the frozen fish and the snow glider part2

after the fishie was shaped, i took the next blank and tried the Glider again:

7`3 1/4 x 22 x 2 3/4 SINGLEFIN GLIDER
single concave to vee out the tail. widepoint 4"up from center, pretty down rails.












im really happy about the glider. came out quite ok i guess.
some boo boos here and there but a bit better than the last one, thats what its all about isnt it? getting better with every board.

cheers,
take care,
trimchris

the frozen fish and the snow glider

hey all!

i hope you had nice holidays and santa claus was a good guy to all of you.

i was very busy in the garden shed, sanding and mowing some fresh foam.
it was a bit cold in there at -5 degrees celsius, maybe i should have bought a heater or something but theres no place left in the shed. so a lot of clothes and a lot of sanding kept me quite warm.

on the way to the shed it looked like this:







i attacked my first "real" PU blank some time ago and totally f**ked it up with the planer while skinning the bottom, it looked like a battlefield and i was quite frustrated. got back the next day and smoothed it all out a bit with the surform and sanding block and really kinda got it even again. it was a 7`9H US blank that was meant to become my personal 7`3 Glider but it was way too thin when everything was more or less even again. so i decided to declare it as a practice blank and try everything with it that will cross my way in the near future. i tried to shape a swallowtail, got used to planing the stringer down with the different handplanes and so on.

then i took the 6`2A fish blank to get started with my first keel fish.

5`8 x 20 3/4 x 2 3/4




















it went quite well, besides that i must have messed up measuring a bit when drawing the outline on the blank. when i pulled out my swallow tail template and lined it up to draw it on, it just didnt really fit. so i measured the tail again and noticed that it was like 3/4" narrower on the left side. hmm, great! i had the rails rough shaped already at that time so i wasnt quite sure what to do next.
i took measurements every foot or so and made dots to get symmetry again. well sort of..
then i took the planer and cut into my almost finished kinda good looking rail. that was tough.

i shaped the rail again and it came out ok i guess. ALWAYS MEASURE TWICE!

when i was almost finished sanding, the blank fell off the racks which left a gaping crack in the right tail rail. i was like "ok, can somebody hit me now that i wake up? this must be a dream." i was really bummed.



i got a heat gun and tried to get it fixed. with a heat gun, when you have dents in the foam, you can get those out most of the time because the foam reacts to heat like a cake in the oven, it extends.



it did in my case but still left me with a little crack.
i tried to sand the area flat again and blend it into the existing railshape, but i sanded too much and ended up with some kind of a swallow bump tail on the right side. hmm its not really symmetric but who cares really.
its my first board and im really happy with how it turned out. it could have turned out better tough without all of these mistakes and unlucky happenings, but this is just learning and and i will take extra care the next time.

the fishie will get 101fin co. bamboo keels from mr. marlin bacon for the lokbox system. hmm yummie!
have a look at my links section for infos

ok thats it for now.
hope you enjoyed!

take care, trimchris

visual news from the garden shed!

hey all!
was in the shed today, taking some pictures again cause theres been are lot of new stuff and helpers.
so lay back, have a cup of tea or a nice cold beer and enjoy.....

something i was really afraid of because i had never touched something like that before.
the clark foam modified hitachi planer.



after at least 20 times watching "the master shaper series I & II with the unbelievable jim phillips, it immediately became my best friend after a few passes which doesnt mean that i have it under control at all :-)
this planer is very expensive, even more if it is shipped from england to austria and is 110V, so i needed a transformer from the european 220V down to 110V. but i think its worth every penny. every shaper kook like myself should immediately get it, turn it on and mow some foam. if you just start out you need every help you can get.
i still had another of the EPS blanks lying around so i used it for planer practice. thats what came out of turning the rails without any marks or stuff. the right rail came out pretty nice and consistent, the left has a little less volume, i took a little bit too much foam of with the planer but it was very good practice. if you look closely on the pic above, you can see both rails not being very much symmetrical.



this is where my new friend sleeps



and this is how my walls looked like after using it



this is what it will eat all the time



US Blanks, 7 alltogether
1x 6`2A fish blank
1x 6`5A fish blank
2x 6`10A fish blank
3x 7`9H funboard blank

Jepehhhhhhhh!


SOME NEW TOOLS

homemade shapers square.
it would have cost me like 100€ to get one from france, so i bought a piece of plastic at the hardware store and some sheets of transparent, self adhesive printer paper, voila, like 20€ alltogether.



beware! its the calipers from HELLLLLL!!!!
form follows function?
:-)



the trusty stanley 5.5" surform



and his big brother will get new teeth soon..



the wood armada
take them stringers down!



the small one is a german KUNZ hand plane, very tiny. but very nice.
standard stanley low angle block plane
standard spokes shave for the curvier areas of stringers.


a japanese pull saw



it goes trough foam and wood with no effort at all. i guess it will work quite well to cut the outlines out of the blanks. we`ll see.

thats it for the tools.

TEMPLATES



hmm, i was very afraid of making templates and i still am. lets not say afraid lets say i have a lot of respect for the template, because it is where everything starts, shitty template, shitty outline, shitty rails, shitty everything.

i made 2 of them up to this point and will make a lot more the next days.

i make my outlines in the computer, when im satisfied, i print them out on a couple of sheets for spin templates or bring it to a printshop for 1/2 templates. i got a piece of 3mm MDF doorskin or what you will call it, got it cut to 40cm wide strips.
i use some spray adhesive to glue the paper to the wood and cut it out with the jigsaw. then i use the planer and a sanding block to clean up the curve and take all the bumps out, or for example a piece of the nose HAHA which made my 7`4 template a nice 7`3 1/4". :-) but what are numbers anyway. it has to look right and feel right.
i draw the 2 outlines on a blank to see if its tight and nice.







well, thats it for today.
i`ll start making more templates and finally shaping some boards tomorrow.
wish me luck.

take care,
trim chris

Visual Update!

i ve been in the shed today taking some pics of whats going on at the moment.
lay back, have a cup of tea or a cool beer and enjoy........

Update

well, its been a while since my last post but i wasnt a lazy boy.

i would have never thought that building surfboards, or better put, starting to try to build surfboards in AUSTRIA, has so much to do with logistigs, organisation, more or less important choices, waiting for email replies for ages... the list goes on and on. i havent been in the shed for ages now. just sitting in front of the comp researching all the time.

it took me like 2 month sorting out where to get blanks from, looking for a way to get my shaped blanks glassed etc...
and how to get my shaped blanks to somebody on this continent to get glassed. i guess all of this sounds a bit complicated, well it actually is. but its just worth it. i wanna be able to build the best boards im capable of building and since im just at the beginning of maybe a life long journey, hey, whats 2 month compared to the rest of my life.

almost everything is on GO now.

I ordered 7 blanks ( 6`2A, 6`5A , 6`10A, 7`9H) from the very nice, helpful, caring and honest people at seabase UK. they are the european distributors of US blanks. after weeks of thoughts, research, "classes" at the swaylocks university, i decided to go for it and ordered the clark modified hitachi planer from seabase too. it just makes sense to me to buy the best tools avaliable to help me get the job done properly. i cant wait to get this huge box delivered. thanx again to the girls and guys from seabase. they helped me out heaps. (they have a new website running, the link is on the right under the "the goods" section)

some good friends are crazy enough to let me shape them boards. they buy the blanks and everything so i have blanks to shape and they will (hopefully) end up with relatively cheap custom surfboards. thanks for believing. means a lot to me.

well, its about 0 degrees celcius outside the window im sitting in front of right now. so if everything comes in time and the weather forecast is right, it will be a very "cool" :-) experience shaping the next couple boards in the heaterless shed.

watch out for new pics coming soon...

all the best

cheers,
chris

Update!

hi everyone!

my last post was ages ago but i wasnt a lazy boy.

its never an easy task to get startet.
i had to think a lot about how i want to shape, what i want to shape, with what i want to shape, to make the best quality surfboards im able to create.
EPS/epoxy, PU/PE, bosch or clark hitachi, glassing myself or letting glass someone else whos got the skills?...the list goes on and on.

sometimes i have the feeling that i should better build skis or snowboards because it would be way easier to accomplish that i guess here in the "land of all the waves"
it can get really frustrating at times but the motivation increases all the time and i wont give up. thats for sure.

after weeks and weeks of writing emails and waiting for replies from a couple shaping suupliers here in good `ol europe i finally found people who seem to be honest, caring and very very helpful.
seabase in england that is. thanks a lot everyone there, especially Pani!

seabase is the official distributor for US blanks and i like the rockers and plugs they have so i ordered 7 blanks from seabase.
in the 6`2A to the 7`9H range.

update!

hey everyone!

i hope you ve all been doing well!

its been some time since my last post. i wasnt lazy since then, i just tried to figure out a way of doing nice surfboards with the best materials i can get my hands on.

number 0ne!

the shed is finished. i decided on a nice green for the walls which came out quite nice.



railbanding....















getting it round...









my try on a single concave



my try on a vee



i`m stoked.

i want more..........

have a good one.
chris