Well, I’ve finally been bit by the shaping bug after lurking on here for awhile and soaking up information. I picked up a couple of Marko blanks last weekend and started building a ‘real’ shaping rack tonight. I’ve fooled around on a block of EPS I got from Sak last year, but this will be my first serious attempt at shaping a functional surfboard.
Here are the pieces prior to assembly.
My first blanks. RR epoxy, cloth, Lokbox jig, boxes, and fins are all on the way too.
One down, one to go. Not any trouble to build at all. Started at the beginning of the ballgame, and was done by the top of the 5th.
Sorry about the crap pictures, by wife went shopping and had our good digi cam with her. I had to use the crap still picture feature on the camcorder. I plan on documenting the whole process and updating Sways regularly as you all have been a huge motivation for me to get this started. I’m already riding my first board in my head, STOKED!!
sounds like you’ve done your time researching, and now your jumping in. good on ya.
just you wait until that blank starts to ‘look’ like a surfboard, your going to be pretty stoked. there was one guy on sways who was saying he’d steal way from his wife at night, grab a beer, and go into his garage and just look at this half finished project…
hope your wife is supportive of your new pal.
look forward to seeing your pics and lessons learned.
Congrats on some nice stands, a well built set of stands is the first step to a well made board, with wobbly stands your more likerly to shape a wobbly board.
couple of quick tips: round off all the sharpe corners with a surform or corse sand paper so they don’t put scratches in you finished shapes. Glue and screw ply discs the same diametre as the inside of your buckes on the bottom of the up rights, when you pack sand on top they will be much more stable.
Thanks for the support everyone and the tips. My wife is actually being really cool about all this. I’ve been making sure to pull my weight around the house and help out more with the kids too. You know how it is, give a little and take a little. She really shocked me yesterday. I got the permission slip to surf from 6am to 9am, came home and worked around the house and helped with the kids, finished my stands while the kids napped, and then I was cut loose to go the Phillies/Braves night game!!! (Good game by the way, go Phills!!). I guess it just goes to show, keep the wife happy and you stay happy.
As luck would have it, I found a nearly new Makita planer in the friggin garbage the other day. It needed a switch to make it work. It seriously looked brand new otherwise. So after I picked up the $6.00 part it fires right up. Score!! Its not a Clark Hitachi, but for free (+ $6.00) who cares?
I’ve got the stands completely done. Each of the wood uprights are held inside of 5 gal. buckets by 25lbs of fast setting post mix concrete. I cut some pieces of scrap 1x4s out in the general shape of the inside (and then laid them out kinda like decking) of the bucket to keep the bottoms from blowing out from the weight of the concrete. It worked perfectly. Took some scrap carpet and upholstered the uprights.
I picked up some Masonite and have been playing around with the Aku Shaper program to work on some templates. I already have two templates that Sak gave me. I think I will use one of them, the 5’8" Lis style fish, for one of these boards. The other I am contemplating what to do. I’ve been messing around with the idea of some variation of a quad but nothing has really popped in my head as a ‘must try’ shape.
No pictures for this update as there isnt much to update. Just some buckets of concrete really. I am going to try to update on a weekly basis, or as needed if I make some major progress. So until next time.
feels good to shape… the foam in your board short pocket, the measuring, the comparing and contrasting of the way your board looks in relation to a pro…
it just feels so good…
i tell ya what, good luck to you and all of your shaping days! i hope you become the next big south new jersey thing
Well, I finally had some free time to finish cutting out some templates and decided what board #001 will be. Here is the rough outline, still need to true it up but decided I didn’t want to make anymore mess tonight. Based on some other people’s experiences I am going to leave cutting the butt crack out until almost last. That is everyones opinion here about that, correct?
Im so stoked right now, the board is coming out even better than I would have imagined for my first board.
I finished rough sanding the bottom a few nights ago. The planer was a bit easier than I thought it would have been to use. On that first pass I was so nervous that I was going to mess up my blank, but after that first pass it was easy. I few warbles on the end of the passes sometimes when the planer came off the blank, but I quickly learned to steady my hand and use a light touch. The deck was a little hard with the planer, I guess because of the natural concave of the blank. I tried to adjust the blades as deep as they went but it didnt seem to help, it just exaggerated the problem and made the flat portion of the deck all gouged up and still didnt really get into the concave portions well. I tried really holding it at an angle, but again, not much help. Does anyone have some tips? The final shape I want is not much thinner than the unshaped blank so I couldnt really practice much or I was going to ruin the blank. I wound up using the surform and is worked perfect.
I really did some research on Sways for drawing out my rail bands and I’m glad I did. I dont think they could have went smoother if I wanted them to. I had the bands drawn and turned both top rails in less then 20 minutes. I guess its really not fast, but for something I thought was going to be much more tedious I was proud.
I do have a question for you guys. Is this dragonskin stuff people talk about the same as drywall sanding screens? I have a ton of drywall sanding screens leftover from when I finished my basement and I would like to use these things up. They look the same and I tried using them. I dont know how the dragonskin works, but the screens seemed to work fine to me. Any input?
Its really been a fun time and huge learning experience so far. Even my 3 year old daughter is loving it. She loves to watch Daddy get covered in ‘snow’ in the middle of the summer. She already floats around in the pool on my boards, throws shakas to her 7 month old sister, and tells everyone to hang loose. I think she was born to surf. Or at least in my mind. I hope she chooses to take up surfing when she gets older. I would love to spend time with her in the water and share stories about past sessions. But even if she chooses to take up piano, I would be just as happy and proud.
I have tons up progress pictures, but just no time right now to upload them to the host. I will share them later. Thanks everybody for the knowledge and inspiration.
Welcome snjsurfer. You’ve started something that will consume your life and bring you and your family an incredible amount of joy. Take your time and enjoy every step along the way, and definitely keep posting your efforts. Have fun!
Thanks for the kind words. There are some waves today (head high kinda stormy, but the water is warm so who cares) so I don’t know if I will have time to post some updated pictures today.
If you dont mind me asking, do you live in KDH year round? My wife and I are thinking about relocating our business and family to the area and want to talk to some people who live there already. We visit the area a few times a year and love it, but its hard to make a judgment call on the reality of year round living when all you ever do is vacation there. Any input would be valued. Thanks.
OBX is a great place to live year round depending on what it is you do for a living. I keep it as home base while I travel around out of town making a living. Its primarily a tourist area during the summer and it can get hectic with the crowds during the season, but has a great core group of locals that are great people. Waves can be really good for east coast standards in the fall. If you go down south to Pea Island you can always find a sandbar to yourself if that’s your thing. Your welcome to come down for a weekend and check it out next time a tropical storm is working it way up from the south.
We are actually going to be down there Sept 16th thru the 23rd on vacation and I’m hoping to score some good waves. Its been good every other year we went in September. We went down to the Easterns last year and got good waves all week. We are going to be staying closer to town this year though, so it should be a good time.
I own a floor covering store up here and will probably sell it when we want to move and open another store there. There seems to be a few large floor covering stores on the island so I need to do some research and check out the competition and what not.
The good news is that my new board should be done by then. My glassing supplies are going to be here Friday and my fin boxes, jig, and fins will be here shortly after.
Alright, been making decent progress for only messing with the blank for a few hours a week. Its shaped and ready for glass. Getting the stringer the proper shape in the crack was a friggin pain. The file kept wanting to slip off and mess up the foam. Luckily I shaped the stringer first and then brought the foam down to it, so it was all good. Taped up the stringer and put the first coat of spackle on tonight. Im going to do a tint of some type so is it necessary/better to sand it down lightly and put another coat on? It looks pretty smooth after one coat.
I put slight vee in the back half of the board and kept it flat in the front. I didnt want to get too crazy being that this is my first board I’m shaping. Glassing supplies cam in the other day so hopefully I will get this board laminated over the weekend. Wish me luck.
