…
Post was deleted because I didn’t realize this was going to be a pissing contest drama thread. Made me regret that I posted. Yes it can be done. I’ve done it. I have pictures of the finished product. Is it an ideal way to build a board…of course not, but someone who wants it and has a little imagination can build almost anything with his hands and a few basic tools.
One of the other websites I frequent runs an annual guitar building contest and the guy that has won it the most times and is consistantly at the top has none of the fancy tools that the other builders have and he is dirt poor yet he has an incredible imagination for how to use the few basic tools and materials available to him. His guitars are amazing.
there was an article in a magazine a while back which included a part about Tom Pohaku Stone. He was using a chainsaw in the pic. Thought it was funny because in the article, they talk about how he does all his board building according to ancient standards. haha, maybe he was just holding it for a friend?
Wasn’t it Obama that said ‘‘If you like your Mako 224 board picture, you can keep your Mako 224 board picture?’’ Bring the photo back, you just may be a pissing contest winner! I don’t dare post a photo of my first (no power tools) board. It would ruin my reputation! Yours looked way good.
I really pissed off my roomate by glassing the board in the basement under his bedroom…
**Blast from the past!**
Recalled Greg Noll, "Velzy and I arrived there about five o’clock one afternoon. The place looked all shut down. We pounded on the door. No reply. Velzy noticed that the door wasn’t locked, so he opened it and called, ‘Simmons?’
“No reply. We walked in cautiously through the shavings, calling, ‘Simmons, where are you?’ Finally, we heard a gruff voice from a corner: ‘Whaddaya want.’ We followed the voice and found Simmons sitting in the corner in shadow. He was eating beans out of a can, using a big balsa-wood shaving for a spoon.”
**Aloha**
after that lets all build a hobby horse.
…ambrose…
using only your feet.
Yawn…
…Hand shaped and hand glassed…power for fin boxes and Lights…Yawn…power tools are a good thing…wetsuits are good too…cars and trucks are good…
It’s just not that hard to “hand shape” a surfboard…without power. I made my own blanks too…but that took massive power to make the EPS Billets…and…take it from there…cut down a tree…or two.
thats baddy early seventys ** somewhere on the northern rivers where he still lives**
cheers huie
nahh modern day effort will require a chainsaw ** wheres yorkster**?
cheers huie
New criteria; have to shape it whilst living in a cave.
When Clark first came out with the close tolerance blanks, I shaped a 6-5R using a block plane and sand paper. Call me chicken, but it seemed so thin, I was afraid to put the planer to it for fear I’d make it too thin. That was the only part I did without powertools (and the only blank I didn’t use an electric planer on) as I power sanded it after glassing. However, at 6-2, it really wouldn’t have taken much to hand sand it all the way out, I just wouldn’t want to since my Milwaukee and sanding pad does a really good job!
to put this in clear perspective
I seem to recall once upon a time dr.jensen musing
about making a hollow board out of a clark foam box…
anybody recall besides me?I do not remember it ever coming
to be…c’est la vie ( is the rhyming phrase)
let it be a survivor episode
who can make the best board and surf
wanna konk ya head reef…
musings are swell.
a good wave is indelible
a good board isn’t as good
as your best board.
…ambrose…
now I am musing of a
rocking hobby duck
all dovetails and no nails.
now here’s a rocker
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGe2iGmsDKs
priceless
hey paul
gotta a treadle lathe?
Good memory…The Clark cardboard was weak…Not worth the time and materials…
No, but a friend has a bitchen marquetry donkey…
marquetry donkey…yeah!
…ambrose…
I never knew
I cut my inlays
with a 5’’ mini grinder
It’s a safe bet , that most people who shape boards , made their first few without power tools or electricity. I know I did…and my friends did . A blank (or a bigger board stripped of it’s glass) , some stands , a saw , a surform and some sandpaper…done in the backyard , in daylight after school or on the weekend…I thought this was a common scenario ? . The glassing was totally another story (or more like a disaster !!!)…I can go back to my preteen days of making plywood bellyboards , also with hand tools only … every second kid in my gang was doing it , and the competition was fierce…another common scenario , I think , any place in the world that had good ridable waves…
Is a 3D printer considered a power tool?
Before Clark Superlight, Superblue and Supergreen—Clark Light blanks were dense enough to produce beautiful, white ribbons of foam with a sharp plane.
It would cling to your forearms and fall to the floor, without the flying dust of a power planer.
Stock removal took some time, but if you were in no particular hurry, there was a pleasant rhythm to walking back and forth shaving foam. You got plenty of time to think about what you were shaping, and there was no stress about a disasterous over-cut or chunk.
You didn’t dome the deck or turn the rails by cutting-in three inch planer bands, but shaved away incrementally in overlapping plane cuts, which showed the light and shadow of contours, even in less-than-optimal light conditions. With no cord, heavy tool or spinning blades to steal your focus, you ran your hands down and across the contours alot.
When shaping-in belly, flats, and vee-panels, you could be accurate to very close tolerances; your flats were really flat and belly vectors would have virtually no flats. I never did concaves. I suppose you could if you kept the shoe parallel to the stringer and took whisking cuts side-to-side, but planes aren’t built for that.
The surform was just for transitioning to the sanding block. The less you used either of these, the truer the shape.
With the advent of the Clark Superblue and Supergreen, I mostly quit using the handplane; the foam would just tear and chunk.
I’ve just shaped a few boards using Arctic Foam with which I was able to get nice ribbons and curls again. My 100 did the heavy lifting, but I tuned the bottom with my favorite handed-down-from-gramps smoothing plane in hand and Mavericks on the pod-player.
I highly recommend doing at least one that way.
JW