Yes, after over 25 years of surfing and a lot of time hanging around in shaping rooms I decided it was finally time to work on some foam. Purchased a "shitty" 7'0" reject blank, fixed the stringer (thanks Huie for the tip) and went ahead and drew my outline. I first made a template out of my friend's 6'8" semi gun, marked my points and blended the curves.
Original idea was 7'0" x 13 1/2" N x 20 1/2" x 12 1/2 T. My hand saw cutting sucked the first couple of feet (started at the tail) so when I trued up the outline I decided to fix it by going norrower. Drew outline again and ended up with 7'0" x 12 3/4" N x 20" x 11 1/2" T WP 4" forward. Looks good now and rail outline is smooth as a baby's butt.
I ordered a fin from Barnfield and he suggested I go with a simple V bottom. Going to try to keep the board thick under the chest and work my way from the bottom up like I read on his rail band thread. Next step will be planning the bottom flat to then start working on the V.
When I am done shaping, I will probably pigment opaque yellow to hide the stringer imperfections (board is for me anyway) and don't worry, no bolt logo... I don't want to get in legal troubles with Mr. Paskowitz so we will just call this a 70's style singlefin tube charger...
Well, it’s been a while and this has certainly been a learning experience for me… Finally my board is ready for glassing!
Ok, I have to accept I may be a little obsesive compulsive so this is my third shape from this one blank. It was originally meant to be a 7’0", didn’t like the way it came out so before cutting the rail bands I reshaped it into a 6’10". The 6’10" Came out beautiful. I finished shaping the foam and was about to do some fine sanding before glassing, you know just to remove some very minor scratches. I leave my board on the racks and decided to go get a glass of water. I come back and I am looking at it from a distance and all of the sudden the first and only gust of wind there was that night started to make the board levitate as I looked in horror… board landed on a rail on the base of one of my light stands which are made of 2 by 4’s. Neddless to say, my obsesive compulsively shaped 6’10" got two one inch deep dings on the rail both symetrically perfect as the square edges of the two by fours where it landed.
All time stopped for like 10 seconds followed by words I would rather not post here (spanish cursing)… Many ideas quickly crossed my mind: Karate chop through the blank, maybe shape a fish, try to rewind time… I finally decided to fix the blank with some pieces of foam and glue. It came out ok but, obsesive compulsive wasn’t happy so I reshaped it again and finally finished. Moral of the story is that if you are shaping outdoors, never ever leave a blank unattended without something with some weight on top of it to hold it down.
Just finished shaping and board came out 6’6" X 19 1/4" X 2 3/8" 13"N, 12 1/2"T, WP 2" Forward, flat bottom, beak nose, and boxy rails to try and keep some flotation. Will see if I can use it, it’s designed for very hollow waves so maybe if I paddle under the lip it might actually work. Will probably glass and attach the fin tomorrow, here are some photos…
shit, can’t attach photos, I have them in “My Documents”, I browse them on the “Attach New File” Box but when I hit the attach button nothing happens and the file dissapears from the box??? I have attached photos before in this way and have even copy pasted photos to the text post, none of this seems to work today… help!
Maybe they're too big? You can use MS Paint to shrink them. Or, if you post them to a photo storage site like flickr or photobucket you can post 'em up by clicking the tree icon, then adding the url.
The board’s looking great TonyLion, love the outline. I love those old 70s style single fins. I’m building something similar at the moment, just a little shorter, narrower and with a more rounded pintail.
Thanks for posting my photos John Mellor, I will try to figure out how to post more pictures so I can attach some more when I glass it. Will do a yellow opaque reverse wrap, gloss and polish and glass on the single fin. No leash plug or loop on this one. Will keep you guys posted. This thing is addictive, already thinking about the next board.
Also, next year I will try to save up some money to buy a plane ticket and go see the Sacred Craft, looks like fun and I would really enjoy meeting some of the Swaylock's crew and learn a bit more about surfboard design, thanks a lot for all your help guys! Anyone in Swaylocks ever decides to come down to Puerto Rico can contact me and I'll show you where the tubes are!
