… do you spend on shaping?
I know of one “guru” shaper who spends 6+ hours on a hand shape, and I just spoke with another “guru” who mentioned that it takes him 5+ hours for each one.
I know that guys like Bill Barnfield and Jim Phillips (from reading sways) have very precise systematic techniques that cut down on redundancy and time.
All depends on the shape. Long or short, concaves, channels, stingers, whatevas. Average 3-4 hrs for a complicated shape. Standard shortboard, 1.5 hrs.
Although I’ve spent as many as 7-8 on a board considering mid stream changes.
short 3-4 hrs
long 8-12 hrs
this include layout without template
2.5-3.5 for a shortboard
4-6 for a long
I don’t know … I was a power guy … Shorty 45 minutes … long 1.5 hours. It really isn’t so much how long you take, it’s how long it takes you. At my peak I could do short boards in about 25 minutes (average) but I was very organized and had special tools I built. I also learned from very good guys who were also power guys … Redman, Rice, Becker, Martin. Do the job fast with NO SHORTCUTS. NEVER leave anything out.
Shaped with this guy from Australia … really good shaper. His designs were so far ahead of what we were doing, so much better than I was doing. Took him 6 hours to shape one. I couldn’t stand that his were that much nicer … I had to rip him off. The last day of his trip he was at the factory looking at this rack of boards. “Ah Yea, nice looking rack of boards I shaped eh?” My reply was, “Oh, I did those … yours are in the sanding room.” I was doing them in less than 45 minutes. Organization, concentration, specially built tools, knowing the blanks and lots of tricks.
But unless your doing it for a living, speed is unimportant. Do it however just make it the best quality you can … never leave anything out.
PU… about four hours, templating to finishing, tweaking as I go.
EPS… longer… as much as 6 hours or so.
I know I’m on the slow side, but I don’t repeat shapes. Each one is new and original, and it takes some tweaking to get it right, as things get lost in the translation from the vision in my head, to raw numbers marked on the blank, to final shape. It’s something I like doing, so I never rush it. I enjoy every part of the process.
NJ … like your post … after a few thousand I could see it in my head and then just shape it. Lucky me I learned a very simple and efficient shaping method from Joey Thomas (which came from Tom Overlin, which came from Iggy, which came from Simmons) and it allowed me to go from there. It was a huge advantage. It actually gets easier to create the vision the more you do.
“I could see it in my head and then just shape it”
Thats the one. I got caught a few times in “you did not see it before you shaped it”. The seeing it could take me days, mostly nights, before I “shaped it”. Than it’s only a couple of hours. Gotta learn to see em from the inside out
Hey Greg seriously I need to talk to you. ACE
I think visualization, seeing it in your head is true no matter the medium. When building houses or making furniture to all of it. You have to have it in mind to be able to even lay it out.
You can always " work it out as it goes" but at who’s expense? When I don’t care about the time put in a project I’ll work it out in process but really it’s just being lazy even though it takes more work and longer time!
5 days just to shape, sheesh you guys need to step it up a notch. lol J/k
Ace … yea you can use my template … is that what it’s about? Call me.
Yea … nights of figuring out the attack …by the time you pull out the planer it’s all been done in your head many times.
It is not how fast you shape but what the finished product looks like. Greg is right if you have an organized tried and true system, you can go pretty quickly. I can shape as fast as anyone- so what. It is in the finished product.
Try telling your customer when he points to the bump in the rail, that it only took you twenty minutes to shape and see what reaction you get… Now if the bump is still there after four hours you really have a problem!
Exactly … never leave anything out … gotta bump, then you have to correct that. But don’t put the bump in you don’t have to take it out. That’s one of the keys. Every step can be done perfectly … or very close to. Repairing the blank means you made a mistake your fixing. The shape then suffers and your taking extra time … you suffer. But it takes lots of experience to perfect this.
The best boards I ever shaped were when I was doing 2000+ a year and was finishing in less than 30 minutes each. I used to think my tools weren’t fast enough (inefficient) and they were slowing me down … and I had them all souped up. Two planers, really sharp blades, souped up for extra depth, really easy foot action, three sanders, full templates, a row of sanding blocks, etc, etc. Used to be able to cut perfectly straight with a 5000 sander with a hard disk and 24 grit ON FOAM. Now that took some practice. Could cut so straight with my top of the line Bosch jig saw (with custom blade) that I didn’t need to true up the outline … ever. Didn’t cut outside the line … cut ON the line. It was quality production shaping.
Those days are pretty much gone because of the shaping machine but it illustrates what’s possible and what we did. We were faster than the shaping machines and if you had the right attitude and work ethic you could be nearly as perfect as a machine. I don’t think there were more than a handful of us who did this though. Took a certain mind set and dedication.
BTW, Becker makes all of us who ever did this look like wimps … he’s done over 100,000 … that’s insane … I’ve only done 36,000. Think about it 36,000 … that would be 40 a week for 50 weeks a year for 18 years … now think about 100,000 … OMG!!
Hey Greg, during your heyday when it was push push what were your methods? Meaning, would you line up as many blanks as you could and then plane them all then turn to sanding and screening on all like it were one huge board you were working? Instead of doing each board to completion and moving to the next blank? Also, how’s dem bones and joints feeling these days?
" Could cut so straight with my top of the line Bosch jig saw (with
custom blade) that I didn’t need to true up the outline … ever.
Didn’t cut outside the line … cut ON the line."
Well, that explains that. I always wondered why you cut with a jigsaw. The blade wanders out on the curves for me. Practice , Practice, Practice. Right? Give me another 10 years, and I’ll be better.
“Becker makes all of us who ever did this look like wimps”
Phil used to do 11 a day. Eaton claimed he did 20. My record was 8 so I was slow but that was Bonzers and boards with tailblocks. You got really efficient about your steps and knew exactly when to go to the next tool. I cut em out with a wormdrive Skil saw smooth as a babies butt and never wobbles.
He said custom blade, probably an oversized blade ground and honed to fit perfectly into his sabre-saw… I used to do that. The bigger blade did not wander if you knew which one to use. Production secrets, but you had to be there for it really to matter. Then I went on to the worm drive souped up with over-sized diamond blade, and that still works as well as when it was new.
Greg you hit it, there is a must on being able to see the finished product before you have touched the blank, I try to drill this into beginners.
I tell them to pick up every board they can,. feel the rails, look at the rockers, check the foil, stow away that info for the next one you do.
Shapers that have been doing this for life have a virtual mental library of boards going back to lord knows when to draw from, “I remember that oner, did it in '67 for Tommy Knocker”. Some guys will never get it
“…never leave anything out … gotta bump, then you have to correct that.
But don’t put the bump in you don’t have to take it out.”
Thinking about having this engraved on my tombstone… Lol.
It’s not so much the blade that wannders … it is some which is why I made my own blades. But it’s a matter of concentration … actually your mind wanders and the blade follows. I had to train my mind to concentrate on the cut which is really hard to do. After a time though you get good at holding that concentration. I found that single thing to be one of the most enlightening things I ever learned about shaping. About the potential your mind has when forced into doing something it won’t do otherwise.