Any info would be greatly helpful Thanks
Hey lilC, i am pretty darn new to the whole world of board building and so far i have shaped 9 boards so my advice aint exactly pro but i learned a few cool tips from a local shaper in town where i live.
one of the cool and super easy tips i learned from the dude regaurding concaves is a system of measuring thats pretty fool proof. Again this is just one out of probably 10 zillion differant ways.
You use coins to do your measurments. quarters nickles and dimes. So once you start carving the foam out on one side of the stringer (on double concave) you take your straight edge and put it down on the board, then u stack up some coins in the concave and pull the straight edge across the top of the stack and what ever is left behind is what you got as far as depth then you start shaving away on the other side of the board till you match up. super simple. A good tool to start a concave is surform with one of those rounded blade/rasp bottoms. another good tool is a small sanding disk that is somewhat soft with some 36 or 40 grit and you just take a couple passes and measure and take some more passes. just keep throwing the straight edge against the bottom of your board and keep eyeing the contour of the concave until it looks like it flows evenly on either side of the stringer. Just go slow keep cecking everything out. It is easy to end up deeper than you meant to. the coins help with that. i have even used a length of a cardboard shipping tube about 4 or five inches wrapped with sandpaper to shape um out. just look around your house for interesting rounded objects hard and soft that look like they might shape a concave. you might be surprised that the best tool is the one you had sitting in your kitchen. Just some tips i have learned so far. The progression is definately in the time spent! Hope this helps. And i hope i explained it well enough. -Andrew
Also, for V I use a big flat block about 12" long and about 5 or 6" wide with sandpaper on it. I make some guide marks on the side of the board and start shaving off foam on the outside edge until i come down towards my marks about half way and about an inch in toward stringer then i start shaving down the foam between the edge and stringer until it becomes flat between the two points (edge of board and stringer). then you just slowly keep repeting it till you reach your marks like 1/4" down or however much v u want while still maintaining that flat plane. Its pretty easy to get it how you want once you start. just go slow. A block that is a bit wider and longer helps you get it really flat. keep in mind that the v you add will change your edge rocker. it will kind of flatten it out a bit so you got to blend it into the rest of the rocker curve so it flows. I would defiantely like to watch a pro do a few but this method has worked for me so far. hope this helps! -Andrew
A small flexible sanding pad or convex sanding block works good for smoothing out concaves once you get them roughed with your planer or surform. If you have a specific concave shape - like a teardrop or oval, it's a good idea to use some kind of template and trace the outline. Maybe even run some tape around the edge so you stay within the lines?
On vee in the tail you can approximate your cut depth by marking depth lines along the edge of the rail.
Some of this might seem like a crutch to an expert but having guidelines can help you stay localized and symmetrical with your shaping. It's easy to drift out of bounds when carving foam freehand and end up with something entirely different than what you initially envisioned.
Does anybody have any v shape pics I can look for ref