The radius of the first foot or so is tight enough that I leave a good deal of the foam out side the pencil line. This I true up with the surform, yes, you heard me right, I do use my surform for the last bit of outline and then come back with a very coarse sanding block, looking around the outline for anything that isn’t what I like. It is now you dress off these spots, rather than wait until rails are already done. I trued up a shape for a “student” yesterday, finished rails, bumpy outline, twisted, crooked, anti rocker, but it was fine sanded
Cantellya really has hit upon a big part of many shapers problem, multiple template designs. I watch a “shaper” near me, consistantly draw his outines from the tip of the nose to the one foot mark, from here to middle and from middle to the tail one foot mark and to the tail. He stops his pencil line at each spot and butts the next section to it. NONE of these lines would ever meet up, even in the bizzro universe, but he saws them out badly and surforms up to this crooked line and gets MANY custom orders. The general public is clueless to what shaping is, “dude I watched my board getting shaped” it wouldn’t matter if he was using a chuck of cinder block and a screw. John Q. Public saw a blank turn white and for him that is shaping!!!
LeeD, so true… I don’t use masonite or pressboard to make my templates any more. I use white sheets of Acetal or any kind of semi firm white plastic sheeting will work. you can see the outline better and it cuts really nice with scissors. Acetal can be sanded and trued up very nicely too. then after the board is glassed, ridden and proven to be a good shape I then carefully make a hard template from the Acetal one.
Once you find that “magic” outline, what material to you transfer you template onto?
I made templates for 4 other shops, besides the one I shaped for, in my shaping days 30 years ago.
One of my cronies that shaped at Hobies 40 years ago, said they had 1/2" ply templates, held them down on the board firmly, butted the handsaw blade against them and sawed away. No pencil lines, just a run around with the sanding block
Since this thread has shifted to the subject of templates and template materials. .
Jim, in your Master Shapers video, you mention that your spin templates have a full half of the outline on each side and that you make these templates in 6" increments. (I hope that I’ve summed it up accurately)
I’m not a production shaper and don’t need/ want to make multiple templates of different sizes for the same design. I’d prefer to have a handful of really versatile templates, so I usually make my spin templates between 20 and 30 inches long. I use them to get the first foot or 2 off the nose and tail and then connect the two sections using my trusty baton. I usually plot my nose, mid, and tail widths (by measuring off the stringer after I’ve snapped a chalk line) and then fit my curve to them. My biggest issue with this method is that there is plenty of room for built in error because stringers, even if they’re straight, aren’t always centered.
That long introduction was meant to raise 1 question: If you use spin templates that cover a full half of the outline on each side, but you only make those templates in 6" increments, what do you do when you have an order that calls for a length between 2 of your template increments? With such long templates, it seems like you are either going to end up with a bad intersection of the halves (if you are making a board that is shorter than than your template), or you are just taking the nose and tail off of the template and then connecting them the way I do with a baton, in which case why not just have 1 spin template for that design and use it for any size board of that shape?
Hope that made sense, thanks for the help. . .
This has come up lot on Swaylocks over the years.I use the planer except for right on the last part of the nose and tail.I can’t recall ever seeing a post on just exactly how you go about truing a blank with a planer.So…bear with me and I will try to explain step by step.It will be kind of long.OK:…1)The stands need to be level( by this I mean level croosswise not down the length),the board is layed deck down with the crown centered in the gap of the stands.We are trying to get a line that is 90degrees from the bottom.If the board is not level you will undercut the outline.2)Place a couple of weights on the blank to keep it from sliding.My stands are adjustable so I like them low (waist high) for this process.You want to be looking down on the line.Also I use the overhead lights with the sidelights turned off.3)…Grab the planer and hold it sideways in both hands with the shoe vertical.its tricky to find a comfy position but you are using the planer more like a sanding block.4)…with planer at waist height you now proceed to clean up the lines…you are looking down on the curve,using light passes to get the line straight and the 90 degree angle.5)When everything looks right you make a couple of full length passes with planer set at almost zero.THis should true everything up,if you loose a smidgen of the pencil line its OK.THe hard thing is learning to hold the planer at 90degrees.6)Finally I use a dull Surfom to complete the nose and the tail following up with a 60 grit block.All I am doing with the sanding block is taking out scratches.I hope this wasn’t too confusing…hard to explain but easy once you see it done.My friend “Tuna” who posts here used to hang out with me and once he saw me do it he never went back to the old block and surform method.There are other ways but this has worked pretty good for me.I forgot…put a coat of car wax on your hand saw…it will cut smoother.
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Cantellya really has hit upon a big part of many shapers problem, multiple template designs. I watch a “shaper” near me, consistantly draw his outines from the tip of the nose to the one foot mark, from here to middle and from middle to the tail one foot mark and to the tail. He stops his pencil line at each spot and butts the next section to it. NONE of these lines would ever meet up, even in the bizzro universe, but he saws them out badly and surforms up to this crooked line and gets MANY custom orders. The general public is clueless to what shaping is, “dude I watched my board getting shaped” it wouldn’t matter if he was using a chuck of cinder block and a screw. John Q. Public saw a blank turn white and for him that is shaping!!!
Classic! That’s how I do it.
In rapt awe I watched a real shaper (thousands of boards under the belt) take a template and shape three different length boards from it (from 5’10" to 6’6"), blend in all the lines and have the correct proportions for each length. Just normal stuff to a pro. Wow!
Hey, maybe it does take eight years…
Joyride, I make my HALF templates in 6" increments, not my spin temps. For spin temps, I always make them so they have a good deal of center overlap. One way of telling if your temps are going to line up is, does the temp parallel the blank rail? If it is skewing off away from it, there is a great chance the lines are going to be giving you a problem. As I draw a outline from several temps, I always extend the line past where I am working, thusly, when I meld another temp into it, I can see if the lines are compatible. Sometimes it takes an hour to get the result that has that special look to it, I’ll drag the blank outside of my room, stand it up and give it a good look over and often I don’t like it. Too flat here, or too quick a curve there, even for us seasoned pro’s, there are glitches that need more attention
Thanks for the clarification, Jim. So if I’m reading you correctly, your spin templates are big – several feet for bigger boards. That’s helpful. I feel like all of the other shapers’ spin templates that I’ve seen have just included the nose and tail and definitely would not have met up or overlapped, and I just addumed that they used a baton to complete the curve.
Good to hear that you still spend so much time getting your outlines to look right - it makes me feel a little better about my own templating process, which sometimes takes me hours and usually involves me propping the board up in a high-traffic part of the house so I can walk by and stare over the course of a few days. Thanks again.
You dont want those rails ‘straight’ you want some
curve in them.
Twin Fin Fish w/o ‘straight’ rails.
haha, my rails aren’t THAT bad