Alright I know it’s shameful to be even asking this question in Swaylocks… but what would I need to shape a surfboard? I really have no idea- never shaped a board. I know I need something to sort of scrape away little layers of foam at a time… but I have no clue. What is surform? sureform?
Search the archives. Its all there.
Basically:
sandpaper 60 100 220 grits or similar
surform
hand planer
crosscut saw
wire mesh sanding screen
measuring device(s)
power planer if you have the money
here’s a surform
to get some ideas look at all the links on the right of the http://www.foamez.com/ page. This will give you ideas on what tools are what and based \on how they package things you’ll get an idea of what are the basic tools and w\ that you might really want.
Look at the video clips mentioned in this thread: http://www.swaylocks.com/forum/gforum.cgi?post=181084#181084 to get some ideas of the standard process.
Check the archives. Modest Mouse (the band) rocks |…|/ -Carl
get 3" wide belt sander belts,cut them,lay out flat, contactcement them to 2x4 of the same length. make them with like 3 different grits.these, a yardstick, magic marker,soft pencil, piece of foam rubber,sand screen and a square. a little practice and you’ll be amazed.
Thanks… I knew I should check the archives but I dodn’t really know what to search for because I didn’t know what I was looking for.
not really sure what happened w.r.t. the links in my last post…fixed not.
didn’t know what I was looking for.
That is where looking at the tools at FoamEZ will help a little.
Before I started I felt the same way. Look at the 2 links in my post above as I think they will help you get the picture of how everything fits together.
as for archives… try searching for things like “basic tool”, “power vs hand planer”, “hand tool”. When I started I found a several thread including some I started about just what you are asking about. You get a wide view of thoughts from “got to have a clark planer” to “a cheese grater and a stake knife is all you NEED”. Lots of guys talk about using a surform (the cheap route), but after watching Jim Philips in the Master Shaper dvd (who uses his planer for nearly everything) I decided to go the planer route. Partly because having never seen someone shape with surform I was not sure of the process, where as I saw what to do with the planer.
Many tools are available at a hardware store (Home Depot). That is were I got my hand plane and surform. I got my planer from FoamEZ.
http://www.fiberglasssupply.com/ also has tools.
I couldn’t find any calipers in stock when I was “buying up”, so I made some out of plywood, which I liked, but I made a second set from lexan plastic sheeting you can buy at Lowe’s or Home Depot and I liked them a lot better. You can bolt the two pieces together with a nylon bolt, and glue the offset (so the “tips hit”) at the hinge with two-part epoxy.
Then, it’s really easy to scratch the marks in the plastic for the measurements, kinda like a drafting variable triangle. I have one friend who actually made his using a variable plastic triangle buy using the epoxy to glue the longer points onto the triangle, trim it up a bit with the ol’ Dremel and it worked out quite well, too.