SHAPEFEST: May 2009

Saturday, May 30, 2009

BREAK TIME FUN

Time for a little skate break for Mike!

Will decided to sharpen his longboarding skills with some bricks and lumber we had laying around.

When bricks aren't enough, sawhorses will do.

It wasn't long before the kids caught on and we ended up with Will's School of Longboarding

SHAPING CONTINUES

After watching Mark and Jason, the little guys start to lay out their own rails.

Meanwhile, Mark is helping the girls with their smaller alaias.

JASON'S FIRST BOARD

This is Jason's first surfboard. After cutting out the blank he begins squaring off the rails.

Mark helps with the first rail using the planer and some reference lines

Jason begins cutting in the other rail with the surform planer.

By mid day the rough shaped blank emerges!

After some fine tuning with a sanding block and some sanding screen it starts to look like a surfboard!

TEACHERS

Having the younger kids learn from some of the more experienced shapers is one of the greatest attributes of Shapefest.

Skip and his older son clean up the outlines on the fish.

Mark is giving a few pointers on tail design as they refine the stinger.

Skip and his younger son refine the dimensions on the smaller fish.

TIME TO START SHAPING

Skip begins laying out the first fish.

Shaping isn't just for tall people.....

Squaring up the outline.

Cutting in the rocker

Using the planer can get messy. Always wear your safety gear!

SURFBOARD MATERIALS

Time to pick up the materials.

Mark's polonia wood arrives for his alaia.

We started with the templates from our last Shapefest. New outlines were drafted from our existing stock of templates based on the type of boards we were after. This year we are expecting a few fishs, one hybrid quad taken from an old single fin template, a shortboard and a couple of wooden alaias. The foam boards will be shape from either polyurethane or Biofoam.