I just wanted to do a little write up to introduce myself to the board, and introduce you to my first board creation. I have been doing ding repairs for my friends since I started surfing 3 years ago (my board is relatively undingable). After lurking in the forums and checking out what all you folks can do, and how you do it, I was inspired (especially by the kids boards made by gunkie, 4est, and Hicksy) to rework this cruddy flooded board (nicknamed the aquarium) into a kids board for the original owner’s three-year-old daughter.
This is the old board that was stripped of all glass, and which I originally had considered building back up with qcell (at the suggestion of someone where I buy my supplies…until I realized what a waste and pain that would be. So, I removed all the q-cell fill with my brand new non-sharpened hand plane. Noisy, messy, and a little out of control, but it worked.
That done, I was left with a bunch of foam.
I made a template based on suggestions from Swaylocks, and cut it out using an electric jigsaw. Not the best idea I’ve ever had. This forced me to do a lot of smooting out of the outline.
More to be added tonight after work. Sorry to leave it hanging looking so ugly, but I must get back to the salt-mines.
Just a little word of advice, you want to clean up the outline. It will save you nightmares later on. Re template that puppy and make it a nice flowing curve, symmetry isn’t as important, just as long as the curve is continuous. Otherwise when you come to your rail bands you will go nuts. Trust me… I’ve been there…
Other than that, good move to cut the excess off, reconstruction the blank would be a hell of a job, the nature of the filler is different than the foam and hence would present different resistance to your shaping tools, yep, tried that also…
Continuity of curves is one thing I have learnt from Swaylocks and my few boardmaking experiments.
OK, work is done and I can post the rest of my saga. Thanks for the comments Surfer_Dave. Yeah, smoothing that baby out did take me a while. Next time, I saw with something less wiggly. Any suggestions?
OK, so I straghtened that down, worked on the foil for a long time, tried to do a very subtle concave in the nose and a V towards the tail on the bottom, and then some nice turned down rails seeing as she is going to be playing in beach break. I wanted to do a fabric inlay with fishes, since the boards first incarnation was called the aquarium. Best thing I could find was whales, but I think it looks pretty nice.
Then I put two layers of 4 oz on the deck and bottom. I had some regular polyester resin, and decided to go old fashioned and mixed a huge batch of resin and catalyst. Oops. It went off fast, and while I got everything pretty well squeegied on top, I had to cut the lap off, and pooled resin in the rail meant it was in some trouble. Sanded it down and tried this again for the second attempt at doing a lap, and again it went off too fast. Cut that off and went back to UV resin for the other two layers, and they were near perfect. Oh well, I’m learning from my mistakes at least. Here’s the bottom of the board after glassing.
Here’s the view of the board from the side. Just need to do the pinline, hotcoat it, fins, leashplug, some sanding, polishing, etc. and I’ll be done.
Thanks for getting me here by way of your examples, and wish me luck on the rest.
I’m done!!! Here are some pix of the final product. Did a “hotcoat” using just regular UV resin, but letting it drip for a while. Hand sanded (need to get a sander) with 220, then wet hand sanded with 320, 400, 600. Used water based acrylic “super seal” from Fiberglass Hawaii, and then Maguire’s car wax. It is pretty damn shiny now, but since we had fog, it isn’t too apparent.
Whole Board:
Fabric inlay detail:
Bottom:
Concave (inspired by Dave Johnson’s delicate nose concaves…on his boards):
When good pins go bad (or when bad pins go bad):
OK, now I need to make more room in my garage and go for board number 2.
As for cutting outlines, I got these long sharp blades for my jigsaw and they work like a charm:
Of course you could make a hotwire also if you use EPS. There’s loadsa stuff on that in the archives.
For PU alot of guys also use a template and a router. Check the videos on shaping on http://www.harboursurfboards.com/ there’s a bit where the shaper uses his template and a router I believe.
Quote:
Next time, I saw with something less wiggly. Any suggestions?
A wide blade cannot be beat for reducing the wiggles. A powertool isn’t a labor-saving device if you spend twice the time you saved cutting saving the thing. I think most professionals use handsaws. I realized this was the way to go when a poster remarked that he jigsawed his templates I think it was 1/4 inch outside the line all the way around, because he knew he was going to have to fix all the wiggles…
I am really happy with how it came out. It is far from perfect, but it is good enough. Get to give it to my friends’ kid on Friday. I am very excited.
I am thinking of going the hotwire route for my next board, as I’m using EPS. The template I used wasn’t the best, but the wiggles were definitely from lousy saw technique, plain and simple. I didn’t even think I was doing a bad job, until I was done…then I was horrified. A part of it too is that the “blank” I used was pretty irregular on the surface, and multiply that by the thickness and you take a little wiggle and amplify it. Oh well, live and learn, and learn, and then learn some more.
Good call. They should change the name of jigsaws to jigglesaw or wigglesaw. I’ve read in the archives about some people have trouble cutting EPS with a handsaw…but I think that was with low density foam. I am now the proud owner of a 3# EPS blank (thanks to Ken at Segway). Do you think a handsaw would work on that? I was thinking of getting a nice handsaw, or using a hotwire. My problem with the hotwire is that I am not sure but what I might still create wiggles like I did with the jigglesaw. I have a little time to think about it, as I need to sell my boat to make space for this larger project.
2# EPS was butter with my handsaw. My guess is the hotwire would be worse than a jigsaw. Plus I think you’d have to make perfect matched templates for top and bottom, align them perfectly, tape them down, all twice, etc. I don’t even want to think about it…
Cut the rockered plank, sling the outline temp on, trace it, flip it on center, trace, saw it out. Simple.
It’s Zach. The board looks wicked. It was great to hear the details of building it. I have been wondering when you were gonna post it. Also, I am totally jealous that you are gonna shape another board. I cannot wait to finally get a chance to do one for myself. Anyway, can’t wait to see the next one. Hope all is well and Devereaux is treating you swell.
Thanks oldy! I think she will be psyched. She was at her Aunt’s house the other day and, upon seeing a surfboard that she was borrowing said, “Is that yours?”
“No, that’s Michael’s.”
Then in another room she spied another surfboard and once again asked, “Is that yours?”
“Yes, that one is.”
“I don’t have a surfboard, I only have a boogie board.”
I think she is ready. I hope the board is ready for her!
Thanks a bunch man. I couldn’t (or wouldn’t) have done this had it not been for your nudge to check out Swaylocks! And you pointed me in the right direction. Maybe when you get back, if its new owner would let you, you could have a spin on it.
I know you’ll get around to it…once you’re done cruising around NZ.
That board came out really nice. I like the mini longboard shape. It should be nice and stable for a new young surfer. I think the pin lines look cool! I actually thought you ment them to come out like that. Thanks for the pics. So…your already on to #2. Building these things is an itch that just deosn’t seeem to go away. Have fun! Eric
A powertool isn’t a labor-saving device if you spend twice the time you saved cutting saving the thing.
Good point, I probably wouldn’t have gone for the blades if I didn’t already have my jigsaw. Alot of folks would probably have one already. Also, the handsaw was causing some tearing in the foam which was worse than wiggles. The blade pictured fits in any Bosch type machine and cost me like 10 bucks…
Thanks! I really think the mini longboard shape is pretty cool! Guess where I got the idea? If you guessed Swaylocks, you were right.
The hilarious thing to me is a couple of my shortboarder buddies wanna try the thing out just to see what it would ride like. It is like it is a longboard that they can finally relate to. 'Cause it is short. All I know is I can’t knee paddle it, so I’ll have to pass. Besides, my friend’s kid gets to put the first ding in it.
As for the itch, I’m definitely feeling it. I thought that was just the fiberglass…
A powertool isn’t a labor-saving device if you spend twice the time you saved cutting saving the thing.
Good point, I probably wouldn’t have gone for the blades if I didn’t already have my jigsaw. Alot of folks would probably have one already. Also, the handsaw was causing some tearing in the foam which was worse than wiggles. The blade pictured fits in any Bosch type machine and cost me like 10 bucks…
When I picked my handsaw, I was thinking a high tooth count per inch would be a good thing. It worked, and any jaggedness got sanded way out, so I dunno. Your mileage may vary and if what you have is working, keep working it. My handsaw was only $20 or less, so if you have wiggles still, at least you didn’t have to buy your jigsaw, and you could always use a handsaw.
