Here it is - board number two. I’m gonna make a full build photo thread on this one so check back for updates often - board is 5’8" x 21" x 2 1/2" - its gonna have a tri-plane in the back to deep single-concave through the nose, and hard downturned rails forward of the fins. More to come tomorrow!
Making the template
marking the blank
rough-outline cut
deck bands
with a fat diamond-tail
Concaves and convexes marked
tip: spend a couple bucks on a sheet of tempered masonite…cardboard templates suck…
tell me about it - I wasn’t expecting to start the board that day so it was kinda last-minute. Usually I print my templates from AKU and then trace to masonite or something, but this time I went with the ol’ draw-a-2-inch-grid-on-cardboard-with-a-t-square and did some good old fashioned algebra - not my favorite way to transfer a board from notebook paper to template
So this was my first time using a power-planer so needless to say I was pretty nervous about screwing the whole thing up - wasn’t too hard to figure out though and I got a nice, even mow-down. more to come soon, including a time-lapse video these shots are from
Nice! Defninitely looking forwrd to your progress.
…I think that shaping room is from a buddy, right?
anyway, may be is only to pose for the photos but do not use or let the cord onto the shape; do not lift the back of the planer.
When your are cleaning, setting the thickness, etc better to do all the passes one side then the other (last photo).
There s a “protocol” to follow to shape a good board; may be you can find in the archives, the path. Following that protocol there s “pre shaping”; defining the “problems” inherent to an specific blank, etc, then you really start shaping. Or do you think the blanks are perfect?
Hope makes sense, good luck
Yea it’s the room in the ding shop I work at now, kinda a step-up over my garage. As for the cord, it’s supposed to be attached to the ceiling like the other, but fell down on my second pass so I had to constantly mind it to keep it from dragging across the blank.
As for the passes, I’ve heard two schools of thought on it - one side at a time and count your strokes so you can keep them even, or one stroke on each side and you circle the board. I was told it’s a good idea to change hands sometimes and make the pass the other direction, but I found that when planing left-handed the belt touches the blank and leaves rubber burns on it.
I’m aware that some blanks can come with bubbles, etc, and I got lucky on this one not having blown any air. I got excited about doing the top bands first, and then I did the bottom - I ended up having to plane the top down a little to get past the crusty surface and ended up with the rails a little more square than I’d like, but I’m going to keep them high-volume as not only is there a deep concave through the bottom, but also a slight concave in the deck. This brought the thickness on the stringer line down past where I really wanted it, so I’m compensating with some volume in the rails.
Still learning a lot
Smoothed out all the lines and finished the all the contours - now I just need to get the rails a wee bit more rounded so they aren’t ridiculously boxy…
Well unfortunately there will be no full start-to-finish time lapse as I had hoped, considering I snapped my board in 10-14ft Honolua Bay today and the half with my GoPro on it was the one that went missing… it’s gonna skip a couple steps but more still photos to come of the final touches and lam…
I was thinking of doing a purple/black resin swirl for the bottom and a teal on the top, but I can’t decide if I should do the teal in the resin or just pain the deck before I lam
Finished shaping today! Now I just need to laminate the board… planning on trying to get creative with some resin tints - more to come soon!
Last photo is a bit blurry - it’s 5’8" x 22" x 2 1/4"
How wide is your tail across the two points and at 1ft from the tail if you don’t mind sharing? I’m about to start something similar, I’m trying to keep a wider tail but not go overboard.
I cut it around 13, after shaping its around 11-12 (just guessing as I’m not at the shop). The point is about an inch and a half down from the rails, and I left the tail about 1 1/4" thick though I may taper it just a little bit more as I’m noticing the thicker tails with more square rails tend to get you sucked over the falls when duck-diving around here
Sorry iI meant around 12-12 1/2
Just got my cloth yesterday! Hopefully laminating this weekend once my rice paper comes in! Glassing schedule will be 4oz on the bottom, and 6oz on the top with 4oz deck patches. Also going to put a couple carbon-fiber reinforcement over the FCS plugs to prevent break-through as well as a strip partway down the stringer line from the nose to help prevent full snaps
Here’s my idea for the resin tint and logo placement for the bottom of the board - top will be white with cut-lap and black pinstripe
Finally got some time to start the lam process and take some photos… more to come soon!
Managed to save my ass when I screwed up my fin plug installation on the front left… made a mixture of filler and glass flocking to make sure it’s nice and strong and feathered the patch down into the plug… with my high angles and deep concaves in the front I ended up having to do this to the foam on the other side anyways (there was a pretty large ridge on the rail side from trying to re-gain my 9* cant) so it actually worked out and blended very evenly
Don’t mind the ripples in the tape, there’s another layer of tape under there - that’s just what’s holding down the butcher paper
Good thread and fun looking board. My only critique would be to put a quarter on the nose, scribe the curve and round it down. Better yet a Kennedy half dollar. There’s absolutely no need to have a sharpened point on your board unless you plan to do some spear fishing with it between swells. On the other hand the rails in the tail look pretty soft. I’d make sure to put a nice dam back there when you hot coat to get an nice edge. Of course my advice is that of a total amatuer . Wait, actually, the rounded nose idea is George Greenough’s, so consider it the words of a master.
If I’m not too late to jump in, lay out where you are putting the carbon patch before you glass. Sand down a slight depression where you want to place it. For best appearance, carbon goes under only one layer of cloth. If you put it under two layers, it looses some of the “pop”. If you put it on top, and sand into it, you get a whole different set of problems.
If using epoxy, wet out the carbon on a table first. let it sit and get to the “B” stage. Then trim with scissors to the shape of patch you want. This will save you from the carbon fraying. Then wet out the first deck layer of cloth, apply the carbon, just like it was a rice paper logo. Appply the top layer of cloth.
Speaking of carbon, I need to figure out what I’m going to do with mine now - initially I got it to reinforce the points where the fcs plugs are anchored to the deck. Now that I’ve decided to go with the fusion plugs, this will be unnecessary. So, now I need to decide if I’m going to do a tail and nose patch to strengthen against reef bashes, or a strip down the stringer near the nose to strengthen against snaps.
Decisions, decisions…