Monday, November 19, 2012
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Tails and Buttcracks
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
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
Monday, November 26, 2007
Down But Not Out
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
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
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Monday, October 29, 2007
Datsun Twinnie
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
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
Monday, October 22, 2007
Blue Foam, Guest Shaper, and LokBox Vid
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.
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.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
My New Project
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
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
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