bulb finally went on. Thanks to this site and you all. From now on... no sawing, skip the step and still have machined square rails. Also, to any that are not aware, when installing the bit into the collet, do not push the bit to the bottom and leave it there. Insert it all the way and than back it out an eighth inch or less. When they bottom, there's a chance they will spin off center and a tiny wobble can go real bad at 30 to 40 THOUSAND RPMs.! I'll get killed for this buuut; a router is like a good woman, It needs a firm hand for a smooth danger free response.
Aloha Sweid
Cutting templates by hand is not near as hard as most think. But it is a bit hard to describe.
Choose a common American style saw. Doesn’t matter much if it is crosscut or other kinds. Don’t choose too corse of teeth. Choose around 8 teeth per inch or so. Find the thinnest springy blade possible so that it is flexible enough to bend around curves and not kink. Often these are the cheapest saws with plastic handles. Don’t worry about it staying sharp. Foam won’t dull it much, it will last a long, long time. The best one I ever had I think I got from Gems in Goleta. I gave it and all my personal templates to Al Merrick when I helped him back in 1973.
Here is the technique…
Don’t have your racks too high. The upper surface of the blank when it is on the racks should be an inch or two lower then your forearm when it is bent horizontal at your side. Even still, you may need to saw a bit up on the balls of your feet to make sure you are tall enough and well over the saw and establishing control of it.
Template and cut on the bottom of the blank. Hold the saw in the normal way you would for sawing wood. Use the hand closest to the blank. Learn to hold the saw so that you cut straight vertical sides. Much of this is established in the first few inches of the cut. So learn to read your saw well so you can recognize when it is true vertical, side to side. To be safer when learning, angle the handle into the blank a tad, so that your cut leaves a template that is wider at the bottom of the cut. If you angle the handle out, your boards template will come out narrower then you wanted so don’t make this mistake. But understand that an angled cut is a crutch only to use when learning. Quickly work your way into a straight up and down cut with no angle.
The “other” angle is the angle of the saw lengthwise in the cut so don’t confuse the two or my language in this next part. Start the saw with a fairly vertical cut lengthwise but quickly increase the angle to around 30 degrees once you have sunk deep enough into the foam such that the saw will stay put when angled. Keep the cutoff piece close to the saw. The thicker and wider the cut off piece the better it is as it will help stabilize and guide the saw. Don’t pry the gap open to release the blade as you cut, let the cut off spring back into the saw.
The actual cutting technique is sort of a two phase rocking action.
Lift the saw up along the existing lengthwise cut angle. Then as you push it back down, increase the angle further while bending the saw to match the template’s arc and use the teeth to scribe into the foam further down along the pencil line toward your body. Cut about an inch deep max at this increased angle, carefully bending the saw so it is just kissing the outside of the pencil line. When you have enough length and depth, in this shallow guide cut, pull the saw back up and using a steeper angle, press down letting the saw follow along this guide cut as you press the saw all the way through with a slightly more vertical angle.
Then repeat… Shallower angled guide cut…Full steeper cut… Shallower highly angled guide cut… etc, etc. You will notice as you pick up speed that this creates kind of a rocking motion in the saws action.
The guide cut is the key to tracking precisely along your pencil line. Since it is shallow you have room to adjust the rest of the cut to keep it on track and square vertically. The depth of the guide cut varies with the skill of the user. But it has to be enough to hold and guide the saw when you press into your more vertical primary cut. As others have noted, using a highly angled, lengthwise sawing angle, is how you match the saws arc to your template’s arc.
Sawing totally vertical or backwards will wear you out from trying to keep the saw on arc. American saws are designed to cut in the standard fashion and the greatest amount of force and control can be exerted when used it in the normal fashion. Take advantage of this.
Last of all… be careful watching the shapers on YouTube. Very, very few have good techniques or are skilled with the tools. Most are really pretty bad and some are even dangerous! Even a fair share of the better ones are loaded full of all kinds of cumbersome dodads, bricks wrapped in towels, unnecessary tools, duplicated steps and complicated confusing procedures. The same for most glassing videos. Be on your guard and don’t taint your mind.
Great insights Bill. Did you ever experience Al trying to play a tune on his saw? Almost like something out of “Deliverance”. Yet he was pretty proud of that feat. Let’s just say he was much better cutting out a board than using a saw as a musical instrument.
Yes, Al played his saw for Mark Andreini and I many times. But I don’t remember being able to recognize the tune. He was in the early days of developing that skill I think. :-)
What are you doing up so late? I enjoyed your comments on the who invented the short board thread.
BB
In my opinion Al’s eyes were much more in “tune” than his ear. And I don’t know why I’m up; nevertheless, I appreciate the effort you use to help the people here, which is very precise and detail oriented, just like your shapes.
I just got home from the shop, had a snack and am heading to bed. Thanks for the nice compliment. I wish I had time to participate more. 40+ years of experience won’t do me much good to take tothe grave so I am happy to share it. And I don’t think they use Bubba Bucks in Heaven, so I can’t earn any bro deal favors with it there. So best to expend it here I suppose. :-)
Catch ya later
this thread inspired me to look for longer jigsaw blades and i found these last night
http://www.amazon.com/Festool-493656-Foam-cutting-Jigsaw-3-pack/dp/B0033LBOJY
got a shaping lesson from stretch this past weekend and he taught this same method. he also talked about modifying the saw for EPS. grind the teeth down to nubs, then sharpen the length of the blade…
I keep it really simple. I use a Stanley tool box saw with "shark teeth". The type of saw that Kokua mentioned. A little WD-40 or Pam on the blade to reduce friction. It is short and fairly stiff. I put my thumb thru the handle and my fingers over the top.. I concentrate on my down stroke and keep the saw fairly vertical, I like to leave my pencil line on the blank as long as I can during the shaping process; so I cut along the outside edge of the line as close to it as possible. I also have a Bosch jig saw equipped with a five inch blade that I use occasionally. I cut my template from the bottom of the blank after I have skinned and leveled/blocked. I occasionally use a Japanese saw, but only for cutting swallow tails or diamond tails near the end of the shaping process. A coping saw works good on fish tails. I don't like flexible blades for cutting templates because they bend easily and can under cut your deck rail if extreme care is not taken. Keep it simple.
I've been sitting back and letting things happen.There's some interesting posts here. Lot's of info to look over. I'm not throwing out insults or trash talking.
The first post clearly states that the blank is 2# EPS foam 5" thick.....with a hand saw. ( almost impossible ).
I can see that several well intended posters have never tried to cut out a EPS longboard with a hand saw...or any other saw , and never anything 5 " thick.
EPS binds up the saw. Poly is easy to cut. I'm no Pro but the Poly longboard I just cut out was like butter compared to the EPS boards I've been making.
I want the Pros to post on Swaylock's. My comments are not to bash anyone.
I know that EPS foam does not cut like polyurethane foam......outlines with EPS take a lot more care.
Thank you for your time.
Stingray
I thought the 5" thick comment was a joke, hence the “wink, wink” that followed. I cut outlines with a handsaw, and almost all the blanks I shape are 2lb. EPS. I’ve tried the jigsaw, and it works. But for me it’s a trade-off… stay off the line with the jigsaw, and spend more time cleaning it up, or cut right to the line with the handsaw and spend very little time cleaning it up. But you’re right… my arm is PUMPING cutting through a thick EPS longboard blank.
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Last of all...... be careful watching the shapers on YouTube. Very, very few have good techniques or are skilled with the tools. Most are really pretty bad and some are even dangerous! Even a fair share of the better ones are loaded full of all kinds of cumbersome dodads, bricks wrapped in towels, unnecessary tools, duplicated steps and complicated confusing procedures. The same for most glassing videos. Be on your guard and don't taint your mind.
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Too true.... I've thought about starting a thread on ''the best and worst of youtube''. I have no idea why guys who've shaped 10 boards feel obligated to put up vids of their ''technique''.
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[quote="$1"]
Last of all...... be careful watching the shapers on YouTube. Very, very few have good techniques or are skilled with the tools. Most are really pretty bad and some are even dangerous! Even a fair share of the better ones are loaded full of all kinds of cumbersome dodads, bricks wrapped in towels, unnecessary tools, duplicated steps and complicated confusing procedures. The same for most glassing videos. Be on your guard and don't taint your mind.
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Too true.... I've thought about starting a thread on ''the best and worst of youtube''. I have no idea why guys who've shaped 10 boards feel obligated to put up vids of their ''technique''.
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Okay guys, here's one, what's your take on Abe Toke, part of the "AzHiAzIAm" team's free shaping series on Youtube. No critique here, just got a kick out of a guy with the last name "Toke" paired up with "As Hi Az I Am."
That's not the worst, but I got a good laugh when he was ''trueing'' his outline with a surform.
I recently cut out two identical templates in 1.5 EPS. 6'2" in length. I cut them to length with the above mentioned handsaw and then completed the outline with the above mentioned Bosch jig saw. Equipped with the five inch blade. Came out just fine. Minimum clean up and both right on the money. Next time I think I'll try cutting them both out at the same time.
Aloha McDing. I also use WD40 from time to time. Used to use it a lot more but with thinner boards and blanks, not so much now.
Aloha Stingray. I understand your point, it does take greater effort to cut thick EPS with a hand saw then PU. I assumed this was a known issue. But sweid’s question was very specific about wanting info on how to cut accurately with a hand saw. He didn’t ask about power tools nor say that cutting speed or effort was what he wanted help with. Accuracy seemed to be his goal. Had he specified something other then, accuracy hand sawing, I would have answered differently. The same basic sawing technic for making accurate cuts in PU works well for EPS also. I don’t think anyone is disputing that super thick EPS may be better cut with something other then a hand saw, as would super thick wood or most any thick material. But that didn’t seem to be the question sweid posed. Personally, I cut thick EPS with my hand saw and probably wouldn’t change unless I had a whole lot of repetitive cuts to do.
Bill-------- I read an article on AOL news recently about all the differant uses for Pam , so by using Pam I guess I'm going "Green". I can cut an outline without a lubricant but part way thru a longboard I start noticing the friction and it bugs me so I use it. I like my tool box saw because the teeth are aggressive. It is also short so it doesn't take up much space when I travel or use a shaping bay other than my own. Good comments by all. A hand cut outline is all about practice and developing technique. The less clean up the better. When I first started I had a hell of a time keeping my outlines true to measurement. When I bought my forty dollar piece of plastic (as I call it) manufactured by Stan Pleskuna. I was able to check my measurments quicker and with more accuracy than a carpenters square.