I know this is a tough question to ask … anybody on oahu willing to teach a newbie how to shape ? I got a shaping room , all the tools , a few templates , short and long . Any help would be greatly appreciated .
Aloha ,
Kala
Aloha Kala
I used to do a class. $1,000.00 for 5 days. You needed to also buy 5 blanks to use. About another $300.00. You needed your own tools time. I couldn’t promise anything other than that you would be as good after 5 days as your artistic abilities and determination would allow.
But I don’t have time to teach these days. Though you are welcome to come watch anytime you like. My shaping room is right out visible in my Retail Store …except that I don’t have any kind of regular schedule nor can I predict when I will be shaping far enough in advance to coordinate something. Paying customers get a specific schedule so they can watch easily if they want to.
Find a good shaper that will let you watch. Buy shaped blanks from him and watch everything he does. Then go home and try it yourself. Learn technique first. Design comes later. Though I can tell you that every wannabee shaper wants to be a designer long before they have the techniques to successfully be one.
Measure every board you get or ride and record the measurements. Eventually you will begin to see patterns in what you like and don’t like. Weed out the bad features, enhance the good ones.
For design improvement, you must get and ride the best boards from the best shapers so you have some sense of what “good” actually is. Get their boards, surf them, disect them, copy them, surf your versions, compare, figure out what you did wrong or did right.
Keep in mind that you will never get the best board, for you, from a skilled shaper unless you commit to getting several boards in a row over time. As he tunes into what works for you the boads will continue to improve. When he is making the “ultimate” board for you, and you understand what that is and why. You can begin to try doing it for yourself. And eventually maybe others.
Bill ,
You just dont know how much your reply means to me . I really appreciate your help . Ill take you up on that offer and stop by the shop the first chance i get . A man of your success and stature jus blows me away .
Aloha ,
Kala
Quote:
Aloha Kala
Find a good shaper that will let you watch. Buy shaped blanks from him and watch everything he does. Then go home and try it yourself. Learn technique first. Design comes later. Though I can tell you that every wannabee shaper wants to be a designer long before they have the techniques to successfully be one.
Measure every board you get or ride and record the measurements. Eventually you will begin to see patterns in what you like and don’t like. Weed out the bad features, enhance the good ones.
For design improvement, you must get and ride the best boards from the best shapers so you have some sense of what “good” actually is. Get their boards, surf them, disect them, copy them, surf your versions, compare, figure out what you did wrong or did right.
Bill , that is some of the best advice I’ve read . It may seem obvious to some. But as I was reading it , I thought …"that’s it ! I really haven’t had a good modern pro-shaped board to go off for years " And I keep feeling that doing boards “freehand” [without a quality board to go off] was stunting my attempts to make a good board for myself . [Rails in particular being my bug bear / “cross to bear”] … thanks for simplifying things for me , and sharing ben
Thanks Ben
My comments are based around this idea.
We all want to experience the best board in the world for us. We often say this is the BEST board. But what we are really saying is… This is the best board that I have experienced so far.
We often invest a lot of emotion into the boards we make or have others make for us. This is one of the cool things about custom surfboards. Yet too much emotional good will toward a new board can set us up to believe it is the best board in the world. (Good marketers, can take great advantage of this.)
Finding the truly BEST board for you is what surfboard making is all about for guys like me. Depending on how bad the shaper wants that to happen for you, regulates how hard he works at developing the skills to achieve it.
Hi Bill I agree with Ben sound advice.
For me I am both learning to surf and learning to shape at the same time, currently my surfing skills only allow me to get to my feet!
So far i have shaped two surfboards one for me and another for my girlfriend, neither of us have ridden them yet due to a lack of surf but both of the boards look like they’ll work.
I’m hoping to shape boards for my mates so they can help me with my shaping but it will be interesting to see how my shaping technique developes as my surfing hopefully improoves.
I will however be open minded and keep tabs on what boards worked and which didn’t and where possible get a go on some top boards.
Ks
Measure every board you get or ride and record the measurements. Eventually you will begin to see patterns in what you like and don’t like. Weed out the bad features, enhance the good ones.
For design improvement, you must get and ride the best boards from the best shapers so you have some sense of what “good” actually is. Get their boards, surf them, disect them, copy them, surf your versions, compare, figure out what you did wrong or did right.
Bill,
This is really great advice! I found myself doing this yesterday. My wife wanted me to make her a new 9’6" noserider and being a HUGE fan of Hap Jacobs, asked me to make a 422 model. This seemed like a very daunting task considering how specialized this board is. Fortunately, together we have several 422’s of various sizes which gave me the chance to “dissect them”. It is so very helpful to be able to study the original and blank side by side. Rocker, bottom contour and rail shape are much easier to copy when you can actually hold the original in your hand rather than running off of memory. I think she’ll be very pleased with her new board, I know I am.
Anyhoo, kudos for posting this info. As an amateur shaper, it is too easy to forget these basics.
Many Thanks,