Well, I've decided to try shaping my first board. Anyone know a place around NYC to order blocks of EPS foam to have shipped to my house? I'm not looking for blanks, gonna start from scratch.
whats wrong with a blank?last time I heard something about blocks was reading an excerpt from 1972 in matt warshaws book about foam blocks.greenlightsurfsupply.com has blanks.id start there
yea a blank would be a good challenge,atleast u have a base to start with.shaping a board out of a block,thats machinist type shyt right there with bridgeports and such.lol I been trying to think of a challenge for a build,but not anything surfing involved.i guess ur doing the hacksaw,hand planer thingy with a roll of sandpaper?shaping a cool looking board is one thing but u want that baby to work
dude, good luck. First shaping experiences were pretty ugly. two steps forward, one step back....then to hell with it all, I'm buying a pop-out (never went that far)
shaped Just finished shaping...it took a lot of sweat and patience but it looks great! on to the next challenge of sealing and lamination.
I've shaped about 25 poly and 5 EPS boards. I wouldn't really say shaping EPS is exactly harder than Poly if you have the right tools and approach to it. Certain tools that seem to work really well on poly like the surform are kind of useless on EPS (at least any EPS I've worked with). Figuring out that a properly sized block of 2x4 with some 36-40 grit paper can substitute for the surform helped me mow EPS more comfortably. Also, EPS is kind of more frustrating than poly because the shaped EPS blank never quite gets the beautiful look that you can get finishing out a poly blank with a medium-fine grit sandpaper. Also, there tends to be a wider range of poly blanks than EPS blanks so its easier to get the right blank to suit the specific board you want to make.
Update I just finished the lamination. That was definitely more tricky than the shaping. It was basically a comedy of errors for me. I stepped back and kicked over the bucket of resin on the floor, at least I was mostly finished at this point! Overall it turned out ok, but will be doing some sanding to fix many spots and painting to make the color nicer.
F@ckin nice! Pics? Btw what'd u do about the spill? I imagine it's a pain to clean up, unless you have sand on the floor.
Good for you man. It's not easy to find workspace out here, I oscillate between my alley, roof, and a dungeon-esque basement. Do you rent a bay or work in a woodshop? Fill us in dude, fill us in. And post pics of this thing! Also let us know how the 'hand tool' mission went.. I can't imaging sanding a whole board by hand, especially Epoxy. Yikes.
Believe it or not, distilled white vinegar is all you need for epoxy cleanup. A gallon of the stuff only costs a couple bucks, when compared to Acetone, which is totally toxic and exponentially more expensive. You just smell like a pickle when you're done!
