how is the best way to going about making a template for a mini simmons if you dont have a board to trace or a program to print it out. could use the help. just about to start shapping my first board.
Howdy Anchor, I have been using the atuacores website for planshapes lately. It’s all in French but easy enough to understand. Go to the surfdesigner section, make your template, then click the little ruler icon. This will give plots to point in centimeters. Print it out and mark the “longueur” numbers along your stringer, or the flat side of your template material. Then, plot the wide points using the numbers from either the “largeur” (rail to rail) or “demi-largeur” (stringer to rail), matching them with their corresponding length measurement.
Once you connect the dots, cut close to your line and fair to a clean curve. And done.
The next easiest method I know of is to plot the following: length of the board, 1" from tail, 1’ foot from tail. Wide point, 1’ foot from nose, 1"from nose, onto your template material. Put some screws just inside of those points. Then using some flexible material like a thin strip of masonite, wrap it around the screws and trace. This will give you a good clean curve but some nuance and control will be lost.
What size SIMM are you looking to make i love my SIMM. I would suggest single concave nose to double on tail I fly on mine and if you have te resources install a twinzer box instead of twin or quad. My .02. And with a sim go 2’ smaller than what you think you should go
I did it with the AKU Shaper. Play a bit around and compare your designs to boards you see online or on sways.
If you can’t print it you can use another method: Measure the width all 3-4’’ and redraw it on a paper.
By the way with the AKU Shaper you can print templates with a normal DIN A4 printer.
what I did was, got a copy of a collector’s book, got out my machinist ruler, butted it against the straight railed portion of the picture, found where the curves started, marked them off.
Now this is where I’m sorry for screwing off so much in Mrs. Sugimoto’s algebra and geometry classes, but was eventually able to convert the numbers from the picture into a ratio to upscale into a full size template, it involved a lot of head scratching and cussing.
The true Simmon’s has so much straight rail that it can be easily compressed into a shorter board, a little tweaking then to bring it up to date or satisfy ones personal taste.
Batten’s need to taper at the ends because the curve increases and a constant thickness batten wants to follow a limited curve
Hi -
If I'm snagging from a pre-existing photo I find it helps to use a copy machine with enlarge/reduce capability to get my diagram to a 1":1' scale. It allows you to skip at least some of the math.
I also have a fiberglass flag staff from a bicycle trailer with tapered ends to fit the tighter curves. Bicycle shops sometimes have them in a barrel somewhere over in the corner for free.
I'm often shocked at the ever increasing reliance on computerized programming and associated tolerances to the 1/1000".
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I'm often shocked at the ever increasing reliance on computerized programming and associated tolerances to the 1/1000".
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I know what you mean. It's comical. My process has always been to visualize what I want, hand draw the rough curves, cut the rough curves, then hand plane and sand in the eye pleasing finished curves. ''So easy, a caveman can do it!''
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how is the best way to going about making a template for a mini simmons if you dont have a board to trace or a program to print it out. could use the help. just about to start shapping my first board.
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You could watch tom curren hand drawing a template with support form no other than George Greenough in 5'5x19 1/4 for some inspiration...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQO9DLLyybw
Most of the pictures I have seen of the original Simmons plan shape appear to have a pronounced hip about 14-16" up from the tail. Did Simmons say anything about the hip on his boards. Question for those who were there.
the free arm at full extension
in my case is let see …where’s the yard stick…
I’m back… just short of 28’’
that is a circle radius right there at 28.
(in a divine plan there should be
some relationship twixt the shaper / rider
that goes beyond keyboard and blue screen)
After scribing this curve mentally
I suspect that this is the first turn
of curve after the basic straight
that dr JTG mentions.
the final closing curve
at the nosehas been
traditionaly made with
a standard garbage can lid
or perhaps a 5 gallon bucket.
the lines are approximate till
they are tooled to as Admirable Thrillkill
succinctly calls eye pleasing finished curves.
I respectfully add the tip that My friend gino
told me about the straight edge viewed top down
placed up against the rail outline
to plot the undesireable flats that plague templating.
once you have worked the template out on one rail
make a hard template,like ply or masonite or plastic or what ever you have
and do the other rail to match…maybe even do the original rail to match the template.
cave men
cowboys
kids under the pier
engineers
carpenters
lifeguards
have historically been somewhat successful
making surfboards that work very well…
it’s tour turn,geeve-um
…ambrose…
While free handing it is prob the orig methods, I have tried a bendie metal rular I found in my dads tool box worked well. Best to have a holder, but I heard thumb tacks, screws, or- even nails work to position the rular to draw the curves. I’m even just holding the rular without tacks to draw a curve. It does take time, also a lot of re-tries to get the curves right etc…
But overall-its VeRY precise! I can say with total confidence that it’s prob as good a cad prog as you don’t need a puter or printer-yet get a perfect design if you get it right. The good thing is-it’s almost free! And takes very little time and $.
Now to get your- simmons design, all you really need is a photo of the board, then just try to copy it to your own dimensions-until it looks right.
As for a mini-simmons, I recall seeing one-way back 20 yrs ago or so? They look to me like a parallel curved square tail- with a blunty nose, and two fins set on vertical- with zero can’t and zero tow… A pretty darned flat bottom, and some exagerated nose flip and a s-deck… And a fat domed deck? Prob zero vee in tail? Very crude design. Never tried one, so I can’t say how well they work? I just happen tp eye ball one back in the day as a teenager-curious about it…
crude design? Perhaps you should run down to the beach or shop and take an actual visual and run your hands over one. Try shaping one. Never tried one, never seen one?????
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Very crude design.
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On the contrary. It's quite sophisticated. It is a design rooted in science.
all you need is a fishinpole and a few thin nails
dont over think it
thanks for all tha advice. i just gunna wing it. n please no hating on my posts
education to the ignorant is not "hating", it is necessary.
the more you look
the more you see.
innovators loot science
to procure data and
materials insight,in our case
to make bitchin’ toys.
this simmons science
in place over 50 years
without the book
thousands of years.
your long foam broken shard
or new crispy fish blank is out there.
i for one am anxious to see your growth and insights…
…ambrose…
go man… your wave.
self depricating remarx
draw accelerating crit
nobody hates better than ourselves
I love this place…
Tim, a little harsh… Ha!
Crude? Yeah, Simmons was so far ahead people still may not get it. And, as was pointed out, based on pure science.
As for making boards, I guess it turns out I’m from the Bill T. school. Granted I do lot’s of math and rocker/foil layout work on paper, but it’s fun for me. Some day I’ll take a picture of some of my notes, as my oldest son said one day, as I was sitting at the kitchen table doing scaling, and angle relationship math,“Seeing you do that makes math look fun.” Ha!
Thanks for letting me play -
I do all my outline and profile templates with AKU shaper,one hand on the keyboard and the other on my beer.If you have an 8.5 x 11 printer you cant print the templates.
how do you print it. aku shaper is kind hard to understand.
My bad- I meant the board I saw looked like a ‘crude’ version of a mini-simmons design-but it was…anyhow, I did not mension it looked like more of a ‘crude copy’(home builtd) ms… It prob worked fine as it looked like someone used/abused it.
But yeah, I was almost thinkin of buying the said board- just cuz I never tried a twin fin at that time… I’m sure there where a few outhere! It was around 79 at the time I saw this interesting little board. If I recall correctly- it was prob a 5’10- 6’? 