one of my trouble spots is the nose on the deck side. boards with more rocker tend to be a pain. i can never get the foam mowed down right, and certainly can’t get the stringer. i am getting a curved planer for the stringer, but what can i use to get the foam down smoothly??? i tried a surform, but that just made rough dig outs throught the nose. is there a good method???
is there a good method??? I don’t know, but I developed a bad method. I found some boogie board type foam and made V groove cuts across one side of it. I bent an outside curve into the other side and stuck on heavy sandpaper, like they use for sanding floors, using contact cement. I slopped some of the cement onto the foam sides to help hold in the curve. It ain’t great, but it works.
one of my trouble spots is the nose on the deck side. boards with more > rocker tend to be a pain. i can never get the foam mowed down right, and > certainly can’t get the stringer. i am getting a curved planer for the > stringer, but what can i use to get the foam down smoothly??? i tried a > surform, but that just made rough dig outs throught the nose. is there a > good method??? i just use the method in shaping 101… stand up in front of the board looking down at the nose. angle your planer at 45 deg. to the stringer, and work it back and forth. this kind of reduces the length of the planer bottom and lets you get into the curves easier. it cuts deeper and narower this way so you have to be a little careful. for the stringer I picked up a little 3" long baby block plane(6 bucks at Home depot) and use the same method as the power planer, 45 deg. to the stringer, working it back and forth. hope it works for you.
one of my trouble spots is the nose on the deck side. boards with more > rocker tend to be a pain. i can never get the foam mowed down right, and > certainly can’t get the stringer. i am getting a curved planer for the > stringer, but what can i use to get the foam down smoothly??? i tried a > surform, but that just made rough dig outs throught the nose. is there a > good method??? You need to spend the money, “poor men can’t afford cheap tools”, get a Stanley adjustible spoke shave and you’ll be able to cleanly plane any inside curve nose rocker.
one of my trouble spots is the nose on the deck side. boards with more > rocker tend to be a pain. i can never get the foam mowed down right, and > certainly can’t get the stringer. i am getting a curved planer for the > stringer, but what can i use to get the foam down smoothly??? i tried a > surform, but that just made rough dig outs throught the nose. is there a > good method??? i use a david combi planer which is a stringer plane but it works well on nose foam!
i have good results with a SHARP baby block plane standing in front of the board and only pushing the block towards the tail(at 45 degrees or more). i shape the foam with it and then take the stinger down a little lower then sand it with the block till the stringers smooth with the foam. i usually leave the last bit of foiling/flipping the tip till almost the very end. it takes a little more time and you have to do a little re-softening of the rails but for a non pro like me it minimizes the chance of blowing it. sometimes i actually set the edge of the blade in the stringer and slowly push to start a clean cut. the last couple passes down the stringer from the nose i just screen it with a smaller foam pad.
You need to spend the money, “poor men can’t afford cheap > tools”, get a Stanley adjustible spoke shave and you’ll be able to > cleanly plane any inside curve nose rocker. I use my curved sanding block alternately with my stanley spoke shave. I take the foam down with the soft sandpaper block. It leaves the stringer high. I angle-shave the stringer down, then I start back in with the sanding. I repeat the process until I’ve removed everything that doesn’t look like a surfboard.
anyone have luck with the japanese/chinese curved planer?
anyone have luck with the japanese/chinese curved planer? I got one from Clark Foam and like for the curved rocker area.No good for the rest of the board though…use a Baby block plane.I really need to try the spokeshave that Jim P. talks about.I use a record low angle block plane for bottoms.