Confessions of a Novice Shaper

Tails and Buttcracks

2007-12-15T11:42:00.001-05:00

Recently, I received a comment on my last post requesting that I describe a little bit about how I went about doing the tail on the Datsun Twinnie (which I was in the middle of working on when I was so rudely interrupted by local thieves). So, I'll try to describe here what I did (and did wrong) as requested. As with everything I do, this is by no means the best or "right" way, its just how I happened to do it....mostly by feel and guesswork. hehe

The tail was pretty easy actually, but really the one pictured in the Datsun Twinnie is only half done, it still needs lots of fine tuning. For one thing, I should have started by thinning down the blank a bit more near the tail closer to desired thickness. As you can see, the tail is a bit chunkier than it probably should be. But, in any case, once the blank's tail area is down to thickness, you can draw in the outline.

For the outline, I used the nose portion on the board's original template to draw in the swallow from the edge to the stringer on the bottom of the blank. I think lots of people have special templates for swallows, but there's something nice about being able to reuse the nose portion of the original template for drawing in the tail. Reusability is always nice. :)

Cutting in the tail would've been nice if I had an electric jigsaw, but I used a small handsaw instead, stopping just short of the middle of the stringer from each side. Then by hand, snap off the cutout.

After cutting it out, I then took a small (rattail) rounded file to file in the 'buttcrack'. After that, it's really just a matter of using a small surform and sanding block to sculpt the contour of the tail to blend in with the crack. When finish sanding the stringer/crack, it helps to protect the foam with some masking tape along the edge of the stringer so that you don't sand into the foam.

Well, thats about it. Sorry I don't have progress pics, but maybe next time....whenever that will be.

kc

Down But Not Out

2007-11-26T09:52:00.000-05:00

Bad news for Novice Shaper fans, I've decided to vacate my shaping room space as a result of another break in (second in six months) while I was away enjoying warm Hawaiian waves earlier this month. Nothing was stolen, except a $20 radio and some piece of mind. Amazing what a crack head will do to for a few bucks.

Well, its all good cause I wasn't anticipating on glassing much over the winter in a freezing garage anyways, and firing up a portable heater in a room with lots of flammable goodies wasn't a thrilling option either.

I'm sure I'll find another space soon, till then, the shaping room and all the equipment will reside in storage.

Hope to be back up and running soon....

kc

Fin Flower

2007-10-31T12:25:00.000-05:00

Some fins came in from 101 Fins today...

Thanks Marlin!!!

kc

Datsun Twinnie

2007-10-29T21:21:00.003-05:00

A friend of mine recently asked me to shape him something for the mushy slop-surf that we typically get here in the NY/NJ area. After telling him that my Brom twin just about tripled my wave count over my everyday shortboard, he was sold on a twin fin. So last week we began on what will eventually be known as The Datsun Twinnie (named in honor of his band, Red Datsun, and their recent debut release). The shape is basically a scaled up version of my Brom, with a few tweaks here 'n there. Still needs work, but here's the progress thus far...

The nose needs work, gonna add a beak nose. Ideally, I should've cut in the beak while cutting the top rail bands, but I didn't figure this out till reading Swaylocks afterwards....

Future owner and Red Datsun band member...

The tail, not quite there yet, but its a start...

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like I'll be able to finish this one anytime soon, I'm leaving this week for the North Shore and two weeks of Hawaiian surf. Yippee!!!!!

Hopefully I'll have some pics of Hawaii to post, along with the finishing stages of the Datsun Twinnie.

Aloha,
kc

Blue Foam, Guest Shaper, and LokBox Vid

2007-10-22T19:42:00.001-05:00

Just a few random thoughts that have been floating around my head lately...

First up, here's a pic of my neighborhood hardware store's garbage pile from the other day, see anything interesting?...

The baby blue slabs in the middle of the pic are slabs of Dow Freezermate EPS foam. A friend of mine decided that it would be cool to "borrow" a few (...or six) to make into surfboards. The dims of the "blanks" are 7'10" x 24" x 3" and flawless. I don't know anything about epoxy yet, but I assume we'd need to glue in some stringers, go stringerless, or as my friend would like, add carbon parabolic stringers (which is way beyond me). According to my friend, this is the same stuff that those blue Salomon (sp?) boards are skinned with. The stuff is super light and feels like they would shape easily.

But, there are a few things I'm uncertain of:
1) In order to accomodate rocker, seems like we'd need to glue together some blocks near the nose/tail regions to increase thickness. What kind of glue is used for this?
2) Speaking of glue, what kind of glue is used to glue up blanks and stringers?
3) Why was there a big black SUV with tinted black windows following us as we carried our "borrowed" foam back to our apartments? And why did he stop in front of my building while staring at us in an unfriendly manner???

Should be interesting to see what becomes of this blue foam. I feel guilty about taking the foam for some reason. My friend assures me that its garbage, but I can't see why they'd throw out perfectly good foam. I'm not entirely convinced its good karma to make surfboards out of stolen garbage...or maybe it is, in a weird recycling kind of way. (Chris, any bad karma resulting from all of this is your fault!)

On the shaping front, not much going on with me these days, just working on a twinnie fish (my first one) for a friend. Pics of that project to come later. Till then, here are some pics of a friend of mine who is guest-shaping a fish for himself. It'll be his #001 and will have glasson bamboo twin keels by 101 Fin Co. Go Jamie!

Oh, and one last thing... I happen to stumble upon a video over at Swaylocks that shows how to use the new LokBox (non-vacuum) installation kit. Thanks to NY_Surfer for this great resource!

Thats it for now...
kc

ps. Say a prayer for all those close to the fires in SoCal....especially these guys.

My New Project

2007-10-09T17:01:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the lack of updates, but I'd like to take a moment to introduce you to one of my new projects. Its called: "The Rehabilitation of a Mandala" (forgive me Manny!). Long story short, a friend and I were going opposite directions and we collided. It was only my second day on the board, and I was paddling out, while he was dropping in. The rest I'll leave to your imagination. Here are some pics to help you visualize...

A view from the bottom. Hmm, whats that strange white line on the left side?...

Closeup of the "white line". My friend's fin did some serious damage, the fin gash is about 4 inches long. Pretty clean cut though. I get chills thinking about what it would've felt like if it was my head instead. Interestingly, you can see where the cutlap separated from the bottom lam.

And rounding the rail, you'll see that the fin penetrated straight through to the deck.

On the deck side, there are these slabs of glass that got pulled up and away from the foam. Probably as the fin exited, its tip caught the edge of the glass and pulled it up. Nice how straight it peeled up, and in a perfect rectangular shape too.

Nice clean fin cut, looks like it was cut with a Ginsu knife...

I wonder if I'll be able to color match the ding repair. Actually, screw the color match, I wonder if I'll be able to match the wax job!?!

All in all, I'm not upset....(that doesn't sound like denial, does it?) Actually, when it happened, I knew I could fix it so I didn't get all bent outta shape. In fact, my friends actually got more upset than I did. Knowing how to shape and glass, having the space to do so, and having the supplies makes dings like this much less stressful (and cheaper) than before.

Most of all I'm thankful that I'm still healthy and alive. If it was my head instead, well...lets not go there.

kc

Flat Daze

2007-09-25T20:59:00.000-05:00

Ugh. I think we're on track for one of the lamest hurricane seasons in many years. I passed some time the other day waxing my new board in hopes of one day actually being able to use it. This is what a wax job looks like when you've gotten a new board and boredom takes over...

And some other pics...

Tool Porn

2007-09-22T11:50:00.000-05:00

Keeping dust to a minimum...not easy. I only have one room to create my magic, and it has to accommodate all my shaping, glassing, and sanding activities. Well after my first batch of boards, the dust was overwhelming. It was very discouraging (not to mention unhealthy) and I considered giving up on glassing/sanding altogether and paying a local glasser to do the dirty work. That is, until I laid my eyes upon this baby...

Its a Random Orbit Sander with vacuum exhaust. Most major tool brands have some version of this thing. A while back my woodworking guru friend, Jon, recommended that I invest in one of these...but since I already had a Milwaukee rotary sander I hesitated. What I didn't realize is that, unlike my Milwaukee, this thing has an exhaust! As luck would have it, I have an exhaust system for my planer and something like this would plug in perfectly!

Still, there will be times when I'll need to revert back to my good ol' dusty Milwaukee. Well all is not lost, I can still use a DustMuzzle to keep the air dust-free and under control.

Of course, I stumbled upon all this info at Swaylocks....look HERE and HERE.

Mmm...Random Orbit Sanders. Mmm...Dust Muzzles.

Mmmust buy.

kc

Riddle Me This...

2007-09-19T13:20:00.000-05:00

Question: What makes a hurricane-less flat-spell surf season even more painful and torturous?

Answer: A shiny new Mandala in the mail...

Unexpected surprise. We didn't discuss this on the phone when I ordered the board, but it came with a groovy tapered stringer for more twang in the tail (in theory).

The area under the nose has a slight vee/belly, at the fins is double (see pic), and at the swallowtail its single concave. I like.

Another unexpected surprise: A concave deck...

Thanks to Manny, Moonlight, and even Fedex for making my day.

C'mon waves!

kc

#3

2007-09-14T13:34:00.002-05:00

Some pics of #3, for a guy here at work. Looks like he picked a bad week to start his Ramadan fast...

kc

Useful Nugget for Novice Shapers

2007-09-10T08:45:00.000-05:00

For novice shapers like me, starting out can be intimidating and frustrating. The good news is, just about all of the information you could ever need to get started is out there floating around in cyberspace. The not so good news is, you have to run around collecting these nuggets of information as if on an online scavenger hunt. Searching through forums, googling keywords, and rummaging through old posts can take lots of time and energy.

Well, here's a page that I stumbled upon over at Greenlight (providers of environmentally friendly surfboard building supplies). Click HERE. There's lots of great information about stands, templates, and railbands....you know, all the stuff we novice shapers are unsure of and always have questions about (well, at least I did).

Would be nice if they added a little something regarding fin placement. One can always hope...

Adios amigos,

kc

#2 and #3, Part 3 (Finished!)

2007-09-07T21:05:00.000-05:00

I guess the good news is, I'm done with #2 and a few steps away from finishing #3. The bad news is there still haven't been any good waves 'round here so I have yet to take #1 on her maiden voyage. Friggin' summer flat spell is driving me crazy!

Anyways, get ready for lots of eye candy (not necessarily 'pretty' eye candy, but something to look at nonetheless). I've been collecting pics of #2 and #3 progress for some time now and figured it was about time to dump them.

In Part 2, I'd finished my cutlaps and hotcoating. Figure, I'm ready to start working on the finbox installs, right? Uh, not so fast. Dunno how I missed it, but after reading up on finbox installations, I found that its recommended to have an extra patch/layer of glass where the finboxes will be installed. Too late to put the patches under my lamination, so no choice but to stick 'em on top of my hotcoat (according to Swaylocks). First cut the patches, then prep the area by rough sanding where the patches will go, and then laminate the patches on. Ugly, but relatively painless.

Ok, back to business. Routing the holes for my Probox install was a breeze. Used some spray adhesive to stick the jigs onto the board, then slowly routed out the hole with a trim router. The Probox install kit comes with the bit and bearing for the router which makes the process a cinch. Still, on my first hole, I screwed up and accidentally routed the hole too deep. (Complications from this mistake to come later...)

As a side note, when setting the leash plug on one of the boards a few days earlier, I failed to completely top off the hole with resin. So, I took an extra minute to tape off the plug's opening and topped off the resin. Hmm, guess I should've taped off the area better, but it all sands off in the end. No big deal.

Ok, back to my finboxes. I've already poured the resin/pigment/milled fiber mixture into the holes and squished the finboxes in. Remember that one finbox hole that I routed too deep? Well, extra resin pooled in the bottom due to the extra depth and the whole thing got pretty hot. I panicked and dumped water onto it to avoid a meltout of the foam (wrong move btw, you should use a soaked rag or paper towel instead). I paced back and forth wondering if foam was melting underneath. Talk about nervewracking. All went well though, no meltout, whew! Now proceed to let the resin gel, peel off the jigs, and we're ready for sanding...

Ok, I must admit I slacked off on the sanding pics. Just picture me with an electric sander running around the board a thousand times in a big white dust cloud burning through here 'n there. Took some 80 grit to grind down the boxes and leash plug, then moved on to 120, 150, and 220.

Fast forward to some pinlines. Laying the tape here, not easy as they make it look on videos, but after some trial and error I got some (barely) acceptable results.

Paint on some pigmented hotcoat resin, and begin my favorite pastime: watching the resin cure...oh yeah.

Ok, enough watching, lets pull the tape...

The tape, post-pull. Hey, kinda looks like a tertiary protein structure!......uh, what?

Thick, then thin, then thick, then thin...the story of my first pinline. But hey, at least I didn't use cheater tape (and it shows, doh!).

Almost home now. I decided to do a polished sanded finish instead of a gloss coat. Took it down to (or up to?) 800 grit, then compounded, and polished. The finbox reinforcement patches can be seen if you look closely. I tried my best to feather the edges of the patches and blend them in, but you can see some weave and whatnot. Not perfect, but I couldn't be bothered to get too obsessed at this point. Polished with some super duty compound and surfboard polish. Ends up looking almost like a fresh hotcoat. Stuck in the fins for effect, and voila!...#2 is done.

Looks like a board Santa would ride...

Still have to lay the pinlines on #3 (the yellow board), but should be done by the end of this weekend. After that, and some sweeping, I can start shaping again and try my first attempt at a fish shape. Can't wait!

kc

#001, Part 5 (Finished!)

2007-08-26T14:02:00.000-05:00

I finally got around to some sanding last week and ended up finishing my first board. I must say that I've gained a whole new respect for those who glass and sand surfboards (seems like its always the shaper who gets all the glory).

Picking up where we left off last time, the boards been hotcoated and is ready for sanding. I started with the fins...

My little handheld sander worked great for sanding the fins. I started with 80 grit and worked my way up to 220.

Wet sanded to 320 grit. Mmmm, smoooooth. Pesky airbubbles can be seen in the fiberglass weave at the base of the fin...

After the fins are done, I gather my sanding pads and cut some sandpaper (80, 120, 150, 220, 320) in preparation for sanding down the rest of the board. The little sanding pads (SuperSoft Blue, and Soft Yellow) came in real handy for those tight areas around the fins.

Just when I thought I was getting the hang of the electric sander, I accidentally nicked the leading edge of the trailing fin with some 80 grit. It only took a slight touch to put these two "notches" into the fin. Grrrr!!!! Lesson learned: Sand/finish the fins after the rest of the board.

Nothing to do but do an impromptu fin ding repair. Start by rough sanding and taping off the area...

...reinforce and cover the damaged edge with fin rope...

...now cover with glass. I saturated the repair down with some sanding resin and cut away excess glass along the tapeline once the resin had kicked. Sanded smooth after that.

A similar mishap happened on the nose of the board. Again, with 80 grit, I accidentally hit the nose too hard and burned through to the stringer and foam. Time for another repair...

By the time I got around to sanding the rails, my arms were weak and shaky from wrangling with the (now heavy) electric sander (plus, I wasn't in the mood for another ding repair) . So, I decided to do the rails by hand...

And finally, after sanding the whole thing down with wet 320, my first board is officially done. What a proud moment!..

Personally, I thought the actual shaping of the foam, while involving the most creativity, was the easiest part of the whole process. Most of my time and energy was spent in glassing, hotcoating, and sanding. I really have a newfound respect for those unnamed guys/gals who harden and shine these boards to their final state.

BTW, special thanks to everyone at Swaylocks and the NewYorkSurf.com shapers forum for guidance and encouragement. I would still be chasing my tail if it weren't for you guys! Also thanks to Stephen So for logo work.

kc

Could it be????

2007-08-21T23:05:00.000-05:00

After almost 6 months of waiting....could it be?....is it finally ready? Could this be my "olive greeny quad"?

Spent some time last weekend working on fins/finboxes for #1, #2, and #3. Pics coming soon...

kc

#2 and #3, Part 2

2007-08-16T17:49:00.001-05:00

Time for more pictures and shameless self-promotion of my amateur skills. These are some pics from the past few nights. I've been trying to finish the laminating/hotcoating phases of these two boards before I start sanding my #001 along with these two and making the place all dusty. It seems like groundhog day doing boards in batches like this, things get kind of repetitive, but I suppose its good practice. I sort of miss shaping right now though, I'm about ready to be done with the glassing portion of the program.

Cutting the glass for the deck, I believe there's already a second layer under there cut to the edge of the rail. I decided to do a free lap this time, since its a clear layer and it seemed pointless to do a cutlap that would just be clear.

Nice to have my digital camera instead of my crappy phone camera, makes the details pop...

Air bubbles/pockets...

Cleaning up my free-lap from the deck before the hotcoat. Small surform works well, but gets gummy and annoying.

Some more glass trimming. I found that it helped to turn the lights out on one side of the room which reduced glare on the cloth and allowed light from the other side of the room to shine through. This allowed me to easily see the edge of the board and judge how far/close I am when trimming...

Ok, so the ink from the logo does not like resin. Here (dunno if the picture shows it well) some of the color from the logo bled up toward the nose of the board as I squeegeed the resin along. Need to find a better way to print (currently using laser color printer on rice paper). Hmm...

Look, the board has acne. Actually, this is what happens when you mix your resin too vigorously and your hotcoat pour has too many bubbles in it...

Preparing to hotcoat the bottom, taping up to the edge of the deck hotcoat. The catalyzed lam/glass looks kinda like snake skin...

Hmm...bug. The hotcoat was already gelling , and I didn't want to mess with it, so I left him in there...

Previously, I was nervous about cutting into foam with a razor blade while doing my cutlaps. I didn't feel totally comfortable doing this either...cutting a big hole into my stringer/board...

Pretty painless actually, the jig made it very easy. Now ready to set the leash plug...

Excess resin gets sanded away...

Some random shots of the space. I always like seeing other peoples workspace for some reason, so here's mine. You can see the #001 in the background. Can't wait to sand those bamboo 101 fins, I only hope they'll look halfway as good as these.

You're not havin' fun till you've got wads of blood colored resin and cardboard stuck to the bottom of your shoes....

Waves finally on the way tomorrow and this weekend!

kc

#2 and #3, Part 1

2007-08-08T12:17:00.000-05:00

Last night I thought I'd spend the evening trying my hand at tints and cutlaps. My subjects were two funboard twins measuring 8' x 22" x 2.75" each. I started the night only intending to do the bottom lam/cutlap on one board, but by the end I was "in the zone" and decided to do the second board too.

The first order of business was to rig up some type of rail tool to draw in my cutlap guideline. I'd seen someone on Swaylocks do something similar to the following, though its a temporary solution. Still, it worked fine and was quick to assemble/disassemble...

Check out the hard core hitchhiker's thumb...haha!...

Cutlap outline drawn in...

Tape off at the line. Would've been handy to have some paper to tape off in the middle so I didn't have to waste so much masking tape...

Getting ready to mix in the tint now. Initially when i mixed the tint, I had no idea how much to use. I just went a little at a time till I got the color I wanted (which required mixing in a touch of red too)...

Ok, I've already pulled the glass, and cut excess away. Here goes nothin'...

Well, after running out of resin, and having to scoop some off the floor (lol!), I got the thing covered and my laps tucked under. I made the mistake of concentrating on the flats too much and forgot about the laps. By the time I got around to the laps, I was almost out of resin in my (second) bucket. I mixed up 1.5 qts, when I should've done 2qts. Lesson learned. Turned out alright for my first tint...good enough for me at least.

The laps are a bit messy in the ends. I didn't do a great job of cutting the wedges out so the glass lays nicely. There's some overlaping, some bubbles, and some uncovered spots...but no major catastrophes.

Poor little latex glove, didn't stand a chance...

Turned over the board after resin began gelling. Made sure to cover the stands w/ waxpaper so the upside-down masking tape on the stand doesn't pull/move the cloth which is still tacky at this point...

Went at it with the razor blade. Cut along the tape line as straight as possible while the cloth is still at its soft/leathery state. This is a bizarre feeling, I'm cutting *into* the foam here. But, thats how they say to do it, so be it...

After cutting all around, pull up tape. Making sure to pull towards the center so the lam doesn't accidentally peel off...

I read somewhere that instead of sanding the laps flush with the foam, some people just push the lap *into* the foam till its flush. I figured I'd give this a try, but after a few minutes of pushing with my thumb and a popsicle stick, I needed a better/easier way. So, after rummaging around the shop for a few minutes, I came upon the idea of rolling the edge of a paper mixing bucket along the lap edge while applying downward pressure. Helps to have one hand inside the the bucket moving it along, while the other is applying the pressure. You can roll along pretty quickly this way and cover a lot of ground without getting your gloves/hands sticky. Still need to clean up the laps a bit with some grinding/sanding, but the laps are flush now. Oh, you can see I'm shirtless, but don't try this at home. ALWAYS keep protective clothing on. I got a tiny smudge of resin on my stomach, and I could feel it burn in minutes. (BTW, where is my hairline??...wow, I must be getting old)

Did the same thing on the second board, but this time in a blood red. Ya, I dunno why I like to make things difficult for myself. They say to stay away from dark tints in the beginning. Easy to see flaws and mistakes. What can I say, I like to challenge myself sometimes...(actually, the order called for a dark red)

Not bad I guess. Somehow it always looks good from this side...

Looks like a crime scene eh? "Honestly, officer, I'm making surfboards in here!!!"

Here's a little booboo after pulling up my tape. Whats the recommended procedure here? I ended up shaving it away with a razor blade...

First cutlap, first tint, two boards, and one crime scene. All in a night's work (well, 4 hours work)...

Neeeeeeed waaaaaves.... :(

kc

#001, Part 4

2007-08-06T21:14:00.000-05:00

This week I hotcoated my board along with glassing the fins. Unfortunately, I don't have pics of the deck hotcoat, but here's some eye candy from the bottom hotcoat and fins...

The beginning of a long and winding road...

Started the night by cutting fin panels and measuring out some fin rope. Each panel consists of two 6oz pieces of glass...

If you read my previous post (see '#001, Part 3'), you'll know that I didn't clean up my bottom laps so well and they ended up showing through the deck lam. In the end, after a hotcoat layer, the laps on the deck ended up looking acceptable. This time, after learning my lesson last time, I decided not take chances and surformed/sanded these laps down smooth. I also built a 'dam' edge around the tail with masking tape for creating a hard edge when sanding.

Masking tape, a glasser's best friend...

Fins tacked on with some resin, catalyst, and q-cell. But, I imagine you can just use some glue for this step, no? BTW, side fins canted out at 5 degrees...

Fins in place, rails taped off, panels and rope cut...

Fin panels and fin rope saturated w/ resin and placed on fins (fin rope along the base under the glass). Like making a bamboo fin sandwich...

Once the panels harden to a leathery state, cut excess away with blade...

Looks a bit rough, but I'll end up sanding away the 'halo' (excess glass)...

Finally ready for the hotcoat. All excited and ready to go, I mixed up some lam resin and catalyst. Since it was so hot that night, I went easy on the catalyst. Seconds before pouring my hotcoat, I realized that I'd forgotten one crucial ingredient... Man, that would've sucked!

The 'wet' look just before the wax/surfacing agent rises and the hotcoat gels.

Like I said, the night was hot. I barely got the resin on, cross-stroked, and "walked it out", before it started to kick. Nice resincicle shot here...

Finally, I get to pull the tape...

I hope I did everything correctly. The board seemed really heavy after the hotcoats (deck/bottom) were applied and the fins glassed. Lots of resin ended up pooling at the tail where the masking tape dam was made, but I think most of it will go away with sanding. In fact, I think most of the hotcoat is supposed to get sanded away. However, before I start sanding and getting the shop all dusty, I'm gonna start glassing the two funboards that are next in the queue.

Pics to come soon as always...

kc

#001, Part 3

2007-07-31T09:24:00.000-05:00

After much research, preparation, and procrastination, I finally dove into glassing my #001. I spent the greater part of last night squeegeeing, tucking, cutting, grinding, and generally stumbling my way through my first lamination. I learned a few things along the way...

1) Don't forget your notes at home. This led to the first big decision of the night, do I call it a night and retreat home to get my notes and begin another day? Or, do I decide to wing it and (as Obi-Wan would say)..."Trust your feelings". Well, that might work for Luke, but not for me. As a compromise, I called up my girlfriend who dictated my notes from my notebook over the phone, as I sat on the floor scrawling them down onto some cardboard.

Course, this genius idea led to lesson number two...

2) Never depend on notes written down on cardboard thats laying on the ground which is being used to catch drips from your glass job. In no time, my notes were under a gooey puddles of resin. Nice.

3) Keep that respirator on!!! I damn near just about passed out when I removed it to talk to someone on the phone. Some ventilation and air circulation might help here...have to remember to bring that fan next time.

4) Cured lam resin on floor, sticky. Cured lam resin on floor with uncured resin on top...not sticky. In fact, its as slippery as ice. I nearly ate it a few times with full bucket of resin in hand. Wheeee!!!

5) Don't just stand back like an idiot admiring your work while resin is hardening on your tools. Clean tools = GOOD, crusty tools = BAD.

All in all, I think the night went ok. I learned a lot, and alleviated some anxiety over the difficulty of the whole operation. Though, I'm not out of the woods yet...I still have the hotcoat and glassing-on of fins, and sanding. Below are some more random pics...sorry, I don't have "action" shots, it was just me, myself, and I.

Watching resin cure, about as fun as...um, watching resin cure.

Pulling the glass... Ooooh, aaaah!

Cutting the laps. Notice the shaping stands bare-naked...

Here I've already poured and squeegeed the deck, tucked the rails, and am cleaning up the bottom of drips and strings and whatnot. Notice the shaping stands are now covered w/ garbage bags. Something I realized would be a good idea AFTER I'd started pouring resin. Good thing I'd just bought a new box of trash bags and had them handy.

Mood shot of the double concave...

The view from below...

Cleaning up the laps. At first, I used a little electronic hand sander that I happened to have, but the dark sandpaper ended up leaving marks on the lams. So, I switched to white 80 grit wrapped around a piece of wood.

Front and back views of the top lam...

Are the lams supposed to show through this much? Will it blend/disappear when I hotcoat and sand? Hmm...

Closeup of the signature, dims, and little good luck jade stone from Chinatown embedded/laminated into foam. The dims are pretty small, but then again, I'm only 5'5"/135lbs...so it should be ok.

Stay tuned for hotcoating and glass-on fins...

kc

Zippidy Doo Dah

2007-07-24T08:54:00.000-05:00

Since I've slowly been running out of space in my little shaping cave, I decided to make some board racks to move some of the mess up onto the walls. Here's the first one...built from scrap 2x4 and some 3/4" dowels. I have doubts as to its strength and ability to hold heavier longboards, but I'll give it the benefit of the doubt. "Eeeeh, suuuure its strong enough."...famous last words hehe.

BTW, here are some pics of a funboard for a guy at work. Its a bit thick here 'n there (especially in the nose), but since the guy is a total beginner I figure a little extra volume won't hurt. Its 8' x 22" x 2 7/8" or so.

In other news, I'm going to try glassing all four boards in the next week or so. As such, I spent the other night putting together glassing stands. Pretty simple really, just some metal posts clamped to my shaping stands, and some 1x4's screwed on top.Nothing fancy, perhaps a bit flimsy even. "Eeeeh, suuure its strong enough." ;)

Next post, glassing pics...

kc

Thanks Marlin!

2007-07-22T00:48:00.000-05:00

Nothing like getting bamboo fins in the mail to make your day. Here are some shots of the bamboo Speed Dialers, Twin Keels, and thruster glassons that I ordered from Marlin at 101 Fin Co. They're super light, and smooth. Great craftsmanship. Truly works of art. The glassons will go on my #001 this week when I glass it. I hope I don't f*** up the install!

Top row: Pavel Speed Dialer quads
Bottom row: Twin Keels

Thruster glassons...

Check the weave...

Do yourself a favor and order some fins from Marlin. He's very cool and you'll be supporting a true craftsman/artist.

kc

Works in Progress

2007-07-16T20:20:00.000-05:00

Even though there haven't been any updates in some time, it doesn't mean I have been slacking off. I'm currently working on three boards, and my friend is also working on one. The two big ones are twin 8' funboards, the shortboard is my "practice" blank turned #001, and the fish shape is my friend's 6'0" Mandala clone.

I hope to have these finished by next week. Thereafter I'll set up for glassing. Gulp!

Here's my new planer. The depth adjustment knob on this one is much easier/smoother to turn than the other one (which was stolen). Now I can actually make depth changes during my cuts, something I was unable to do with the previous planer. In fact, this ability has helped my planing tremendously! Guess having the "bad" planer stolen was a blessing in disguise :)

I dunno what you call these things, they're like giant spherical snowflakes that float around in the spring/summer. One of them landed on this blank while I was working on it the other day. I heard they're supposed to bring good luck...

...unfortunately it didn't help when shortly thereafter I dug my fingernail into the blank while surforming....

D'oh!

kc

Spinning

2007-07-10T22:12:00.001-05:00

Since the temperature is 1000 degrees outside, and working in my garage-turned-shaping room would be like shaping in a sauna, I decided instead to soak up the A/C and try making a spin template for an 8'0" funboard a few people have been requesting. Here's how it went:

First, I cut out my taped-together outline that I created and printed from the AkuShaper program...

Then, I traced half of the outline onto cardboard, then spun it around and put nose to tail and drew other side of outline opposite the first outline (does that make sense?)...

Cut out the resulting shape, and this is what you get...

So here's the big question...which side is the nose and which is the tail??? Pretty close actually. Hmm, I wonder if I could make a "spin" board with finboxes/leash plugs on both ends that could be used forwards and backwards

kc

Lazy Summer Daze

2007-07-09T22:39:00.000-05:00

The summer heat is making movements difficult...let alone trying to shape in a garage when its 95 degrees and humid. Not to mention, weekend before last, my planer was stolen from my shaping room! My landlady offered to pay for a new planer, pretty generous of her. I've put up a partition door and wall to secure the shaping area...should keep those pesky burglers out! Anyways, my new planer just arrived in the mail so I'll get back to shaping again this week. Updates and pics to come soon.

In the meantime, check out these videos. I'm not trying to endorse Proctor in any way, but I thought these clips captured the essence of summertime fish surfing pretty well...

Fish Frenzy 1
Fish Frenzy 2

God bless air conditioning!

kc

Fried Fish & Chips

2007-07-02T21:49:00.000-05:00

If you have any interest in custom surfboards and love looking at board porn, then do yourself a favor and check out the pics from the recent European Fish Fry held in Devon, UK. Its nice to see the faces behind the names...

Mr. Richie Pavel (what the hell?)...

Mr. Chris Christenson, Pavel, and M. Caro ("you da man, no, YOU da man...hey anyone wanna order food?")...

Mr. Manuel Caro and friends (Uhh excuse me, Mr. Caro, where's my board!?!?) ...

Of course, there were some cool (or 'sick' as the groms say) new designs...

...along with some innovative concepts. This one has a power assist turbine engine that provides a 3-second push just at the right moment. Almost like having your own personal surf instructor push you into every wave!

In the end, looks like some good fun was had by all...

Hopefully one day in the not too distant future I'll be at the next Fish Fry skipping around like a little teenage groupie stalking my favorite shapers. HeeHee!!!!

(BTW, I stole these pictures from the SurferMag Design Forum. The original thread and zillions more photos here.)

Enjoy!
kc

#001, Part 2...

2007-06-28T19:51:00.000-05:00

Its still a bit "fuzzy" and needs some finish sanding, but shaping for numero uno is almost done. Its not without its flaws, but it sure was an eye opening experience. For the most part, I think I did an ok job, but I got a little carried away with the planer and surform here 'n there. What can I say, I guess I was just having too much fun! The thing is like 2" thick and the rails and tail feel super thin. I think my concaves are too deep and lack the smooth transition that I envisioned in my mind. Guess thats what I get for trying to do too much too early. Nonetheless, it should be interesting how these "mistakes" feel in the water.

Started off the night by making some rail bands. Here's a shot of post-bottom band, and post-first top band...

Not sure if the nose needs some tuning, I don't want to make it much thinner than it already is...

Here's my attempt at bottom contours. For my first board I probably should've kept things simple, but I'm glad I gave it a try. I figure its better to get some experience with these things sooner than later. Single concave under front foot...

...double concave under back foot...

...and vee out the tail...

Adjusted the lighting to bring out the concave shadows. Ooops!...a bit deeper than I intended. Will try to smooth out the concaves later.

Looking pretty ok from afar...

Just need to wait for some resin and fiberglass in the mail, and I'll attempt to glass the sucker. BTW, I'm terrified of glassing...

kc

#001, Part 1...

2007-06-25T21:07:00.000-05:00

Ok, after almost two months of talking, I'm finally gonna make this happen. It took me way too long to get here, but I've finally begun shaping my #001. I decided that I'd use my practice blank and turn it into a real board. That being the case, I needed a template and so I cut out the outline of my 5'10 JC SD3 onto a piece of cardboard from the box that my KingMac blanks were delivered in. I know that cardboard isn't the best material to use, I would rather use masonite, but I couldn't be bothered to be too picky at this point. In fact, it was rather convenient because I cut the template in two which made it much easier to transport on the subway. Maybe next time I should try making a spin template?

Anyways, back at the shaping bay, after taping my template back together I was ready to begin. I took my "practice" blank and measured the thickness. It was just over 2.5" thick but I decided I wanted to take it down to about 2.25" when all was said and done. I also made some lines across the board and compared thicknesses at various points to see how the thickness compared from one side to the other.

Having my new exhaust system plugged in and ready to go, I turned the planer on to start taking the thickness down. After a few passes, I realized that the exhaust system had one slight drawback - as I stretched, tugged, and pulled against the exhaust hose, it resulted in my planer tilting and planing crooked. Deeeaaamn!! Well, at least there was no mess on the floor, instead the mess was on my blank, check out these nasty lines and ridges...

With all due respect, I don't care what Jim Phillips says in his Master Shaper videos, as a complete newbie I needed the security of a crutch tool....my trusty Surform. With crutch tool in hand, I proceeded to Surform my way out of trouble. Learning from my previous mistakes while Surforming my practice blank, I made certain I would not catch the Surform edge thus tearing the foam (didn't matter...I still made the same mistake anyways). After about ten times the amount of time it took for me to create the problem with the planer, I Surformed the mistakes out and was left with a respectable result. Now it was time to find the "true" center line (not necessarily the stringer) to use when aligning my template. This I did by snapping a chalkline down the middle just like my old friend J. Phillips suggests. Sure enough as you can see, the stringer wasn't perfectly straight...

After aligning the template, and tracing the outline, it was time for the only tool with which have any prior experience - the handsaw (not that my prior experience helped any). At first the saw skipped and jumped, but after relaxing my grip and taking longer strokes (ahem, get yer mind out of the gutter) the saw cut like a lukewarm knife through lukewarm butter - albeit crooked...

At this point I noticed that my shaping rack was too wide and the board kept falling into the gap between the uprights. I had to balance it on one side of the rack to prevent my saw from hitting the "T" part of the uprights. Guess I'll need rebuild the damn things. Grr!!!

Again, I depended on the Surform (this time the little one) to clean up my crappy outline cutting job. I tried using the planer, but I couldn't get the board to sit steady on the rack (see previous paragraph) so I didn't risk it. I also took this opportunity to knock down the stringer with the hand planer. Dunno if its just me, but why does it feel so satisfying to use the hand planer to cut the stringer down resulting in those curly wooden springy shavings?...

Next challenge...bottom contours. Stay tuned.

Exhaust-O-Matic

2007-06-21T23:01:00.000-05:00

Using the goodies I picked up from Home Depot yesterday, tonight I assembled something like the vacuum exhaust system diagrammed in the back of the Clark Foam catalog. Everything went pretty smoothly actually, thanks to careful planning and an abundance of available supplies at HomeDepot. All the parts fit like a piece of furniture straight out of an Ikea catalog. Here's how it went down...(apologies for crappy cellphone pic quality)...

1) Attach one long PVC pipe (or in my case, 4 short ones connected together) across the ceiling from the area above the racks to wherever the vacuum will be...

2) Next, attach PVC elbows to both ends as well as rubber adapters to help accomodate different hose/PVC tube sizes...

3) Now attach the planer exhaust tube and the shopvac tube to the corresponding PVC ends/elbows...

4) Attach each tube to the relevant piece of machinery...

4) Now set up a couple pulleys along the planer's power cord, as well as hooks in the ceiling where the pulleys will hang...

5) Now, mount one pulley on each hook...

7) Thats it! All done! The weight of the power cord keeps the slack in check while still allowing free movement of the exhaust tubing. I tried wrapping the power cord around the exhaust tube, like I've seen in other peoples' setups, but it actually hinders the exhaust's movement/stretchiness.

I didn't have a chance to test it out much tonight (would have some angry neighbors), but I'll see how it goes tomorrow when I finally get back to some shaping. Nonetheless, I did a few short passes just cause I had to know if it worked or not. Sure enough, the setup works and is as smooth as butter!

Mmmm butter....zzzzz...sleeeeepy.

kc

Lazy Summer Dayz

2007-06-21T08:24:00.000-05:00

Must be the hot weather, the lazy haze in the sky, or the air conditioning headaches thats making me drag my feet these days. The water has gone flat for the most part, and its not looking good for surf for at least a week. *sigh*

In hopes of sparking some productivity, I visited the Home Depot store in Lodi, NJ last night. Talk about inspiration!!! I realized at the moment that I laid eyes on the lumber section, the tools department, and the countless rows of knicknack-filled bins, that I'd been doing things the hard way up until now. I had been visiting the local hardware store on the corner, the Home Depot "Lite" in Manhattan, and various other random places to pick up supplies and materials. In one fell swoop, I could've knocked out everything by visiting this one magnificent store (just 10 minutes from my house by ZipCar no less!!!). The grind of shopping for gear piecemeal from different locations around the city was really getting to me. Maybe thats why my momentum seemed to stall recently.

Well, I ended up buying all the parts necessary for my exhaust system as diagrammed in the Clark Foam catalog. Its the first time I've gone into a hardware store since I began this shaping obsession that I've actually been able to leave with every single thing I went in looking for.

I'll build the exhaust/vacuum system tonight, pics to come of my progress.

kc

My #0.5...

2007-06-13T20:41:00.000-05:00

After that first night behind the planer, I just had to get dusty again.

So there I was, the very next evening, cranking away with the planer. Not surprisingly, my excitement nearly got me into trouble. No more than a few minutes into my shaping session, I was admiring my handiwork with the planer (still spinning) down at my side, when the planer's power cord touched the planer blades for a split second and got nicked down to the wire. Fortunately, only the sheath was nicked, but I was able to see the metal wire strands within. I'm not sure if this will pose a real threat, but I'll have to ask an electrician friend of mine what I should do. For now, I've just got it wrapped with duct tape.

Another lesson I learned real quick was...avoid the big cuts! It was so fun and easy to make big thick cuts with the planer for some reason, I just had to do it all over the freaking place. Maybe its because I had decided that this was a practice blank and would not eventually become a real board. Of course, this left me with tons of big ridges and uneven sections, a pain to correct. I ended up planing, surforming and sanding my mistakes away, but not after lots of sweat (was a hot summer night) and regret. Oh well, lesson learned I hope.

By the end of the night I decided that I'd try to finish skinning and smoothing out the deck and bottom. Hopefully this weekend I'll try truing up the outline of the blank (don't have a template yet) and turning the rails. And now that I think of it, and after some encouragement from Bubba in the previous post's comments, I think I will re-skin this thing and actually shape a real board out of it. Perhaps a rough replica of my 5'10 JC?

Laugh at will, here are the results of my shenanigans... (note duct tape on planer cord where it got nicked by planer blade).

If you look closely on this one, you can see where I got careless with the edge of the Surform...

Outline and rails coming soon....

Time to go home...

Till next time...
kc

First Pass

2007-06-11T22:33:00.000-05:00

Very exciting news today, I made my first cut with the planer! After almost two months of preparation and planning, waiting for blanks, building out the garage/shaping room, I finally mowed my first piece of foam. Felt great! Using a throwaway blank to practice on kept the experience painless and carefree. I also practiced knocking down the stringer using various hand planes as well as taking some time to get to know my Surform. Was mostly a 'get-to-know-my-tools' kind of night.

Getting ready...

I look like a one-armed shaper in this pic...

A bit wiggly, but good enough...

Check out the big crack/gouge in the blank. Part of the reason this one was half price I guess...

Have to remember for next time - Pay attention to direction of the planer exhaust. Something I failed to do and ended up with a face/eye full of foam dust. Which reminds me that I need to buy some safety eyewear and/or build an exhaust rig using slinky hose and shopvac like this one shown in the Clark Foam catalog...

Can't wait to get back to the shop...I'm hooked now!

The wait is over!!!!

2007-06-08T17:15:00.000-05:00

Yeeha, my KingMac blanks finally arrived today! These should keep me busy for the next few months at least. I'm planning on experimenting on the 'second' defective blank sometime this weekend. Not gonna try to shape anything, just wanna goof around, get to know my planer, and mow the thing down to nothing. I figure, it'll be my sacrifice to the shaping gods for good karma and shaping luck.

Sooo stoked!!!!

Bamboo Removeables

2007-06-06T10:47:00.000-05:00

Yesterday during my usual lunchtime lurking of the Web (actually I lie...I lurk all day long) I stumbled upon a post on SurferMag's Design Forum that says Marlin Bacon of 101Fins, the guy behind the bamboo fins on my soon-to-arrive Mandala, will be releasing bamboo removables in the near future. The post indicated that he's taking pre-orders before advertising the new line on his website.

In a move to boost my shaper-ego, I decided to contact him in hopes of becoming part of the "pre-release" crowd who can say they own a set of these beauties. I anticipate saving these for my first fish, assuming I'm able actually shape one. Marlin responded to me within the hour and before I knew it, I had an order in for a set of CK (traditional twin keel) and K-9 (Speed Dialer-style quad) fins. After following up with him today for pricing/invoice, he said he'd throw in the shipping for me too. Good thing, considering the cost of these things....most likely, it will be well worth it though.

I feel like a broken record saying this, but blanks supposed to arrive this week.

Aku Shaper

2007-06-01T09:19:00.000-05:00

I've decided to try my hand at the Aku Shaper software to create an outline/template based off of my Brom fish. The software is not exactly the most intuitive thing to use (even for a computer guy like myself), but the interface is fairly simple and easy to figure out with a little time. I spent the greater part of last night making a board file by tracing a picture of the Brom fish. I'll then try to scale it down using Greg Loehr's "1/8" formula to come up with something a bit shorter and thinner.

I'm having trouble printing the outline onto paper which I'll then tape together to end up with the final outline. I think I need to fiddle with the printer margins or something cause I'm getting only 1/4 of the board. Weird. In any case, here are some screenshots of what I have so far...

I dunno if I'll make a rocker template, but I did the profile outline just for fun. I think there's a newer version of the Aku Shaper coming out soon which will feature a 3D viewer. Also, if you have $65,000 lying around, you can buy the Aku machine and have it cut your CAD board designs for you. If not, you'll have to settle for the free software (and find someone with the machine). You can find Aku Shaper here.

Blanks are on the way...should arrive sometime next week. Yeeha!

One step closer

2007-05-29T22:08:00.000-05:00

Finally heard back from the KingMac blank distributor I submitted my order with. He finally has everything in order and will be shipping my blanks. Shipping costs sting a little though...$130! Thats for a box of five blanks. Hmm, I wonder if I'm getting ripped off? Lets see, thats $26 per blank, blanks were about $50 each. I could've gotten them locally for about $70, I guess I'm not too out of line.

Apparently, templating is not as simple as I thought. It only took reading one 3-page Swaylocks post on the topic to make me realize yet again how ignorant I can be at times.

First off, scaling up/down from an existing board isn't so straightforward. You could either scale geometrically (keeping the aspect ratio throughout), or you can use Greg Lohr's 1/8th method, or you could use the force and go by "feel" like all the master shapers seem to be able to do so well. Well, since I don't have any experience I can throw the "feel" method out the window. The geometric/aspect ratio method works up to a point, but fails thereafter. So, that leaves the Greg Lohr method, by process of elimination.

It doesn't end there either, once the template has been drawn out, I must somehow cut it out onto a piece of masonite (or similar material) without the dreaded wiggles. Or at least be able to blend them away afterwards with a plane/sanding block. Apparently, those wiggles turn into a big can of worms later, so its worth the trouble to get the template right the first time.

Sheesh, and here I thought I could just trace my old board. Silly silly me.

Shaping Stands

2007-05-28T16:20:00.000-05:00

Finally finished my shaping stands today after slacking off for a few days. I used some leftover foam from an old mattress pad for padding. On top of the foam I used some rubber cabinet liner material to make the "U"-shaped part that holds the board on its side. Zip ties and tape in various places keeps everything together. I dunno if its technically correct, but it looks good enough. Take a look:

Called the guy at KingMac foam and inquired about my blank order. Apparently, he's having trouble getting an estimate for the shipping cost on my blanks. Not to mention one of the blanks I ordered is out of stock in his warehouse. I just told him to substitute the missing blank with something similar. I'm getting really impatient now, I submitted this order three weeks ago, and its still not out the door! Grrr. He said he'd email me when he got the estimate sometime over the weekend. Well, weekend's almost over, and my patience is wearing thin. Maybe its time to try a different foam company. :(

I guess I should focus my energy on things to do before I can shape (even if I did have my blanks in hand). Namely, making a template. My first board shall be a twin keel fish. Slightly thinner than my Brom fish, and one inch shorter. Will have to do some research on how to do this correctly, but I'm thinking of just tracing my Brom fish onto cardboard/masonite and then cutting it out. Must research on Swaylocks for validation and/or other ideas.

FlexTails

2007-05-24T14:07:00.000-05:00

Ok, once I get good enough to not eff up a blank, I want to make something like this. Its a flextail quad fish with tapered stringer by DK...and its sooo nice:

DK is an up and coming shaper along with a bunch of others (M. Caro, I. Zamora, D. Hess, and J. Hall) who are re-"shaping" (sorry, couldn't resist) the custom surfboard industry. These young, Pavel/Frye-influenced shapers and the shapes they create are just so much more interesting than the old school big name sellouts like Merrick, Rusty, JC, Biolas, et al (ahem, *cough*cough*... Surftech... *cough*cough*). Dunno, thats just my $0.021563. Man, ever since this shaping thing has taken over my life, I've become such a shaper snob.

Anyways, get a glimpse of the new school here.

Still waiting for blanks... :(

Waiting Game & Tag Team Shaping

2007-05-23T11:05:00.000-05:00

Still waiting for blanks. 'Nuff said. :(

In the meantime, feast your eyes on some TagTeam Shaping Action...and the end product.

Fins and The Mandala

2007-05-19T21:58:00.000-05:00

Seems like there's some movement in the development of fin systems these days thanks to RedX, ProBox, and SurfTrux. RedX and ProBox are adjustable fin systems that allow you to move a fin forward and back depending upon surf conditions and desired performance characteristics. ProBox has the added option of adjusting the cant angle on a fin by using replaceable inserts in the finbox. And finally, I happened to hear about SurfTrux from a friend (Chris K.) a while back and I saw them pop up again while lurking Swaylocks just now. SurfTrux are the first fin system that feature dynamically adjusting fins. They adjust toe-in angles automatically while you're surfing to minimize drag and maximize maneuverability. The toe-in angle on the outside fin adjust to minimize drag produced as seen here in a pic taken from Teahupoo (notice turbulence coming off outside fin)...click here. If you're not careful, all this fin theory will put your head in a spin. But, I wouldn't be surprised if the next big innovation comes from this area of surfboard design.

In other news, a board I'd recently ordered from Manuel Caro over at Mandala Custom Shapes has been shaped and is ready for an olive green tint and bamboo glass-on fins by the wizards over at Moonlight Glassing. Manny emailed me the other day to let me know he's finished with my "olive greenie" (as he described it) and will drive it down to Moonlight in the next day or so. Check out the stunning handywork:

While on the phone to deliver the good news about my new board, Manuel threw a few words of advice and encouragement when I mentioned to him that I would soon be shaping my own boards. He also mentioned he'd be out here this summer (July?) for the grand opening of the new Mollusk surf shop in Williamsburg. Hmm, I'll have to remember that so I can shake hands with the man in hopes of gaining some shaping wisdom via osmosis.

Speaking of shaping idols, here's one that I happened to stumble upon today. His name is Erik Hakon Olson, and his shapes make me drool...make sure to check out his shapes in the archive! Wow!

Tonight I put finishing touches on my shaping stand (foam padding) and attempt to seal off my work area by stapling plastic sheeting all over the place. Pics to come soon.

kc

Oldy

2007-05-15T21:36:00.000-05:00

(Warning: touchy-feely moment ahead...)

So i was flipping through the discussions on Swaylocks this afternoon and got caught up in a thread that might be one of the best threads (on several levels) that I've ever read on Swaylocks or any other surf-related forum (after all, how many threads about surfing and shaping really hit home?...well this one does.)

Iits about a guy who decides to document the board-building process of a quad fish. The thread is entitled, "Journey of a Quad" and spans two months and ten pages on the Swaylocks discussion forum, making it one of the longest threads of the year. For potential boardbuilders like me, it was an eye-opener and will surely be a reference when i embark on my shaping journeys.

However...

The value in spending the time to read through all ten pages comes somewhere in the middle of the thread, where the author (who goes by the name 'Oldy') blindsides us with a revealing post and an even more revealing picture. It reminds me of what "soul" is in surfing, or in this case shaping. But don't stop in the middle, it gets better near the end.

If you don't have time to read through the thread, you'll miss the gist of it and you won't know why it meant so much to myself and everyone on the forum. it might take you a while (it took me an hour), but at least look through his posts, check out his pictures, and read a few blurbs to get a sense of what he went through. Then, when you finish the thread, maybe it will have meant something to you too.

Click here to read

kc

ps. Only click this after you've read the post!!!

Let There Be Light!

2007-05-15T12:25:00.000-05:00

When I plugged in the lights last night for the first time, I felt this overwhelming feeling that I'd achieved one of the first major shaping milestones of my shaping career. Amazing how horizontal fluorescent lighting can transform just about any room into a shaping bay! (well, almost)

Shelves/light deflectors to come soon...

Blanks and Shaping Porn

2007-05-14T12:59:00.000-05:00

My first official blank order is in! I have a 5-blank order in with a KingMac distributor in San Diego. They each run a little over $50 bucks. Here's what I ordered (see KingMac's catalog for blank specs):

1) 6'2" DE - small fish/shortboard
2) 6'2" DE - small fish/shortboard
3) 6'6" CB - generic shortboard
4) 6'11 M - large shortboard/egg
5) 6'3" CB Second - my "sacrifice-to-shaping-gods" blank (ie. scrap blank for planer practice)

There seems to be lots of discussion as to whose blank is the best since the closure of Clark Foam. Density, flex, weight, ease of use, PU vs EPS, symmetry, glue quality, stringer quality, rocker, and a myriad of other factors must be considered when choosing the right blank. Me, being the simpleton that I am, just went with the one whose guy on the phone was the least rude and most helpful. Actually, all the blank companies seem nice enough to deal with, but I just happened to click with one more than the other. I'm sure once I'm more experienced in shaping I'll be much more discerning. As for now, just gimme some foam, any foam!

Did I mention that shipping costs can be a hard pill to swallow when ordering blanks? I contemplated renting a car and driving to a local source/shaper to get my foam, but in the end I kooked out and let my fingers do the walking. Like I've said before, I'm lazy and have money to burn. So, add to the cost of blanks about $100-$150 to get the blanks to my doorstep (er, my office's doorstep actually...they can't ship to residential addresses). Should be about 10 days, and I shall finally have my beloved foam...Muahahaha!!!

I spent a few hours this weekend finishing up my shaping stands, I poured the concrete in the buckets, banged together a stud-frame wall partition for the garage space (thanks for the help Steve!), and will mount lights sometime this week. Looks like we're almost set to go. Pics of the finished space to come...

Last but not least, I have discovered a whole new dimension as far as surf porn goes...Shaping Porn! Take a look at this, taken at Moonlight Glassing featuring Machado...click here. Mmm.

kc

Still sick...

2007-05-10T09:22:00.000-05:00

This sucks, its been almost a week and I'm still all choked up with phlegm. I'm going to the doctor today so hopefully I'll be back in action soon.

In the meantime, I've been researching some stuff online. Here's a killer 3-page discussion of concaves on Swaylocks, click here.

Will be ordering blanks soon from King Mac. Yeehaw!

kc

Go Green!

2007-05-05T11:14:00.000-05:00

The theme for this week is...green.

Spring has finally arrived, and the depressing brown and grey winter motif outside my window has blossomed into springtime greens and yellows. Unfortunately for me, I happened to get sick this week and have been swimming in green phlegm all week long. *cough cough ack!*

It all started last weekend when I began running around like a chicken with its head cut off gathering materials for the shaping bay. I grabbed four 4' fluorescent light fixtures, eight 4' fluoro bulbs, some plastic buckets (for shaping stand bases and resin mixing), and various other doohickeys from Home Depot. Then I woke up early one morning, and rushed over to the local hardware store (which closes before I can get home from work) to grab some cement to use as the base for my shaping stands. Mid-week, after work, I threw all the stuff into the back of my Zipcar and dropped it off at the shaping bay (Note to Brain: Never try to lift an 80lb bag of concrete by yourself...Sincerely, Lower Back). The next day, I found some people on Craigslist (ie. the best website in the universe) who were giving away spare lumber that I wanted use for lighting stands, shelving/light hoods, and wall studs (for a wall partition my garage-mate and I were planning on building). I again drove around late after work to pick up the lumber, frantically trying to beat my Zipcar return time, when my body said, "OK. Stop, I quit." That night my head and throat were on fire and since then its been continuous couging, itchy throat, and gooey green phlegm. Mmmm.

I've taken the downtime as a hint to step back and slow down. They say that to shape well, you must be patient. Jim "The Genius" Phillips makes this clear in his Master Shaping Series. Careful planning along with the ability to put something down instead of forcing it will yield best results in the end. This goes for shaping as well as anything else I suppose.

In keeping with the "green" theme, I'd like point out some things that were brought to my attention by someone (thanks JD) who sold me my current favorite board, a 5'6" Brom twin keel fish...(seen here in shameless pic of self taken on 4/22/07 by Charles Unger, which I've entitled "Springtime Greens and Yellows")

As JD points out, environmentally friendly materials are now available through Greenlight Surfboard Supply. Greenlight provides environmentally friendly EPS blanks, bamboo stringers, and bamboo fiber laminating cloth! Gotta love bamboo, its light, strong, has stood the test of time as a building material, and...well, it grows like a goddam weed! They are also devoloping bio-plastics which will eventually become used for fins, fin boxes, and leash plugs. I hope we see more bamboo and bio-plastic in our boards in the near future. I will surely try to use them in mine.

Speaking of bamboo, I recently ordered a board from fish guru Manuel Caro over at Mandala Custom Shapes. It will arrive with groovy Marlin Bacon bamboo glass-ons provided by 101 Fin Co. He just started offering them on his boards, and I just had to have 'em! Manny has begun dabbling in the enviro-friendly materials as well, you can read about it here.

Well, thats all for now. Time to eat cough medicine and soup.

kc

I'm such a gearhead!

2007-04-28T12:47:00.000-05:00

Tools arrived in the mail the other day. Oooooh aaaaahh....

Hopefully I won't have to buy much more cause this stuff ain't cheap. Thanks to foamez.com for this stuff. I probably could've scoured the web for better deals, but I didn't find the prices at foamez to be too out of line. There's also value in being able to get all your equipment (some customized for shaping) from one place in one shot. This is especially true if you're jonesing to set up shop like me. Oh ya, and did i mention that I'm lazy and my Christmas bonus is burning a hole in my pocket?

Nice rack!

2007-04-26T22:13:00.000-05:00

So this week I've been concentrating on building myself a set of shaping racks. After checking out the price of the shaping racks from foamez.com, I decided that it was way too much to spend for something I could easily build for under $30. A few days ago I swung by the hardware store and spent $9 on a bunch of 2x4s, and tonight i tossed in a couple bucks for some wood screws and a few L-brackets.

Meanwhile, the geek in me insisted on drawing up some plans on the computer...

For some reason, I figured that having plans laid out in advance would help avoid errors and problems. Hmm, silly me. For starters, my diagram assumes that a 2x4, actually measures 2 inches by 4 inches. However, thanks to a co-worker, I learned that a 2x4 isn't what you might think. According to him, a 2x4 is actually thinner than indicated by the name. Its more like 1.5" x 4". Go figure. This information certainly would've helped when buying the wood and drawing up my plans. However, with screws, "2x4"s, a handsaw, and an electric drill in hand, I refused to let a minor miscalculation stop me and plowed ahead down into the subway station en route to the shaping room.

On the subway, I decided that I would just throw the whole diagram out the window and wing it. I remembered that the landlady had left behind some scrap wood that I might be able to use to make up for my mistake. Sure enough, after some digging, I found what I needed (I hope she doesn't notice a few missing scraps). After lots of sawing and a big blister at the base of my pinky, here's what I came up with...

The next day, I screwed the whole thing together like so...

After some more sawing and drilling, a sore back (did all my work hunched over on the floor), and another blister, I'm happy to report that I am now the proud owner of a brand new (slightly crooked and uneven) set of shaping racks (except I still need to buy some buckets and concrete to anchor these babies, but the hard part is over now)...

You might also notice that the landlady finally cleared out her junk today (compare to pic in my previous post). For shits 'n giggles, I decided to put the racks in place and fantasize that my shaping bay was complete...

With all this space, I actually think that I might be able to set up a second pair of racks for another shaping station. I wonder if anyone would be willing to split the rent? Hmm...

kc

The Beginning

2007-04-25T14:14:00.000-05:00

And so it begins, my first day as a shaper. Well, technically I haven't shaped anything yet, all I have is an empty garage that I've rented in an alleyway behind some brownstones in Harlem, NYC. Thats right, NYC baby! Surfing in New York is a relatively new concept to most people who stare at me on the street, walking with board in tow. But, shaping surfboards in New York -- err, Manhattan to be exact -- is almost unheard of considering the lack of space and (relatively) small number of surfers who have enough interest, patience, and time to invest in such a mission. This is not to say that there aren't shapers here in the NYC area, there are several very good ones in Queens, Brooklyn, and Long Island. I've even heard of some shapers shaping on the roofs of their apartment buildings in the East Village! In any case, I've decided to throw caution (and a bunch of money) to the wind and attempt to join the ranks of those who mow foam for no apparent reason except for the pure thrill of riding your own board (cause there sure as hell isn't much money in it).

BTW, I have no real experience with carpentry, woodworking, or anything of the sort except maybe a year or two of wood/metal shop in high school. I don't even have the courage to do renovations on my own apartment! The result will likely be some wasted blanks, wobbly lines, asymmetrical shapes, sloppy sanding, and most certainly some embarassing (but hopefully amusing) moments. So stay tuned...

As a guide, I'll refer to the gurus over at the Swaylocks.com discussion board. Undoubtedly the best place I've found so far to ask dumb questions only to find that they'd been asked/answered before. The amount of knowledge archived on that site is scary...all accessible for free online. Gotta love the Interweb! I also have a few shaping videos I ordered online. Pretty good falling-asleep-in-front-of-the-TV-material actually...entertaining, yet somehow sleep-inducing at the same time (kind of like those old Bob Ross 'Joy of Painting' shows).

BTW, here's a pic of the space I'll be using as my shaping bay...

Its about 9ft. x 22ft. Not a bad space actually, it has electricity, concrete walls, and a lock on the door. Downsides include no restroom (unless peeing in the alley counts), no running water or sink, its the middle of a dark spooky alleyway, no window (which eliminates the possibility of adding an A/C unit), and...did I mention its in a dark spooky alleyway? My only protection is the black alleycat (superstitious?) that lives somewhere near the garage. As you can see in the picture, the landlady still hasn't cleared her stuff out. Its a two car garage, I'm renting one side of it, and some other guy is renting the other half to store really expensive motorcyles or something. I hope he doesn't beat me up when he finds a clean layer of EPS dust on his Ducati...teehee! Actually, we already discussed making some kind of partition to contain my mess. Plus, I'll have some kind of tube hooked up to my planer leading to a shopvac. Still, with all this considered, I anticipate severely underestimating the amount of dust I'll produce.

I've got tools on order from an online shaping store. An electric sander, electric planer, some hand planers/surforms, respirator/dust masks, and some other miscellaneous items that I probably could've built, but was too lazy to have to think about. The delivery should arrive in a few days, mind you this doesn't include any materials like blanks, glass, or resin since I haven't a clue what to order along those lines. I'll figure it out later I guess.

So with introductions out of the way, the first thing on the menu is putting together some shaping stands. Wish me luck...

kc