The bay from above, drawn the way the chart is drawn: solid for what stands on the floor, dashed for what sits underneath or hangs overhead.
The workshop
One room, a pair of stands, two side lights and a rack of blanks waiting their turn.
2010, a former fish store by the harbour. 2017, a larger unit on the edge of town.
Sixteen years, two rooms
Before Traonda I spent eight years glassing boards for other shapers along the coast, laying cloth and resin over other people's lines. In 2010 I rented a former fish store near the harbour in Ericeira and started shaping my own.
In 2017 the shop moved to a larger unit on the edge of town, with a proper shaping bay and side lights. It has had no website until now.
On rails, and rocker, and the slabs north of town.
Why the rails are done by hand
The planer does nine tenths of a board in an afternoon and the last tenth takes the rest of the week, because the rails are done by hand, with the blocks, with the side lights low so every high spot throws a shadow. People ask why I do not let a machine cut the rails, and the honest answer is the slabs north of town. Up past Ribamar the reef comes up out of deep water and the wave stands up all at once, and a board with too little rocker in the nose will catch it and bury, and a board with too much will push water through the flat sections in between and stall just when you need the speed to get round. Most of this coast is flat sections in between, if you are honest about it. In 2012 I shaped a board for a friend that looked perfect on the stand and was a door in the water. He was polite about it for about a month. I took it back, put the rocker in again by hand and reshaped the rails, and it was a good board after that, but I have not forgotten watching him fight it. That is what the thumb is for. You run your thumb down the rail with your eyes shut and you can feel where it goes from soft to hard, where the tuck is, whether the two sides agree. If they do not agree the board will turn one way better than the other and you will blame your backhand for years. Anyway.
Nothing on this list is clever. It is all in the room every day.
The kit
- An electric planer. For taking the blank down and the first pass of the rocker.
- Sanding blocks. I cut them myself, in the shapes the rails need.
- A pair of side lights. Set at stand height, so every bump throws a shadow along the board.
- A blank rack. It holds forty blanks. The 9′6″ ones hang from the ceiling.
Duarte
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