Your call, but I’d have a bit of a chat with Chipfish first, he seems to have all the good oil on fins and exactly what they do.
too kind wheels ! I am just a tinkerer …Halcyon , from my “talking” with him , is the knowledgeable fin man here !! [and others too]
mate, you guys are doing some GREAT stuff !!
…I have Hicksy here to watch , if I need inspiration for / on how to work with wood in surfboard making . But really, it’s all beyond me , so I will stick with making a wood skateboard or two … I’m happy with glassing and [trying to , anyway !] shaping foam boards.
Hats off to you , for sure …they look nice , NO DOUBT !!
Thanks mate!!! Your fins thread for your fish was pretty informative and that should lead him down the right path. Just giving him options for that great shape is all.
I’m pretty sure I’m going to make it a single to keep the boards’ retro design.- I’m leaning towards this “Tuna” fin because ive seen a lot of “teardrop” style surfboards with them. and since fast fish like the tuna have fins with high aspect ratios, a fast surfboard should have them too I imagine.
Hi guys, sorry to bump this one back up but the balsa is now finished, polished, done. I think I’m gunna try a bonzer or a fish next, not really sure! Thanks to all who have contributed here, this site is where I learnt to do it!
Thanks Chip, once I hand it over I’ll get photos of him on it at Bellambi, assuming he doesn’t turn it into a wall hanger . Rhino it’s solid and comes in at 22kg. If I had my time again, I’d glue the blank up without the stringers, get a rough shape sorted then cut it along the glue lines, chamber it with a holesaw then add the stringers and reglue it. One extra step that would probably save about 5-8kg but well worth it I reckon. ATM if you’re over 55 I reckon you’d need to employ someone to carry ot to and from the waters edge, especially on the way out if you surf somewhere like the swansea channel (Stevo will know what I mean - you’ve always gotta have something left to get home!)Live and learn I guess!
You should ask Jim Phillips about chambering, I was at his shaping room a few times and it seems that what he dose is just puts a tiny spot of glue every coulple feet, shapes it, and breaks it apart without any sawing and chambers with a 1/2" router bit and clamps it back up. It seems to me that if you saw your blank you risk messing up your cuts, and I dont think the board will have the same shape after you take several cuts of 1/8" out of it assuming you would be cutting it on a table saw.
Yeah, good call Rhino. Something I’ll have to think about a bit more. At the end of the day, even if you do it that way the shape is still going to go a bit awry considering you’re chucking stringers in but I see your point.
I think that he has the stringers in the whole time, he just dosent chamber 'em when he breaks the whole thing apart. I don’t know for sure though, so don’t take my word for it. I chambered my board, but in a completly diffrent way. The above is just what I pieced together from seeing some parcial glueups and some 1/2 way finished blanks. when you get going on that one, find Jim or just put up a post, you’ll figure it out.- here’s my chambering process…
Sorry to bump this one up fellas but I thought I had better conclude the story…My dads 60th birthday was last weekend and the photos you see here are of a little emotional but very stoked 60 yr old!!! I dunno if he’ll ride it, I hope he will.
seeing the stoke on your dad’s face was great !! [looks as happy as a five year old on christmas day…hopefully he will surf it soon , and we will get to see that too ?]
cheers mate !
ben
p.s. - is that somewhere around St. George’s basin ? it looks vaguely familiar , where he is ?