I'm going for it. Blank suggestions and work area?

General Discussion
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I’ve thought about shaping a board for a while, and I’m finally ready to give it a go. My girlfriend has even okay’d the project!

At any rate, I was reading another recent post and I’m thinking I should definitely take the advice of others and start with something not too big. I was actually thinking about shaping a disc. I’ve seen a couple of pretty wide, round shapes around 5’10"-6’2" with pretty round templates. They seem to have fairly simple profiles, and I imagine I’d have a good shot at glassing it myself. Does this seem like a good first project? Any blank recommendations?

My other question has to do with mess. I was thinking about doing this in the garage or the backyard. I imagine the garage would work fine since I could vacuum the shavings up. Would the backyard just be unruly? I probably don’t want white dust everywhere, but I don’t have a great sense of how dense it is and how that’ll go.

Any other tips are appreciated. I figured I’d look for a book or a video for suggestions about tool use, etc. Anyone have favorites?

Thanks a lot in advance. I’ve been watching these boards for a while now and I’m amazed at how helpful everyone is.

Phill

2

I say go for it! A disc is a good shape to start with, not too long and not too performance-oriented. Mistakes that may occur won’t have huge consequences.

Your garage is the right place to go. The dust factor just depends upon if you use a power planer or not. A power planer will send foam dust everywhere in the air and you will get dust even in far away places. Hand tools won’t. If you sweep or vacuum regularly, it will be OK.

If you can surround the area you’re working in with large sheets of plastic film, it’s gonna make it even easier.

Screwing neon ramps on some cheap wood stands on the sides will allow you to acurately see all bumps or holes in your blank. Easy to do, and an invaluable help. Set them so that all shades appear distinctly on top (or bottom) of the blank. Working in the back yard is not such a good idea IMHO: bad lighting, and hard to clean up afterwards.

3

Ooops, forgot the blank question…

6’ 2"C or 6’ 9"A seem like good choices. The longer one will allow you a wider choice of rocker line.