After many hours reading and researching, especially on swaylocks, it is time to actually “do” … I did not want to just ‘practice’ on old bits of foam, and thought the best solution was to try and make something … so, I grabbed a seconds blank that had been pre cut for $20 … this blank had a few “issues”, namely airbubbles and a weird discolouration in the tail and started it’s life as a 6’1″ … working around the “issues” it has ended up at 5’6″ …
Using the pre shaped blank gave me a feel for the little ridges the machine leaves, and how much effort it takes to smooth them down … then with the “issues” I had a play with shaping the nose and tail and blending the rails into the new nose and tail … this pre shape had some concave already, so I only smoothed out the ridges and went with what was already there.