Yeah, but Mike Eaton also shapes paddleboards out of 1# EPS with a spinning disc on an air drill! That guy’s got the finest touch I’ve ever seen…
TedZ…I shudder to think of all the beautiful old boards that were cut down in those days. The horror. 8( But I thought I read somewhere that they called it that because of a buzzing sound the fins made…
Yeah, but Mike Eaton also shapes paddleboards out of 1# EPS with a spinning disc on an air drill! That guy's got the finest touch I've ever seen...
good point.
No Ole was harmed during the making of the Bonzer Bumblee!
It was the yellow and black on Tim and Malcolms remake of the old bonzer stub design.
Malcolm has told me he doesn’t like the name but it has stuck…
Benny, I was just making a bad joke about how they came up with the name, AKA’s story makes more sense. Too bad Malcolm doesn’t like the name, I think it works great. I remember reading some comment about putting a drill on a rolling pin - he really does that? But I suppose you could work out a drill on one end and handle on the other that you could learn to use accuratley, at least for rough out. As many deep concaves as he’s done, I’m sure he was looking for a more efficient method.
I failed in my attempt at the local useless hardware store to find a half round surform blade but I did get a surform scraper, the little one with a convex cutting surface. With that, a pool noodle (Thanks grasshopper!), and a length of 4’ diameter heavy carboard tubing I’m ready to get back to work.
Quote:Yeah, but Mike Eaton also shapes paddleboards out of 1# EPS with a spinning disc on an air drill! That guy’s got the finest touch I’ve ever seen…
good point.
Hey Kendall…can I buy you a sandwich sometime? I bet we’d have a good time talking story…
Bahn Mi Sandwich at Post & Larkin has the goods for like $2. What can I say? I’m a surfer…of course I’m cheap 
Of course… I love sandwiches. I think we’d have a good time talking story too. I’m in Kauai for a couple more days then I’ll be back in Nor Cal. I live in the city and I have a kid in high school in Marin. Can do either location.
Ever feel like a DP at BoBo? Coast Cafe tastes mighty fine around 9 am…
…mmmm…crab and coffee. I bet we could get Johnny Moore in once he’s back from ASR. Tides are ok next week…
Perfect timing I’m in the process of making a 5 fin Bonzer too. Can anyone give a measurement on the depth of the double concaves please? And do they stop completely before the tail or just get more subtle? Thanks
It’s a date. I’ll have one of their hot tub sized coffees. We’ll have a Mystical experience.
I’ve got a couple of John’s boards. I ordered about 12 from him a few years back for me and a couple friends. Still got two of em, except one is living in Barry Hahn’s garage in San Clemente.
I blew off ASR this time around for reasons I can elaborate on later.
Looks pretty good, although there is a bit of a flat spot towards the nose. I think templating is one of the hardest bits of shaping to get wired. What did you use to bend your outline with? I’ve found it’s about 100 times easier if you can get ahold of a long piece of wood that will flex evenly along its length, put wood screws in the blank at your measured points (plus the width of the templating stick, for example if your stick is 3/16" wide and you wanted a 20" center, your screw would be at 10 3/16" from the stringer) and use your stick to make a long continuous curve around your screws. It’s really important to get your outline as close to perfect as possible because if you have any dips or bumps they will translate throughout the foil, rails, etc. and make it a bit difficult to foil the blank properly. Also, you want to be sure that your saw cut around the blank is at a perfect 90 degrees for the same reason. How do I know? I’ve ended up with plenty of odd foils that take a lot of work to get right by not having my outline exactly as I wanted when I started! It’s amazing how much easier the whole shaping process is if you have your outline true from the start. I’m sure you already know all of this, just pitching in my two pennies! Malcolm’s outlines are beautiful, and pretty hard to duplicate!
nice poster! Just laughing 'cause in italian “bonza” means cocaine…
Tav
Ha! I thought the flat spot was closer to the middle. I pulled out my template (door skin) and fiddled around with it but I must have had the block plane set a bit too deep because when I got it looking about right (so I thought) I had shaved a full 1/8 -3/16 off my entire outline. I decided to leave well enough alone and not fiddle with the blank because I want the board on the wider side. I’m using one of those long aluminum carpet edge things you screw into the floor - exactly what JC uses in Shaping 101. On my first couple of boards I didn’t have much luck using it on the blank like he does. So I switched to laying plywood on the floor and driving nails in that. Then I use pieces of brick to push in or out bulges. It works OK. Then I rough out the doorskin and true up with the plane and sanding block. I think at this point it’s about training my eye better. The more times I look, the more I will notice a little tweak. I think copying boards probably helps you train your eye - so far I have been making different boards that I don’t already own so that is likely steepening my learning curve. I’ll post some progress pics a little later on.
OK, here are some progress pics. I’m going to put them in multiple posts.
These are from yesterday.
This was going to be the board where I was brave enough to use the power planer to cut in the
rail bands but the kids were in bed and it wakes them up. Used my trusty surform and sanding
block.
In hindsight I could have used a third rail band because I didn’t end up with as
much dome in the deck as I wanted. That’s OK because I wanted to keep a lot
of volume for paddling.
Cleaning up the bands with the surform.
My first time shaping a beaked nose - scary!
Starting to look like a surfboard after several passes with the sanding block.
Done for the night.
OK, these are from tonight.
I started out with the narrower between the fins channels using a piece of foam cylinder (pool toy noodle)
wrapped with 36 grit sandpaper. Thanks Grasshopper for the tip! I don’t know if you’re supposed
to start out with the outer concaves but they ended up being good guides. You can see the
fin placement markings that I used to determine where to put the concaves.
The inside concaves were just too wide to mess with either curved sanding block.
So I ran the flat surform up the middle a few times, decreasing pressure towards the
front fin area. Once I had it around 1/8 deep I started making more “bands” out towards the rail and in to the stringer.
Sort of like doing rail bands in reverse.
I took a break from the concentration of the concaves and went back to the beak for
some fine tuning. This ended up being a really fun part to work on.
Back to the concaves, after I made a few passes with the surform I used the foam
cylinder sanding block to carve out how I wanted the concave to look at the very end
of the tail. I used this curve as a visual guide to clean up the area between the fins.
It’s hard to describe how I used the flat surform to get these smooth concaves.
Sort of a touch and go scraping at 45 degree angles to the “bands” I had put in.
I had seen the clip of Malcolm Campbell doing it but I think he had a convex surform blade.
Anyway, the key was taking it really slow and easy, removing tiny bits of material with each scrape.
I was surprised how well it worked.
Carefully taking the concaves a bit deeper, and cleaning up the side runner
channels. I used the same scraping method on them but with a curved
sanding block instead of the surform. I think I got them too deep but
since they are so narrow they look deeper than they are. Only about 1/8 to
3/16".
I forgot to take any pictures of putting in the single concave starting at
mid point, rail to rail, blending in to the doubles. I didn’t know whether I
should have done the single to start out, but it turned out to be great
because it was easy to blend in to the doubles with them already there
and finished.
These concaves look like the Grand Canyon but they’re only about 1/4".
At this point I’m all done except for the finish sanding.
So all I really needed was a couple of tubes for sanding blocks ( a wider diameter
would have been great for the narrow channels) and a surform. I hope
I didn’t bore anyone with all the pics and details, but I’ve learned so much from
all the photo threads I thought I would try and contribute one.
Great thread ! Keep it going!
The body shop guys call the curved sureform a “Cheese Grater”.
When you are ready to give step by step instructions on photo posting that would be cool too!
I can’t do photos anymore unless I do thumbnails.
Ray
just found this thread. very cool. some very complex bottom contours you’ve got going there. thanks for your pics, i’ve learnt a few things. i look forward to following your progress.
Stingray - there is a feature on the software disc that came with my camera (Canon) where you can view all the photos, slideshows, etc. It has a menu where you can “export”, “e-mail”, or other options for the large files the camera generates. I choose “export” and it has an options window where you can resize them and tell it what folder to send them to. It has a feature that calculates the size your image will be and I just adjust till it’s under the 37KB that Sways allows. I’m sure whatever software came with your camera has the same feature. It’s easy to use Sways attach function once you’ve resized. For the photos here I hosted them on the free server storage my cable provider (Adelphia) gives me. If you call your ISP’s help desk they can tell you how to host images and how to know what the url is to paste into the pop up box on Sways.
Oldy - you just made my day!
Thanks TedZ… your thread is exactly what the doctor ordered. I’m going to be making a bonzer5 this summer (I’m a teacher so I’m free during the summer and can devote total concentration at that time) and your thread is the best I’ve seen illustrating the process. One thing, however, which is still mystifying me- I can never see the single concave in any photos anywhere (I’ve scoured this site, surfermag design forum, the Campbell’s two sites). Oh well. The bonzer is almost like a question of faith…so I BELIEVE they’re there, even when I can’t see them. Your photos of the doubles are great. Keep 'em coming.