Its finally time to shape my first board. I am wanting to recreate something like a Takayama Scorpian 2 @ 6'4" or so and would like to get input on a suitable blank for a first time shaper to work from. I will likely be buying my blank and shaping the board at Foam-EZ. I am 5'6' and 160 # solid surfer of 20 + years. Any suggestions would help greatly. Here are a couple of images of the model.
Thanks
From what I know of that board, it has what is essentially a longboard front end with a wide outline, flat rocker and slight concave. You could shape it from a number of blanks but in the interest of making it as easy as you can without overshaping to soft core, you need to find something as close to the finished shape as possible. Most of the mini longboard blanks are longer than what you have in mind so although they look good, will require quite a bit of thickness profiling once the outline is positioned and cut. Another option is to get something closer in thickness, but most of those seem to have too much nose rocker. I'd say your best option is likely going to be one of the 'egg' blanks with a custom ordered reduced nose rocker. Print out those images, run them through a copying machine that allows you to enlarge/reduce and make adjustments until you have a print out showing the board image at about 6.25 inches long. Measure back 1" from the tip of the nose and check the width. I'm guessing around 1.75" which after scaling up = 18" wide or so. The toughest part of choosing a blank for that one will be fitting the nose width to the rocker and not having a really tweaked thickness profile. I'd recommend the USBlanks 6'10"A with nose rocker reduced by an inch. I think it will fit, the nose outline and nose rocker won't be too far off, and it's about the thinnest blank in that length range to avoid overshaping and a lot of extra work. Your outline template will need to be shifted back a bit for the nose outline. Double check your dimensions once you do the copy machine deal but that's my best guess.
http://usblanks.com/catalog/fish-eggs/610a/
PS - If you're up to designing your own profile and EPS is OK, you might try designing your own blank. USBlanks will cut your profile or Marko can machine shape the whole thing to your file for a really close tolerance blank.
I hate to say it; but that is such a convoluted shape for that size that it Is fully ridiculous. It is completely stupid to shrink a shape down below certain sizes. And this is your first board???? Get real!!! Find something more realistic to shape. Seriously!
First, I don't see anything unreasonable about the shape as a first project at all. The idea of making boards is to get what you want, and that's what you want. My buddy had local PNW shaper, Scott Rowley, do this one for him (Glassed at "El Brado's" in Camas). They shaped it from a 6-5A. I don't know about any little tweaks to rocker or thickness, but I know they got it out of a 6-5A, and the board RIPS. I am a beginner myself, and have found that getting the concave right without messing the rocker is tricky, but there is only (and only!) one way to learn. Advice is helpful, often necessary, but you gotta get out there to really feel it, right?
I have found the a "curve-reader guage" or contour guage is super helpful in duplicating boards (rails). Harbour Freight has a plastic one for about $5. Be sure to wrap a piece of sandpaper or similar over the rail before you push it onto the blank so that it doesn't gouge the foam.
So, yeah. 6-5A. You will learn alot and have a ton of fun! Good Luck!
PS: Photo: (L) Nate King, "PAR Surfboards (R) Brad Kavonius "El Brado's Fiberglass and Board Repair"
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That's me with the death stick, and the board I just talked about. further memory corrected the 6-5a blank to the 7-4a blank. rocker is flat...nose rail is drastically rolled up.
Dang McDing, just critisism without being constructive is pretty lame. Who pissed in your cherios before you typed that reply....?
I had a local shaper make me a similar board and it's tons of fun, he ran it out of a 7-4a blank and set the template accordingly...It's a single fin 6-4, goes great in waist-head high Oregon waves.
It' has taken me quite a few years of experience to come to the realization that shrinking a longboard down to six or seven foot is a waste of time. Hell! It's a waste of good foam. The same could be said of shrinking a 6'2 Shortboard down to a 5'8" for a 175 lb guy who in his convoluted mind thinks he's 150 and surfs like a pro.. You have to get to a place in your life where you will turn down a custom order and the $$$ when someone wants you to do something ridiculous. A longboard is a longboard. A Shortboard a Shortboard etc. shaping a six ft longboard is a novelty. Not saying it's not rideable and not saying it won't ride. What I am saying is this time next year you'll be thinning your "quiver" on Craigslist PDX and we'll see it listed there. You'll extoll how cool it is etc. and tell us you gotta new baby on the way and it's gotta go. There's a lot mo betta things to shape out of a 6'4 or 7'4A.
Opinions are cool to have. Maybe the guy makes this board and it enlightens him to the fact that surfing is a personal experience, maybe he is already privy to this knowledge... maybe we see him dumping his made overseas “cool guy” boards on Craigslist to buy more materials to continue down the road of maybe being one of the next great shapers.
Maybe he disappears off the face of the planet.
Maybe Donald Takayama didn’t actually know how to shape anything “worth riding”.....naw
No use to jump to conclusions about DT nor impugn his ability just because I think that a shrunken down longboard is an over the top choice for a first time shaper. But all of this bitchin' and sensitivity around here is pretty much the norm for first timers on Sways. If I were a first time shaper/glasser/board builder and self styled expert as many are here; the first board I shaped would be the most difficult design I could find Lots of channels, a full concave single to double with V out the back to of course "Spiral Vee". Glass with Hemp cloth that I smoked a little first. A Mexican Blanket lamination with a cork deck and a veneer bottom. For resin I'd use the latest Boutique Epoxy mixed with Wesson Oil. I think something like that "Salad Sap" Quik 'n' Fast stuff. I'd cure it in a micro wave for a month and then take it out to Short Sands, drive back to Portland that PM. Get on Swaylocks and rave about the ride report. Wait a month or so and the put it on Craigslist under the title "Thinning My Quiver".
I only see one guy bitching on this thread. Everybody else seems like they're trying to build some boards and have some fun. We are talking about surfboards, afterall.
I have no idea what your problem is....you happen to be Lowell out of pc?
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