accumulated from various posts
TOOLS:
You can make the same tool in the website by taking a peice of 1 x 3 x
8ft pine white wood and ripping 5/8 deep x 3/4wide inch dado every 6
inches. Then take the 1 x 3 x 8ft with dados in it, and rip it in half
length wise and glue the two peices (dados facing each other) together.
Now you have a 1 x 1 1/2 x 8ft board with perfect parallel morse that
will accept 3/4 x 3/4 sticks. Now take some left over 1 by whatever wood
left laying around and rip it to 3/4 x 3/4 x 8 inch lengths. Now just
put those sticks in the morses. If you cut then right and tight you
won’t need screws or pins. If you got the tools it should take about 20
mins. once your set up to finish. Total cost about $5.00 -Jay
like resinhead’s take on the rocker jig. however i was thinking of two
thin strips (no dados) with a bolt and wingnut every two feet. just
slide your dowels or sticks up and down to adjust rocker, and they don’t
really have to be perpendicular. you can tighten the screws so that you
can take a router along your bottom edge and cut your rocker into a
piece of wood to preserve it. i watched some sailboard guys do this one
time. this is especially handy for the hot wire foam cutters as you can
replicate your rocker all day long, although you only need to rocker
jigs to cut your foam.
A rocker stick is a good tool If you need one. The main advantage of a
rocker stick is if it is robust enough and is accurate you can use it
with a template guide and a router to create plywood patterns/templates
for use when shaping. This is the focus of my design of this tool. It
can be adjusted and used as a guide when shaping but it is cumbersome
and attempting to re-set it with marks on the rods is nearly impossible
to do accuratly or repeatably. That is why it needs to be used to make
wood patterns that are light and easy to use while shapeing. I use a
fibeglass batten and alum rods that go through a plastic dowel the dowel
is drilled and tapped on the axis for a set screw and also at 90 degrees
to the axis for the rod to pass through. The back bone of the stick
needs to be strong enough to resist the tension of the batten and
drilled on exactly the same centers as the clevises that hold the batten
end of the rods. The rods must piviot at the batten and they must also
pivot where they go through the back bone. If the piovting elements work
smoothly the tension in the batten can be used to fair the lines you are
looking for by loosening and and tighting the set screws individually
once you get the stick adjusted. The batten needs to be strong enough so
it doesn’t sag between the rods with pressure from the router while
cutting patterns. This means that the batten needs to be fairly thick
and then tapered at the nose end. If done correctly the increased
tension in the batten where it goes over the nose rocker takes care of
the tendancy to sag where the batten is thinned out. I use mine
constantly for a lot of things other than surfboard stuff. I find it is
most useful for making fair concave lines. All of our tools work great
on convex or straight lines but the concave stuff is a hassel. I quit
making rocker sticks because it isn’t cost effective to make them one at
a time. The cost of the required machineing and materials to do it the
way I think is best, requires me to build about 25 of them at a time.
Even then to make it worth my while the price is beyond what most guys
want to spend. With that in mind there are a lot of boards that have
been shaped without them and there are other methods to achive the
desired result more inexpesivally. I think the explainations here are
all great and if you are looking for accuracy a stick can certainly
help. However if you consider how much blanks move after they have been
shaped and glassed the results are only approaching repeatability. I
wouldn’t want to hazard to guess the tolerance of this repeatablity with
a number, but I bet you would be surprised by how big that number is.
The way to test it would be to scan a shaped blank then glass it,
consider the required offsets for hot coats, glass etc. then scan it
again and measure the differences. I would like to see a study that did
this for ten identical CNC boards. That might take all the magic out of
it though. The real question is what is an acceptable tolerance in a
rocker to get the same results when in the water?
Abrasive tools Can’t Post
My buddy who monitors this board regularly let me know that there was
thread going on about abasive tools and the line of products designed a
few years ago. Sorry I am late jumping in. The abrasive hand tools were
intitially designed to help shape EVA foam. The stuff they use in flip
flops. We were working on some soft board stuff for ourselves and
Waveloch and it seemed like the really sharp crushed carbide I had used
on planer barrels and shaping machines quite a few years before would
work good for this application. As it turned out it worked great on
standard surfboard foam as well and we started manufactureing them. The
older shapers tend towads the traditional sand paper and sanding blocks
and they are really effective, cheap and avialable. However the younger
guys who started shaping after the Power Rasps were made available to
the shaper’s market really love them and can’t shape without them. Power
Rasps will never replace blocks and sandpaper but they certainly have
their place and can be real time saveing devices for specific tasks. The
planer barrels are sort of a semi finishing tool. In '69 I was trying to
come up with a soft board and the foam I had didn’t cut with blades, so
that is the reason I built one then. They work really well for finishing
off the blank prior to the handwork They don’t tear the blank so the
final hand work goes a lot faster. The most efficintly I have seen them
used is by production guys that have blade planer for the hogging and an
abrasive planer for the more subtle machine work. A while back there was
a lot of gummy blanks around that really tore out with blades and the
abrasive thing was good for salvaging a rubbery blank. Another good
application is for shaping Balsa or wood blanks. The abrasive doesn’t
see the grain so you can shape against the gain without fear of tear
out. It works on styro foam of all types(if you go slow) and the
flexible foams, I have even used them directly on fiberglass to reshape
a board or cut the flash off molded parts. They ain’t for everybody but
I have one around just because they are so versitile if a bit slow. If I
could put it in one sentance, they are slow but smooth. Fiberglass
Hawaii in Santa Cruz sells all the stuff. Thanks for the interest! This
is a great board. Psuedo sniper, That is a great handle! I dig it!
Thanks Stan. I called Fiberglass Hawaii in SC. The salesperson was new
and did his best and my kids were having meltdowns while I was on the
phone. There is a wide variety of these rasp. They come in either 36 or
50 grit. 1.5’ long x (2", 3", 4", 5") for $21, $25.50, $32, $49.50 There
also seems to be some 6-9’ widths if I understood what the guy was
saying. And the PR9 model which is 2’x2" with the planer handle. There
are also concave and convex models. I do not know how they fit into this
matrix of lengths, widths, and grits. Please forgive any mistakes in
sizes or dimensions above. All sound like nice and sturdy tools. Rob
Olliges
Ive done a couple of bonzer type concaves that are about 3/16" deep with
good results. I draw out lines where I want the concave to go, then use
a half round surform taking side to side sweeps. The concave starts off
shallow at its furthest point toward the nose and deepens as it goes off
the rail in the tail area. I dont run the concave all the way to the
stringer. I leave an area about an inch wide along the stringer the
length of the concave that acts like a spine. This spine is like a
radiused peak that the board can roll rail to rail off of. I usually add
a bit more vee in the last third to compensate for the loss of foam, so
the spine is higher than the rails.
I meant that I just shape in a bit more vee, say an eigth of an inch
more than I usually do before I shape in the concaves. No extra
thickness is kept. The type of vee that has worked for me is one that
starts a third of the way up from the tail, peaks right around where the
forward fins on a thruster are set (say 12" up from the tip of the tail)
then flattens (though not completely flat) off toward the very tip of
the tail. Bascially the bonzer that I did looks like a 70’s Bing Bonzer
with a thruster set up. I really didnt know what to expect, but was
pleasantly surprised with the results.
Dust control. I’ve been using vacuum systems for at least 20 years.
Sears 32 gal. vacuum is a grade A tool. Industrial grade allows you to
run the machine for long periods. I use 2 1/2" hose with my cord tied to
the hose with zip ties. I reconstructed Hitachi planer years ago, with a
2 1/2" shop vac attachment on the very top of the tool. Installing that
feature allowed me to kick the handle back approx. the same angle as my
old Skil planers. Got the cord coming out of the top of the handle. This
makes for a very well balanced tool. The new version Clark Foam tool is
a nice uprade, but mine is way more pro-style. I use 2 planers, one with
cutting blades, the other with the Pleskunas grinder attachment made for
the Hitachi planer. The machines are instantly interchangeable, with the
cord on the hose, you just plug them both in and go. I take the big
bites with the blades, and do most of my shaping with the grinder
planer. With the lightness and speed of these machines, I can just fill
that big vac up. The big hose never clogs up. The only other shaper here
that uses this system is R. Brewer, whose machines I made for him. I got
tired of wallowing in foam dust years ago. Most guys either enjoy the
stuff, or aren’t clued in. I like it clean. Aloha…RH
- Power planer: the Skil 100 is the workhorse of the industry, but is
not commercially available any longer. Clark Foam sells Hitachi planers
that it has modified so the shaper can adjust the depth of cut in a
similar way to the action on the Skil 100.
- One or two small block planes, with new or sharpened blades. Also, a
small “spoke shave” plane will help in the curvier nose rocker areas.
- One or two Surforms, with flat blades and medium or fine cut. If
possible, get two, – both the full-length model and the shorter
version.
- One or two sanding blocks approximately 11 inches long, 4 inches wide
and 1 inch thick. This way a full-size sheet of sandpaper will wrap
perfectly around the block. Leave one side of the block fairly
firm-edged and, on the other, soften the edges so you will have a more
versatile tool. Balsa wood is great if you can find some.
- One large handsaw. I like the saws that cut on both “push” and “pull”
strokes.
6. A T-square with 1/16-inch graduations that is clearly painted and
not just indented.
- One 5-pound diver’s weight. Use the soft beanbag type filled with
lead shot.
- Calipers: these are readily made out of scrap plywood. They must be
able to reach into the center of the widest board and accommodate boards
up to 4 to 5 inches thick.
- Tape measure: it should be at least 12 feet long. It helps if it
displays the footage every 12 inches.
10. One 8-foot aluminum or hardwood beam used to measure rocker.
- A foam rubber pad, 1/2- to 1-inch thick and cut to the size of a
sheet of sandpaper.
- Sandpaper: full-size sheets. 1 by 36-grit, 1 by 40-grit, 1 by 60- or
80-grit (changed every couple of boards).
13. Sanding screen: 80- and 100-grit. It’s good to have a few sheets of
each in varying stages of wear. Like denim jeans, the softer, worn-in
sheets bend comfortably around curves more easily than the newer,
stiffer sheets. Maybe you can cadge a few worn-in sheets of screen from
your local shaper or surfboard factory.
- A few soft lead pencils
15.foampad backed screen
- piece of sponge with 1/8" felt glued to it (the felt keeps the
screen from slipping). I use #120 and 220 to finish off and drag the
rails with my 120
- A piece of 40 grit, folded in half, top to bottom, and glued with
some > tacky works way better. The fold and the glue make it so that it
will > conform to a rail plus it will stay in your hand. It’s cheaper
than dragon > skin and way easier to use.
- I fold the piece of #40 into a three fold and secure with tacky. The
grit on each side gives traction for your hand and the added stiffness
lets it span over lows and knocks off the top of high spots
- Take a piece of 40 grit and spread some disc adhesive on the back
then fold top to bottom and crease. You will then have a two sided piece
of 40 grit that is 5 1/2 by 8 1/2. When the glue dries the paper will be
stiff but still flexible and, after a few uses on the rails, will
conform to your favorite rail shape
20. curved sanding block about 20" long X 4" wide. The block is curved
to the depth of the concave