Most shapers can’t figure out where the bumps are coming from.
After watching Dick Brewer open up his Skil 100 to the decks of some big gun blanks, he would walk nose to tail several times on each side of the blank, Back and forth.
Do it nose to tail and you’ll never have to chase bumps. He said.
Still do that to this day.
Nose to tail.
I see a lot of motocross decks I call 'em out there.
Dips and bumps.
My deck lines are clean and straight.
The way I was taught.
Sight down the decks of a lot of boards these days,
My old shaping buddy Mike Croteau struck fear in many shapers watching him almost finish boards with his customized planer in the late 60’ early 70’s .
To Barry S, I can’t understand why anyone wouldn’t do full length cuts, either with a planer, surform or block. It always struck me that you need to shape like ‘the intended flow’.
It’s something familiar I’ve found when I’ve been with the real leaders of any industry…all the old and new wannabes are scraping for attention and will say anything to get it. But the real leaders say less because they are the best.
I relate heavily to this… I use my large (F30SB) Clark Hitachi’s and will no doubt use my newest Skil 100 as the 95% tool that Mike saw fit to do.
The longer footprint of this cutting machine offers the blocking action I rely on while I cut the bands into rails and do thicknessing and bottom or deck conturs on the fly. Lots of running backwards and scrubbing with the planer can serve to blend rail bands that other shapers might use a sanding screen or a surform. Novice shapers focus more on remving the inital shaping marks out of the foam while using tools that continue to ride over the dip or bump. It takes time & experience to even discern what IS a dip or bump! Using a planer and a block is key to eliminating some of those missteps. You can also use the planer’s toe with a quick backward stroke for smoothing or knocking a bump created by intersecting cuts. Judicious cross aka roller cuts are a nice planer feature that can mimic cnc cuts for top rail lines and tail blocks. Still, if you are in the jungle with a blank or somewhere electricity is still a futuristic dream, the lowly surform will get her done.
…they say less cause just have the publicity, name, money, customers or the path done. No needs to open your mouth to fit in.
Regarding bumps etc. The first thing to a newbie shaper is to try to develop an eye for the curves and volume distro; then understand that before shaping you should (not many doing this) “prep shaping” the blank; checking for distortions, leveling, etc. This problem is really evident when you are in the need to use most of the width of the blank, so some plugs are different in a rail than the other one.
So, I do not get it this bump thing; how do you have those bumps? The possibility that I think is scrubbing, sanding, or passing the planer just in one area, then do the same in the other part of the blank and on an on; Ok, then you can do full passes to smooth out, but what happens with a HPSB blank? in no time you ll find that you do not have enough thickness…and not the rocker numbers you want…; so you fucked the blank and the intended design.
As all fine shaper that do quality work knows the surform is to blend some scratches or smooth out some planer edges in the rail, mostly in the very nose if the HPSB have those flip noses.
Is not a tool for shaping is a tool for blending if you DO NOT use coarser sand papers to do that step. Bear in mind that and that you should change the blade (I see lots of gauges in many of the so called great shapers shapes and gobs in the non skilled ones when the shape is 100% handshaped—something that barely you see now due to the machine—, bear in mind that too) for a microblade.
… 5 yr old thread resurfaces becuz nobody is posting new stuff and people are hungry.
I use to contribute a lot. Then I got super busy building my business and expanding distribution worldwide. I consider myself a “Swaylockian” preferring to post on Sways over other forums. Some guys do a lot of them, whereas I don’t have the time nor inclination.
Surfer, Jam, Surf Science all have their place in a parallel kind of universe, but if it’s not a simple, user friendly forum to post pix, I avoid the time consuming learning curve to get involved.
I brought this thread back because I found that paper and a block aren’t stable, the unbalanced weight distribution of a planer changes its stability and you can’t do left cuts without shooting foam all over the board and glass sheets are fine for curves but not flats.
But a surform is light , it has two handles so you can use it left and right handed, it lasts and is uniform but you can instantly change the pressure between both hands, you can use it forwards, backwards, sideways, you can see the foam peeled off instantly rather than waiting for the foot long shoe to pass to then reveal than you have to alter the angle, you can use it to shape a 2 inch curve or 12 inch flat and blend from a curve to a flat and then back again as gently as you wish and you can feel the contour of the previous cut.
And if you’re crap with a surform it’s likely to not be the surforms fault.
I have an old 14" surform with a worn blade. Can you elaborate on “Chemically Sharpened”? What concentration of HCL? Do you need to soak? Brush on? Will good ole muriatic acid (20-30%) work OK? Or, do know if replacement blades are available. Thanks.
Yes, pool acid will work. Yes to soaking. You can sharpen a worn file the same way. After treatment, I wash the blade with a solution of baking soda and hot water. Dry it quickly with a heat gun, to avoid rusting. If not sharp enough, repeat.
Just my personal opinion here, but what I have found from using my planer is that all I really need is my power planer (Skil 100 or Clark Hitachi P30Sb aka large) and an assortment of sanding blocks (which can be off the shelf drywall sanding blocks) to finish a shaped blank to what is considered “perfection”. Well, that and a good finish hand plane for lumber and maybe a toy plane or spokeshave for highly rockered shapes.
Milled blanks work well with soft and super softie pads and low RPM sanding. You won’t feel “so artsy” but this approach makes you better able to pay your mortgage.
I think it was Phil Becker that said “overshaping is the biggest problem in our industry”.
Becker was right… so was Carl Ekstrom when he said “symmetry has nothiing to do with creating a magic surfboard”.
Maybe my quoting Ekstrom isn’t exactly correct, but you catch my drift.
I have always maintained that it isn’t about the dims, it’s more about the curves.
AT THE END OF THE DAY, your gut tells you that the board is right, it’s gonna be someone’s magic carpet, and it is going to become someone’s sweet spot in their memory banks for the rest of their life.
About surform: i think it’s more of a clean-up tool, or a tool to smooth out flats. But you can shape rails w it, or even shape an entire board if you had to…i geuss we should rely on pp mostly as the experts say. Of course this doesn’t apply to cnc cuts shaping. But learning traditional shaping methods is phenomenal! You start realizing Surfboard shaping is an Art.
