I’d like to hear everyone’s experience(s) regarding what method they are using to shape all the new foam that is out there. I’m especially interested in how many shapers are using the abrasive drums on their planers vs. cutting blades, and what your experiences have been.
We now have some pretty dynamic foam at our disposal and some has a tendency to tear if you want to move faster than molasses on a cold Kentucky morning …yeah, some of us still do that handshaping, one off custom stuff.
Can you mow fast w/sanding drum? Is it quieter? Does it tear foam? Is a spiral drum better than a full drum? Was it hard to install? Which foams are planing easily with blades?
There’s a world of foam out there now, and the planer is still in use.
I don’t have any personal experience with grit drums. However, I know folks have posted similar questions before. I recall that they didn’t tear out the foam or the stringer but they did have a lot of friction / drag and made the planer work a lot harder i.e. (e.g.?) burn out sooner. I think this was more of an issue with the full grit drums rather than with the spirals. Do a search in the archives. Should be some info in there. For what its worth I’m using a old rockwell 653 with a sharp spiral (blade) cutter and I mow through 1.5lb EPS with minimal tear out. Have fun.
thanks for your input…I don’t think the heating problem is much of an issue nowadays with the improved abrasives out there…people were saying they were at 4000 boards and going strong with cutting ability. Someone mentioned the full drums have a tendency to turn away from the work and others said the spiral ‘changed their lives’ in a good way.
'm shaping MDI (Homeblown) and I’ve talked w/Ned about this comparing my initial shaping experiece w/HB to the old extruded foam we were so hopeful about. I ad to plane that stuff more backwards than forwards…but I really don’t want to be resigned to that limited a technique. I do shape a lot both directions though because I didn’t like using surforms and the planer is ‘the tool’ if you know what I mean…didn’t even like the little Hitachi’s because they aren;t true like long blocks. I got half way through a LB with one I bought and I sold it to Brom 15 minutes later.
It just seems to me that the rigid foams that are being produced that are “hard, yet resilient” is a good approach for a finished product for the surfer and not so for the shaper. This is what has been stated by Midget F. and I don’t have a problem with that approach in the least. As far as the EPS scenario…yeah, I’m up on that from all the sailboard stuff I did w/EPS in the 80’s…all the way down to .5 lb EPS…just using the blank to ‘form the air’ so to speak.
If you’re doing EPS then…who’s are you using? I think Marko has the right on approach. I talked with Clay and they seem to be dialing in nicely. I got some 1.5 that I got from Barfoot…virgin but the big block dinosaur aproach. Bigger beads…I’d be interested in hearing from anyone that has shaped the smaller fused C beads from Marko.
I’m just a garage hacker and I’m still useing up my block of 1.5 eps from Insulfoam. I just bought a couple blanks off Rich Harbour. One is Austin Foam Core and the other is American (Segway?). They are both 10’0, 2.5lb EPS. I’ll pick them up some time in July and I can’t wait to get my hands on them. I’ve heard some really good things about Marko. I’d buy more pre-shaped blanks but the shipping kills me. I’m pretty rural. Later
Insulfoam has been around for a long time…don’t know about the other guys. I find it kinda funny that so many people have gotten with the EPS/Epoxy approach these days. Yes, we did a ton of it in the 80’s with the sailboards (I needed the buoyancy it offered to carry big rigs (sail, mast, boom) needed for early planing in light winds. I still fondly remember my 8’10x21"x6" thick 10 lb. sailboard of '85…reinforced with S-2 glass and carbon mat. This was the .5 lb EPS.
The main thing to look for in the material really is that it’s virgin and stable. Then the other stuff comes into play…fused sounds promising, bing pre-formed into contoured blanks is wonderful, and the bead size may or may not be of significant import.
I spoke with both Fiberglass Hawaii and Foam EZ today about the grit drums for planers…also looked here in the archives and read about carbide dipped bits (blades) as an alternative…don’t even know of those are still out there. Foam EZ didn’t have them nor did F.H…
Since I’m used to shaping EPS with blades, I’m not really concerned about that drill, all I wanted the grit drum for was so I could mow at a fast clip through MDI (Homeblown) and possibly Surfblanks or other hard, tight celled blanks that are out there I’m not sure if U.S. Blanks tear easily or not.
I also read a piece in the archive about what Olson (Santa Cruz) was saying about method and if I understood right he was saying NOT to use your planer in reverse. I have total respect for shaperrs that precede me (I started in the 60’s but Olson precedes me), but I have to state that pulling the planer backwards is a valuable tool for knocking off bumps and blending…the anatomy of the toe comes into play as well as the physiology of not being a forward “going into” cut…grant it, you do this with a quick movement or swipe unlike the slower controlled angle cut forward.
With the MDI blanks and the old extruded foams the reverse method is really a necessity. I have already experienced some tearing with MDI’s that happened even though I was slower and angled. In fact I did a test on one blank and it is almost as though it had a grain in being that it was tearing on a forward tail to nose pass but did not tearing also going forward from nose to tail…go figure.
Either way, you get out the 40 or 50 grit and get it all out from there on. Or disc if you are inclined. There are a lot of new variable in this day and age that keeps things interesting for us dinosaurs…