Well, I finally did it and it was a humbling experience. The pro who let me use his tools and gave me few tips along the way and the local masters who have been generous enough to let me watch them work made all the difference in how it turned out. Every time you touch something everything changes. I started small figuring it’s cheaper and better to make big mistakes on a small board than bigger ones on a big board.
Surprizingly it came out pretty good with specks close to 6’3"+ x 11.75"x18.5"x13.75"x2.25" with around 4.25" of nose rocker and 1.75" of tail rocker.
I took some photos that give an adequate representation of the board but these kind of things are hard to appreciate without a first hand accessment.
The skill planer felt very awkward to me as much because the stands were about 6" too high to be comfortable for me. But there set up for a guy 6’2" and I’m 5’5". I looked at a Clark Pro at Fiberglass Hawaii and it felt nice in the hand.
All you shapers out there have my greatest respect.
So ~ what do we call this tail shape?
Impressions anyone? Remember what it was like shaping your first board?
I have been doing alot of invisioning my self shaping my first board though. Wanting to shape a longboard, but wondered about trying this blank http://www.fiberglasssupply.com/pics/blanks/73.gif as a parctice blank vers going with a long board blan at almost double the price.
Halcyon…congrats! You were smart to shape a shortboard as your first.
Dave, …good funboard size to start with, but remember, you are at a disadvantage shaping something over 7’ for your first board, as the rails can get out of whack pretty fast, if you don’t pay attention.
Just look at it lots, and you’ll be fine.
My first board was shaped in ‘68, a 6’ x 22 x 3.5" thick square tail small wave board with almost no tail rocker, but lotsa nose kick. Everyone looked at it sideways wierd, as that was much shorter than anything around in those old days. It had turned up nose rails and hard down from the widepoint back. Worked really good, didn’t catch waves great at the time.
#2 was the 9’11" x 19 gun pintail, with the tail cut square after 3 months sitting in the garage. Even up here, there’s not too many days to justify a just under 10’ gun.
another candidate for the “best wave i’ve ever ridden in my life…” next glass and one o’ dem stellar halcyon stradavarious fins add water and call for the mother ship for a desert island drop off in season with a case o’ dinty moore’s stew and girl friday thru monday with cold beverages and heaven on earth will be manifested…do it again…do it again…ambrose… the challenge has been met mithras be praised as well as ol’hal
Nice work Rich! You’ve got a great eye for the rail line. Nice flow, nice finish work. Looks like it’s ready to rip at big Steamers. The tail looks scooped where the water would flow off the board.
The shape looks great. I still have the first two boards that I ever shaped and when I made them I remember how proud I was of how they looked. Now when I look at them I think, “WOW what was I thinking?” With each board you learn a little bit more. With each board you say okay next time I am going to do this or that. No board I created was perfect but I didn’t find that out until I saw them about a year later
The first shaping session on the board was about 2 hours. The next one was about 2.5 hours about a week later. Then I went back a couple of days later and hand planed the stringer down and fussed around with the tail a little for a half an hour or so.
Hook tail sounds like the right call. Hell I surf there more than anywhere else anyway.
As far as the choice to start with a shortboard ~ I used to work in a scientific research lab and we did everything as small as we could cause it allowed us to learn as much about what we had as possible. Using a valuable sample up on one experiment just wouldn’t have cut it. It just make sense to learn in minature.
I’m sure that it’ll look much different to me in a year. I don’t know how much more shaping I’m going to do but I’ve got my eye on the old shed on my property that I want to turn into a surf shack. It’s a perfect size.
Hey ambrose, I’ll pass on the dinty moore but a ciopinno sounds great and I promise to do it again.
Hey ScottW if you’re ever in Santa Cruz look me up and take it for a sess… It’s gonna be a loaner~tester and it’ll have a set of the strat~ “Mental” fins on it, so come on down.
somebody broght back a can of dinty moores from the grocery store at rosarita to K-38 when we were 15 anos camped out of the jalopy of the month it has reminded me of the sacrifice everything for surf diet…best reserved for fantasy or trade… eating of the dinty moore fare is best left to professionals… ambrose…make mine feta pesto
Nice job…I remember my first shape, glassed it too. What an endeavor. I screwed up the nose during shaping, so I had to whittle off 4" off the original eight feet. Then the resin went off way early when I was glassing it…oh man. At that point I was ready to trash it but luckily finished it. The rails, outline, bottom contour were ok, but the rocker was rather straight. It turned out to be a pretty good board. Wish I still had it for old time sakes. I’m looking forward to see what kind of fins youre gonna put on your board and more shapes in the future.
Thanks for the info on the direction of going smaller. I would go smaller than the 7’3" blank but I want to make a boad that I’ll ride and can refine If I would chose. Lonboarding is my love of the surf.
