Hey Crew, got a few boards to work on. Raceboards down to surfboards. Looking for good DIY ideas to make a set of stands to hold boards while working on them. Whatcha using?? What works n why?

My portable stands are made from old 1" water pipe, a simple Y shape with horizontal tops, this and the V covered with foam rubber.

I have made timber T feet, but a lot are concreted into 5 gallon drums.

My permanent stands are better, the arms of the Y are vertical with a horizontal section at the base. This eliminates any tendency to squash the rails. And I've bored holes into the joists over a bearer to support the bottom pipe.
(The guy who made these for me got a big discount on his board).

Basically the more solid and firm the stands, the more effort you can put into working on the board.


This pic shows my permanent stands fairly well, you just have to remember not to trip over the bracing bar.

I got mine from Aldi . A solid foldable A frame with telescopic height up to about 1.5 m high ( awesome no more bending over ) . Good to work high at times when shaping to get a good eye. Covered the top bar in a pool noodle. To stop the board rocking when working on the bottom I just sticky tape a couple split noodle bits on the sides. Easy to store . Mabee Bunnings has something like this.

L^^^^
Bunnings don't have them , but there are heaps on Ebay. Look up telescopic saw horse. They are a solid thing that don't rock and you can have a couple del to your door between $55 to $90 . The cheap ones look fine . Highly recommended.
Oh and $4 for a couple pool noodles.

Imax1, they look great for working on deck or bottom. What about on edge? Got a few RBs that need resealing around entire chine. Could i drop a U section into that top bar? Or will it foul on bar at top of leg A frames, when lowered?

Took a pic of my set up.




So you need two types of stands, on the right there's my shaping/sanding stand, on the left my glassing stand.

The reason for this, is when you glass and wrap around the rails, you need a narrower and higher stand, so you can access the underneath of the board.
And when shaping and sanding, you need stable and full width support. It also gives the "U" for holding the board on edge.
I have two tubes set into the floor and braced. The stands just slide into the tubes and are height adjustable by the peg and hole method.
In the background is a side light, this helps with showing up high and low spots when shaping.

But in emergencies I have managed on a couple of carpenters work stools, but they are a bit low and very hard to glass around the rails.

These here are very much like the ones I used to have, nice and portable, keep them close for short boards, spread them out for long boards.
Sold them to my neighbor before I moved, been meaning to make some new ones ever since. Cheap, quick, and easy to make.

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Mastbender said..
These here are very much like the ones I used to have, nice and portable, keep them close for short boards, spread them out for long boards.
Sold them to my neighbor before I moved, been meaning to make some new ones ever since. Cheap, quick, and easy to make.

Great idea , but I have a problem . Won't the heat from the barby melt the foam. Personally I would move the barby further away , it's easy to do , it's on wheels
Oh , that lawn

Nice mastbender, are they narrow enough to glass on?

if not narrow enough, offcuts of foam taped onto stands to lift the board up 3-4" is enough......
and/or stands on 45 deg

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Mark _australia said..
if not narrow enough, offcuts of foam taped onto stands to lift the board up 3-4" is enough......
and/or stands on 45 deg

That's what I did , taped 6" squares of soft foam on top of rails at chest height to glass , plenty of room to undertuck and didn't have to bend down .

Not mine, like mine, and I have a gas grill.

Yep.

Yep.

Good idea if needed.

oh and took me years to get the other tricks....

foam- like polyurethane cushion foam. Your blank won't slide on it like carpet, pool noodle etc.
Or, masking tape wrapped around inside out, nice sticky stand.

^^^^ yep, and also I have a 10" long piece of R.R. track with a chunk of carpet glued to the bottom of it. I'll place it on top of the blank during the shaping process to weight it down so it stays in place. Works great for when you need to plane down the stringer with the small finger plane, over the nose or tail, keeps the blank from tilting up while you're pressing down with the plane.

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Mastbender said..
These here are very much like the ones I used to have, nice and portable, keep them close for short boards, spread them out for long boards.
Sold them to my neighbor before I moved, been meaning to make some new ones ever since. Cheap, quick, and easy to make.

Similar to mine, I use cat litter containers, square buckets . What grass ?