Just the other day I was wondering why in the world someone hadn’t invented a planer for surfboard shapers that had a concave/convex sole (adjustable either way)… and there it is!..the Virutex in your photo! It seems like a natural. Ever used one, know any shapers who have, or do you agree it could be a great tool for shaping? There are virtually no dead flat long surfaces on a surfboard, so technically a planer’s sole is never riding on its length. To make a point, the surfboard’s rocker is just a segment of a big arc where only the apex of that big arc is actually touching the blader’s bottom. Further, it isn’t even touching in the center area of the planer’s bottom cuz the blades are located toward the front (so it’s not even balanced as you hold it). You’re actually just pushing a long flat bottomed planer as it naturally wants to see-saw over the arc around the circumfrance of that arc, or flip the surfboard over (deckside up), and you’re pushing it around the inside circumfrance of that arc where the blades are now located above the planer’s sole because the inside arc is only touching the bottom tips of the planer’s nose and tail. Granted, the the surfboard’s rocker profile is not a continuous perfect circle or arc, as it changes it’s arc dimensions along its length, but… Where am I missing this, and why isn’t a planer such as this Virutex the answer? We make the regular planer work on surfboards, though they were never designed for such, but rather for doors, but it’s not the ultimate correct shaped tool for the job. You hardly see them anymore, but in earlier days Stanley, Record, and others made a compus plane designed with a steel sole that was adjustable for arcs just as this Virutex planer has. Thoughts??
Lets see- Besides the Virutex, Record apparently still makes one; http://www.cuttingedgetools.com/Onlinecat.htm/WebCatalog/Record.htm though I’ve seen them elsewhere. And the way the Record is set up gives me an idea - While I’m not gonna get into why a compass-type plane isn’t used in shaping in any depth - possibly 'cos I haven’t seen but one or two other powered compass planes other than the Virutex and they were home-brewed and dating from shipyard work in the 50s, so nobody ever had the chance to work with one enough so that they’d become popular - plus from what I saw they were awfully heavy muthas, more suited to working on 4" oak than foam. Lets think one out that would be ideal for the rapidly changing curves you find on boards. Now, the Record is kinda unusual as compass planes go; it has fixed height ends and the center moves up and down, carrying the cutter with it. This is kinda nice, and if you wanted to build a compass plane that you could change on the fly, that’d be the way to go, maybe spring loaded so it’d tend to find a neutral, flat soled position. Adjustment, probably with the knob up forward and involving bell cranks to change the height of the center. The center would also have to have something like dovetailed slides so that it could go up and down without moving forward and back while the ends of the flexible sole would be fixed for height but they’d have to move back and forth relative to the center section… Damn - I need a machine shop, though the thing could probably be built using an inexpensive small power plane for the cutters, motor and such. Cast the body/carrier out of aluminum and it’d be relatively light and easy to machine. Interesting project, this’d be. doc…
Thanks for the info Richard, yes I am a shaper.
I think we’re goin there. Your ideas with spring loads and dovetail slides are making a lot of sense. From a marketing standpoint, we might as well just grab up all the old Skil 100s possible for the body and beef since the Skil will give our new breaking tech. planer some ole school soul and mystique…sort of an everything comes back around again deal. Ok, you get the machine shop rolling, I’ll get the marketing and sales thing going. Be sure and keep this top secret! Introducing the new Skill(2Ls) “Board Rider” Planer… By the way this thread started out way back there with my question about the Rockwell/Porter Cable #653. Funny, never heard anything specific to that, but now we invented a new revolutionary machine. Stay on it!
Uhm, I dunno about the Skil parts - the damned things are awfully expensive, though I’d imagine it’d be a good move to use a Skil-type cutterhead - easy enough to machine something like that and the abrasive cylinders are already on the market. A fair quality laminate trimmer motor with a toothed belt drive in place of the collet setup - all the horsepower you’d want, what with the rotational inertia of that heavy drum or cutterhead. Might be a move, in hindsight, to have the spring loading such that the planer would be concave, not convex, so that when you let go of it it’d tend to keep the cutters clear of any surface. For surfboard work, how small a radius are we talking about, 60" or so? Investment casting in a reasonably hard aluminum alloy - might keep machining to a minimum, though that would require a better manufacturing engineer than I ever was to calculate the dimensions of the casting with shrinkages and all. Strictly speaking, I think this is actually a simpler machine than, oh, a Skil 100 or Rockwell 653. Two main castings, body and motor/cutter carrier. Flexible sections and such - make 'em the same front and back, flat head machine screws and Loctite to hold 'em in place. Problems in such a tool? Well, when it was set so that it was as concave as it’d get the overall height and CG would be interesting, but the motor/cutter would remain the same height above the work surface. Handles- rear handle a knockoff of that on the 100 or 653, the front very different with a lever to deal with heights or else somethingthat turned and ran a bell-crank. If a fairly wide tool - call it a half inch wider than the cutterhead- was acceptable, then machining the dovetails would be a helluva sight easier I do enjoy these little design problems.
Just came in from the shop for a break and saw your post. When I started surfing in the mid 60s a lot of the big names of today had just emerged from their garage “factories”. All these decades later, with all the technology, and sweat-shop shaping companies across the Pacific turning out “pop-outs”, Madison Ave. marketing firms getting in the pockets of impressionable wannabees, and here we are bantering back and forth excited about some new tweak for a planer. You know Gordon, Velzy, Noll, Copeland, and a bunch of the other guys had the same kind of stoke and discussions, but instead of doing it over cyberspace they talked over a party-line telephone or met down at the pier. The golden glory days! Some things never change…or is it just this way with guys that are connected to surfing culture. By the way you’re right about the Skil. Keepin it simple, basic, but smart is the answer and the most high powered marketing I want to do anymore is write a note to someone on the internet. There we go! Do ponder on this thing though.
Yeah- though you want to remember that those days had the Velzy’s and Dextras and Healthways and Hawaiian Customs and such stuff. Horrible junk made to cash in on the boom in the popularity of surfing that the movies and media had made, cash in to make a quick buck on junk boards and cheezy surf clothes. Now, we can bounce horrible sketches back and forth in addition to our wild ideas, do it across the world and lots of people can see it, not just whoever’s on the end of the phone line. We get ideas from people who are not part of the tight little circle - and a lot of 'em are good ideas. The thing I try to do - and guess how I figured this one out - is never to attempt to invent something I can buy off the shelf. Besides which, years ago Porter Cable, before they became Rockwell and then Porter Cable again, made a thing that you could fit your router into and voila, it was a power planer. So, lets just say I’m not nearly as clever or original as it might appear. Oh, and for the hand plane fanatics like me - see the link below. I have no idea how good their prices are on the high end stuff, but their prices on Stanley planes are good enough that I scored myself a spare #60 1/2 and ( thanks, Cleanlines) some stropping compound - cheap. ah well, time to turn in for the evening… doc… http://www.tools-for-woodworking.com/store.asp
yea, I believe the router/planer by Rockwell/Porter Cable (and remember Rockwell was Rockwell before Delta before Porter Cable too) was the pre model 126 planer. Keep up the pondering - good for the soul.
Just got an email from Lie Nielsen. They informed me that they may indeed reconsider and re-make the old Stanley 100 and 100 1/2. I asked them to let me know when it might become available and they said sometime this year. Just thought I’d let you know. If they let me know for sure, I’ll post it on Swaylocks for the few guys who may want to pop with some big bucks for what will likely be a reeeely nice planer for shapers. I let Lie Nielsen know that there may be a market among surfboard shapers. I’m not a foam board shaper, but rather a furniture maker and make collector balsa boards with multi redwood / mahogany stringers.
Just got an email from Lie Nielsen. They informed me that they may indeed reconsider and re-make the old Stanley 100 and 100 1/2. I asked them to let me know when it might become available and they said sometime this year. Just thought I’d let you know. If they let me know for sure, I’ll post it on Swaylocks for the few guys who may want to pop with some big bucks for what will likely be a reeeely nice planer for shapers. I let Lie Nielsen know that there may be a market among surfboard shapers. I’m not a foam board shaper, but rather a furniture maker and make collector balsa boards with multi redwood / mahogany stringers.