RealSurf Surfers' Forum

sometime in January onward i'm going to have a crack at shaping my first board.

this is the draft (quick pencil sketch).

not yet decided on the tail width and shape? i'm leaning towards the wider tail for more drive/resistance over flatter-dead sections, carry thru speed etc - and the bat tail for more of a tearing feel in the lip for re-entries etc.

Not so sure about the channels on a first attempt ?

I'd be more inclined to go for a simpler single to double or possibly a double concave into some V.

Noted, but I will be under guidance from a bloke that used to have a shaping factory up in Lennox back in the nineties thru early 2000s. He used to ghost shape for a lot of the big names up there, and has done stack of channel bottoms. Have seen his boards and the dude can surely shape.

So will/should be ok to venture along with the channels (will wait and see)

How much cork were you thinking?

"Slight beak" lol.
You gonna glass it too igs? That's the hard part.

I'm gonna do the whole thing from start to finish, with guidance. My graphics and art will be straight from the depths of psychedelic hell.

Yeah that's the go. The pen sketch was pretty bashed out.

I reckon glassing is easier than the shaping. Definitely sonethimg worth doing. I've done a few, some average, one really good one, but it's fun to ride a board you've made.


UV resin makes it much easier to get right, no rushing against the clock. Means much less sanding, which is a real bitch.

I think you'll love it

I have a spin template that huie made for me. It's for an egg but the curve is sweet if you want to use it

Thanks for the offer. I have the template in my head. Just need to spend some time toying about with AKU to get it right.

get the foil right. if the outline is right but you haven't paid attention to the foil it'll not be as good as it could be. check the rails for symmetry by sliding your hands up both rails simultaneously and feel for unevenness. there will be a lot. really eye out the stringer foil, especially nose and tail. lot of people don't foil the tail right and make em too thick and boaty.

don't make the tail too wide if you want it to go good in the bowl.

best thing to do is shape it, take it off the stand and look at it a hundred times from a hundred angles and look for flaws. then go fix em and do it again.
having guidance from a former pro shaper will surely help you, you're lucky.

^^ thanks, and yes, cautious about going to wide with the tail. though a bit of width works well in a lot of beachy conditions down here, as they're often more lump and chug-a-lug than bowl for the most part. and I've effectively now been talked out of doing channels in favour of mofo deep concaves instead. showed my mate the draft and this was his feedback...

"Yeah all looks pretty good, except for channels. Putting a 6 set of channels on a board that short for those type of surf conditions won’t work. Kind of hard to explain but the concept of those channels only works on with these main aspects. I can show you better on a board but this is the jist of it..

board has to have a considerable amount of rocker thru mid to tail because as you cut them you are effectively ‘flattening' the tail section. Doing this to an already flat and short board means you will end up with some negative curves even a type of dip or concave in the tail line. This is why they went for mid ‘belly' channels in the 80’s especially on anything shorter than 6’4’. The other main factor is the side fin ‘toe’ or line of angle. Generally the fin toe will equal about someway between 30-80mm off stringer centre depending on the pivot or ‘ loose’ set up for the board per rider preference. Channels are set to the fin ’toe’ line angle and again on something this short the toe is quite tight in angle which means the channels would almost have a vee or plough in them towards the centre.

My 6’6’ is a good example of this. its pretty wide but the length hides the angle 'kind of’??? best i show you what i mean. Lastly. even if you did get them cut in to a wide tail and step angle they would probably just be too directional and give little chance of breaking out, which kind of defeats the concept of a fun loose board. There are plenty of other options including belly channels or something like that would suit a nice single to double concave. the concaves being closer to deeper bonza specs. No sacrifice of bottom curves this way, very fast still but will break out easy in a twin stabiliser set up. 6 mid/deep are good but suited to directional boards with tight tails and thruster to single fin set ups.

We can go over it a lot more and i can also do you a flat outline with you specs to scale so you can see the actually template, fin set up etc. your drawing is ok but of course not accurate so it can confuse you sometimes. Don’t worry everyone does the same thing and its perfect for a generally layout but as you know the difference between a good board and one that doesn’t go with the basic ratio of bottom curve ‘rocker’ verses outline. These 2 simple concepts need to be spot to get the board to actually work then adding bottom contours is just a preference for performance and type of surf use/conditions.

A perfect example of dud outline to rocker are those 7S boards, 7+ foot fish tails with parallel outlines and heavy rocker with concave. don’t know the guy but definitely just cashing in on ‘learner’ boards with a old school look??? Totally wrong in all concepts and they would not offer any decent surfing experience bar a flat out beginner just getting to his feet. Talk more soon, but otherwise your ideas are pretty good for a general concept."

channels are a secret art, i can understand what he means about the channels converging into the stringer.
being a twin fin nearly 21 inches wide and with plenty of planing volume up front it'll be plenty fast.

alakaboo wrote:How much cork were you thinking?

That'll happen once I 'stop' thinking.

Hatchnam wrote:psychedelic hell.

Lol. Not quite the dmt alex grey vibe. More the toxic poisoning vibe of Oliver hibert

http://oliverhibert.com/paintings/

So looking forward to following this. I loved trying my hand at shaping at looking forward to reading how you go. Only advice i can give is never glass in thongs

So I'm not the only one who found that out the hard way?!