I get completely amazed at what I see among the “pro” shapers. One uses only the planer to skin his blanks and from there it is surform to the end and it shows. Another turns his rails 18" at at time, starting in the flats and dropping around the rail to the edge, then moving down the next 18"? A really hellof a nice guy, puts on 3 really big bands and then drags #36 back and forth to blend it all together, the lable he works for sends 20 minutes per board to get them right after he’s done. Shaper to the stars, uses a sander all the way and it shows. Now I’ve learned from better men than me, but in 10 years, none of these guys have changed the way they shape at all, knuckle draggers, they see what I do, day in and day out. Yesterday, 18 incher and I put blanks on our racks at the same time, I trued and skinned the deck, ran the bottom down to thickness, veed, rockered and thinned the tail, thinned the nose and got the obvious high spots knocked down on the whole bottom. I drew on the planshape, cut it out and trued it up with my planer, next was to clean up the rail-line foil on both sides, give it a rough sand to get rid of most planer marks. After that it was turn rails, top and bottom, true them up and start the final sanding. I was onto the next board and he was still fiddling around with the bottom foil, surforming away, this was 10 cigarettes later, peppered with how tough these Walker blanks are to shape. This is a shaper who was crying about not having any work and I give him my surplus. The jist of this is, learn how to use your tools so they do the work, not you. Who does number 2 work for?
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Foamdust, I’ll be in Hawaii this late winter and shape some boards for Yas at Jack Reeves shop, his glassing is way more expensive, but the diffrence will make up for freight and DAMAGE. Lets plan ahead for a Hawaii Swaylock’s
meeting of the minds and hands
Hmmm did I just hear Hawaii Swaylocks? If there was one id like to go…
me too. (I’ll have to do a reverse-Ambrose, and fly over east-to-west…)
Swaylock’s Hawaii. I’m in. Let’s do this, seriously…
“Swaylock’s Hawaii”… can you say family vacation 
when and where?