so many questions.
how do you make a GOOD template, not material wise, but shape wise. i have a fish, and i know you can trace it and stuff, but say i want it shorter, and not as wide, how do you do it? like i traced my fish, and made a good template. than, to shorten it, i just trimmed the edges, and it didnt work out, at all. how can you free hand it? any tips? haha, so someone, help me, once again.
Hey logger…
Check out either aku shaper or aps 3000 free software…do a search here in the forums or online and you’ll find it…i forget the official name, but it’s a free program specific to surfboard outlines, etc.
I personally use illustrator cuz i have access to it and i like looking at my outlines standing up straight. Let me know you’re dimensions and i could spit something out for you lickedy split. Let me know.
if you want to free hand it make the appropriate width marks on one half the board and draw a line connecting them with a batten, or piece of metal or anything that bends cleanly and evenly. cut and trace using masonite and copy on other side of the blank.
you could also make a “spin” template which allows you to play with the curve a little more
Thats how I do it, I use a long wooden batten. I use pannle pins to hold it in place at several refferance points. I use hard board (masionet to those in the US) I cut 1/16 - 1/8 outside the line i’ve drawn then use a hand plane to smooth out any bumps. work from one end to the other then switch direction. The plane will find any spots that don’t “feel right” - try it you’ll see what I mean.
Hi logger
Have you tried http://www.greenlightsurfsupply.com/templates.html might have something similar to what you want. just print out,cut and stick to 3mm board and cut around.
There is only a few but might be of some help
Good luck
muzzer
It takes a lot of practice and a good, well trained eye, but eventually you’ll get the feel for it. I find it a very creative part of the process, and one that I enjoy the most.
Buy a roll of red rosin paper and a long, straight piece of door jamb from your local hardware store. It should have no kinks in it, and it should have as straight a grain as you can find. Start off by laying a sheet of paper out on a piece of finish plywood (the smooth side), and take a sharpie and make a line that will be the stringer. Then put down your basic dimensions (length, nose, width, tail). Stick some pins or brads in it at those marks, and start bending the stick and drawing some lines with different colored pencil. When you get a line (or combinations of lines) that you like, take a sharpie and make a bold black line. Cut it with a razor blade, fold it down the stringer, and sharpie the other side. Cut it with a razor blade and you have a starter template. From there you can tweak it however you like, then either use it straight up, or trace it onto a piece of masonite and keep it forever.
Once you get the hang of it, you can do it right on the foam with the stick, a soft pencil (#9B) and some finishing nails.
I make my templates by drawing them on a computer (I use autocad for the program, but I think it would also work with any drawing program), and then I print them out on a blueprint plotter at full size (my printer prints out 24" wide by any length). Don’t forget to draw in fin locations! Cut out the outline of the surfboard from the paper, and use a little spray adhesive to glue it to the blank. If you use just a little adhesive, you can peal it off for re-use.
The best part about this is that you aren’t limited by a fixed masonite template and connecting the dots. Every board can easily be drawn with subtle modifications for a new design.
Since you probably don’t have access to a large format printer, in my area reliable graphics woud do it for less than 10 dollars per drawing. Or look in the yellow pages under blue print.
Good templates are good.
great templates are refined
make a template-make a board from it
choose the best side of the board
retrace the good side on the template
taking out the bumps
reshape it
make the nex board
do it again
every refinement
the template gets more and more refined
I go full template it can transcend
stringers with inconsistancies
and speed up templating
with router man what a boon!
… ambrose…
I use masonite {hard board 1/8’'}
Search on ‘‘making templates’’ and you’ll find a LOT of info.
so many questions.how do you make a GOOD template, not material wise, but shape wise. i have a fish, and i know you can trace it and stuff, but say i want it shorter, and not as wide, how do you do it? like i traced my fish, and made a good template. than, to shorten it, i just trimmed the edges, and it didnt work out, at all. how can you free hand it? any tips? haha, so someone, help me, once again.
Kindly Advice:
Your really handicapping yourself by not buying a Shaping DVD first, watching it 8 times or more . After that comes the archives, then start your board, then
after that commence with the normal questions to the swaylocks crew. You should slow down and acquire more knowledge first. Else your likely to screw up your board and might start grating on everyone with the high volume of
beginner questions.
BTW, your templating question was addressed in the John Carper video ‘Shaping 101’. Some cheap flexible sidewall molding would solve your problems. Then completed boards
can be used to make actual good 1/4" plywood or pressboard templates from.
template all your boards. even if you don’t like them. draw your lines. cut. eye from every angle. then again. then again. hold your sanding block and adjust til it has that perfect ‘flow’. if you alter the outline slightly, it is less of an issue than messing up the curve.
use 1/8" masonite
do not adjust your templates once they have the ‘flow’.
to adjust or make a new one. make your length marks and width marks and keep grabbing different current templates to get the line you want through that section… nose of one, mid to tail of another.
do i like it?
what about this?
so much fun taking professional shaper outlines and using those beautiful lines to create something you see in your minds eye
i’m a newbie with 8 or 9 boards under my belt, but the template adjustment is MY FAVORITE part. lines from pavel and hess and lost and others all mashed up to make what i see when i close my eyes.
amazing
When cutting out the template with the sabre saw stay off the pencil line about an 1/8", then bring it into the line with sandpaper, standing back to look at it all the time to make sure the curve is smooth. Cutting to the pencil line leaves no room for cleaning up the curve if there is a flat spot.
and there will ALWAYS be a flat spot
from my experience
ah…the sunlight has just come up and over the horizon and now you’re starting to realize the task in front of you…
welcome to the wonderful world of shaping surfboards…glad to see you, have a seat! I could be wrong but this question will the first of many to come. There will be tough times ahead but the end result will have you smiling like a king standing on top of the mountain overlooking his kingdom. Try not to get frustrated and try not to take it too seriously… at first…that will come later…HAVE FUN WITH IT and you’ll be posting pics of your 100th board in not time.
I wont put it into quotes because I’m not sure of the exact wording…a student speaking to the “surf master”: I want to learn how to surf…the masters reply: be careful…it can change everything.
(The above quote taken from the following) any of you interested in a good surf adventure book: allan c weisbecker In search of captain zero
ps logger33: ask lots of questions, search the archives here…you’ll be doing research for years!!!
If this is going to stay up, I guess I should help a little more than just sending you to the archives.
To make your fish shorter and narrower, you should have been able to use your first template w/o
modifying it. Just mark your endpoints and widepoint on the blank to be shaped, then use existing
template to connect those dots. Since you’re going narrower, you shouldn’t get a ‘‘bump’’ on the wp.
You can pinch the nose and tail a little by shifting the template past the centerline also, if you like.
After you’ve cut out and faired the new blank, that’s the time to take a template off it, while the rail is
square and it will sit flush against your template material. This makes it much easier to get a good line.
More tips: Taping your line can help, use 2’’ tape for anything but tight curves (use smaller tape if it
won’t bend the curve w/o wrinkling). Not only does this fair the line , but it gives you something you
can see easily when cutting. Cut outside the line, then fair to the line. Hit the high spots first with a
planing tool; the power planer is best but a sharp block plane set near zero will do. Don’t get near the
low spots at first (there really aren’t any ‘‘low’’ spots, just high spots on either side. you can’t put material
back. well, you can, I’ve seen some bondo and/or glass on a few, but that’s another subject…)
Compress the curve when you look at it by getting close and looking end-to-end, you’ll see the bumps
better. Use the plane as much as you can, then switch to a hard block with #40. Once the line is close,
bevel the edges of the masonite, both sides, to make the final sanding easier and more accurate. It thins
the edge so that #80 or #100 flexi block can fine-tune.
Watch out for the masonite dust, it can foul any shaped blank nearby. I do any roughing of masonite when
there’s nothing else in my room or do it outside. Don’t forget to get it off your racks and tools also.
All of this was shown to me by guys that are way better than me, I’m just passing it along…
As I said on another template thread, nowadays I do most of my templates on sheet PVC, it’s very easy
to work with, but you have to be careful it sands/planes so quickly. With that stuff, you cut with a razor
blade and the fairing is minimal once you get the hang of the cut. Practice, practice…
As I said on another template thread, nowadays I do most of my templates on sheet PVC, it’s very easy
to work with, but you have to be careful it sands/planes so quickly. With that stuff, you cut with a razor
blade and the fairing is minimal once you get the hang of the cut. Practice, practice…
Hey Mike thanks as always for your wisdom. What thickness PVC do you use, does it chip? Will it support router w/template guide cutting?
Stingray and the Low Tech Lab approve this thread…
What thickness PVC do you use, does it chip? Will it support router w/template guide cutting?
I use really thin (I think it’s one mil) at present, but I have lots of old templates on slightly thicker. I used to get
4’ x 8’ sheets from Greg Loehr back when he had it down the street. I discovered that my best friend was
buying 50 sheets at a time to make plant tags for his nursery, and didn’t mind giving me a few every year,
so that’s where I get it now. He’s discovered he can get away with using the thin stuff, and I’ve adjusted as well.
It cuts so easily with a blade (or scissors even), it fairs so quickly, it’s lighter and less bulky - I’ve got 40 spin
temps sitting on my light shelf and the whole row is only about 3’’ thick. The whole reason I started using
this stuff was for travel templates; roll 'em up and put 'em in the toolbox. Lugging masonite around gets old.
Then I started using them day-to-day because they were just so easy. Very dimensionally stable and
waterproof too.
The PVC is soft and doesn’t chip, I’ve seen some other plastics that do.
You’d have to go to 3 mil to support a router, probably, and you’d lose some of the ease of work advantages.
And it would be more expensive than masonite.
make a template-make a board from it
choose the best side of the board
retrace the good side on the template
taking out the bumps
reshape it
make the nex board
do it again
golden… simply golden…