Ok, I’ve got my blank, chosen my dimensions (5’9" X 17.65 X 21 X 17.5 X 2.5). This is for an old school fish, with 7" swallow, 12" tip to tip. The problem I’m having is in using a batten-type peice of metal to “connect the dots” as it were between the navigational points I’ve drawn. Per what I learned from the JC video, I put finishing nails just outside my nav points and bent the batten between the front three, attempting to draw the arc from nose to midpoint. What ends up happening is that the batten bows out between the nose measurement point and the tip of the board, creating a false wide point that is greater than the desired width of the board, at a point just behind 12" back from the tip. How do you all get the correct bend in the batten to make the curve properly? I thought it was related to material, so I’ve now tried like 4 different battens, metal, wood, plastic, etc., all with the same result. Aaaargh! Any ideas? Or is there a better way to create the template? Thanks!
use a fishing pole. works great
First, don’t use metal. Use clear-grained softwood - I like 1 3/8" clear pine lattice stock. Have points you bend your batten around beyond the simple nose, a foot back, wide point, tail spots. Second, check your numbers. If the board has been built before, ok, fine. But look and see if there’s any lumps in the curve in that board. Measure the board - what somebody told you the width was doesn’t necessarily work. Third…your numbers could be wrong, so throw them away. The batten gives you a smooth, fair curve. Go with that. Quite often, in lofting boats ( that is, taking the designer’s numbers -called offsets - and translating them to materials we actually use to build the boat ) we find that the numbers suck. They don’t work and will screw up the boat. So, we throw them away and go with what the batten tells us. Try taking the nail out at your nose measurement point and letting the batten go where it wants to go. See what that looks like. If it doesn’t look bad, if the curve is smooth, well, you have your template. Hope that’s of use doc…
Cool, thanks! Before I got to reading this post, I had done jsut about what you mention - threw out the numbers and went with what “felt” right. I think it looks great now. I had thought that for my first try, that it would be really lumpy and crappy, but it actually looks pretty good. I have it cut out, cleaned up and skinned now. I’m really stoked to see how this goes! Thanks again for the advice. Josh
de nada, Josh. You’re starting to develop an eye for it, which is mebbe the hardest part. doc…
I use a 3/8" x 1-1/2" foam molding the kind used for floor/wall molding in homes from Home Depot. it bends very smooth like. I now make my new templates using a long plastic sheet on a on flat surface insted of on the bottom of the board. then if it a keeper template I will transfer it to masonite.
When I was a little takka, my folks had a fine gravel driveway, I used to draw up templates on the gravel using the garden hose and a sharp stick, I would stand on the outline (with stringer drawn in) and picture myself surfing it, if I didnt like the look of it I would sweep it out and make changes, worked for me!! KR http://groups.msn.com/MyKRSurf/krcomweb.msnw
Very hi-tech KR, very hi-tech indeed. And I like the fishing connection Nick. Are we really in the twenty first century discussing surfboards? In the end I hope the final product is light, strong and rips!!!
Give me a break Gee dub I was 13 years old and back then I hadn’t even seen how people template boards let alone shape them, I did advance to opening up cardboard boxes that me mum bought home from doing the food shoping. maybe where you come from there was a heap of people making boards and surfing in 1976 for you to get the guff on, but where I was from you rarley saw surfers, If you did see someone drive past with a board on their roof it was like they where from the same planet as you and you felt like you knew them, and if they where heading back from the beach they would either put their thumbs up (meaning it was good) or thumbs down meaning the unthinkable. If you where lucky you could go to the town hall to watch a surf movie that some passing through travelling surf nut had bought along to pay for his surfing habit.(the original traveling pro surfer)I remember getting picked up by one of these guys while hitch-hiking to the beach and I had one of the first boards that I had proudly made ready for testing, the guys looked at it and said what the f#@^%$k is that, I said that it was a sting-fang triple-fang pintail single fin and that I had made it myself, after their laughing attack they proceeded to tell me to stick at it and that it was one of the wildest looking things they had seen. Yep I was pretty darn proud that day and as an added bonus the surf was going off. Might not have been your idea of 21st century knowhow but it sure was fun to try and work things out on your own. KR http://groups.msn.com/MyKRSurf/krcomweb.msnw