Ghettorat made a timely post on the "who invented the shortboard..." thread.
He mentioned how magic boards can be the result of a screwup. A buddy of mine is shaping a board for a kid, replicating a little CI biscuit or gravy or something like that. Anyway, the kid's telling him how he needs the board to be EXACTLY like the one he has. Warren starts measuring it up, the board is off 1/8" on the nose and 1/8" on the tail opposite side (looks like it got on the shaping machine a little off) and the widepoint is narrower than that written on the stringer.
Nope, can’t load a blank crooked and have it cut both sides right, but did you look at the stringer, it may bee crooked as crap, the machine only indexes at the very tip on the nose and tail, so by using the stringer as a reference, the board may seem “off”, but will still be symetrical. Only last week did I argue, unsuccessfully, with a ghost shaper about the fact that the board he was finishing was not “off” but the stringer was off, he still did not get “it”. That is what a F’n chalk line is for stupid.
Machine boards are not flawless, but in most cases it is operator error on the part of the finisher, Channel Island ran an ad for finish shapers 6 months experience needed, 6 months into my foray of shaping, I couldn’t find my ass in the dark with both hands.
I watch a lot of old and young finish shapers ruin machine blanks by being overly aggressive, it is not a race to the bank, but they don’t see that, it is a race to kill the cash cow, I’ve see Rusty and Al both drop guys who didn’t get the big picture, “do a good job and you’ll be back next week”
I used to have an old 8'6" Dewey Weber made I think in '69-'70. It had a tapered balsa stringer with a 3/8"!! hook in it. If you looked close you could see the pencil line the shaper ( Dewey, I think) drew on the balsa to keep parrallel. Always wonder why it never got sanded or planed off. It was on only a section, not on the whole stringer. The board rode very well and gave it to a friend who collects for his birthday. The stringer was 1" wide at the tail and 1/2" or less in the nose.
Difficult, I mean Diff, got a load of blanks and several of that batch had crooked stringers, Diff being Diff, snapped a line down the center of the straightest part of the stick and templated the boards with the stick off to the side of the noses, Channin about blew a gasket over it
Howzit Jim, I used to watch Larry Strada use the chalk line on every board he shaped and I learned to do the same. Have tried to tellsome new shapers to use 1 but they think it's stupid and I just tell them they are stupid for not using one but then again I have been using chalklines for years as a framer and carpenter. Aloha,Kokua
Tblank, it's easier to snap a line pulled tight over a convex surface. On the deck side, it would be difficult to get the chalk line to hit the area in the nose rocker.
Nope, can't load a blank crooked and have it cut both sides right, but did you look at the stringer, it may bee crooked as crap, the machine only indexes at the very tip on the nose and tail, so by using the stringer as a reference, the board may seem "off", but will still be symetrical. Only last week did I argue, unsuccessfully, with a ghost shaper about the fact that the board he was finishing was not "off" but the stringer was off, he still did not get "it". That is what a F'n chalk line is for stupid.
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Out of curiousity, why couldn't you put a blank on a rack 1/16" of an inch off the shaping machine's axis and be an 1/8" off on opposite sides nose and tail, of a blank? Just seems like that would be the result if the machine operator was a little bit careless.
As for the chalkline, I had a board a while back that was giving me fits while shaping, just couldn't seem to get it right. Finally thought about it and put a line on it. Sure enough, bit of a bow in the stringer in the center of the blank.
I know i’m in over my head to disagree with you guys, so my appology is up front.
I’m a short time shaper, but a long time carpenter, so I’ve got to say, you can’t snap a straight chalkline line over a curve. Any variation of how you pull back the string, or release it will drift the line to the left or the right. Snap three lines over a curve, and they will all differ by a little. You would be bettter using the factory edge of a sheet of masonite, and drawing with a pencil.
I’ll stop now, and go back to learning from the masters,
Surfthis, With all due respect and really no offense intented but I can state emphatically that you WILL NOT get a true straight snap on a convex surface. I have been a woodworker for 34 yrs. and have snapped countless times on countless slabs on too many tract homes I could ever remember. Not to mention thousands of sheets of plywood. When a line is snapped on a convex surface the string will inevitably roll off center....guaranteed. The line must hit the entire surface AT THE SAME TIME to produce a straight line. The apex of the curve prevents this from happening. It hits there first and does not allow for the line to track properly. Snapping a straight line entails pulling the chalk line as tight as possible and releasing it on the center or mark. If the line is pulled up even slightly off center right before the snap, the line won't snap true. This fact has been born out many many times to the consternation of myself and all others that have erred in the process. There may be compensations for this method but it is poor practice and entirely the wrong way to go about it. When working with curves...use a straight edge.
Yep, can’t snap a line over an outside curve, I fixed a blank for one of the young shapers, learning from one of the old no so greats, snapped a line on his perimeter blanks bottom. He came to me to say the blank was “off”, but when I snapped a line on the deck, the side sticks were in perfect curves on each side.
To save the blank, he had cut it out to his “marks”, I trued and glued another length of colored foam to the outside of the original
Also, even straight edges with be defected off to one side over a surfboards bottom, when I do have to use one, I draw one side, then flip it and draw again, there becomes and area through the center where the lines are offset from one another, then it is find the middle between those two.
Any type of concave or roll does not let it lay in a dead straight line, I even snap my line several time to see if I pulled off to one side