Nose Concave

I wanted to give a brief description of how I go about adding a couple different types of nose concave to Jones Shapes and Bruce Jones Surfboards longboards.

There are two types of concaves: the blended concave and the tear drop. The blended concave features smooth contours whereas the tear drop has a hard contour break around the edges of the concave.

If I’m shaping a tear drop, I first trace a template of the concave onto the blank. You can see my light pencil mark in the image below.

I begin shaping any nose concave by cutting its depth along the stringer:

I prefer my concave at one quarter inch deep. To achieve this I have to take passes as deep as the planer will go until the sides of the planer prohibit the planer from cutting any deeper.

I then use the planer to blend in the sides of the concave to the overall depth:

I typically have to do this twice to accomplish the concave depth I prefer.
I then blend the planer marks with the Surform and take the stringer down with the block plane:

Then it’s time to move onto sanding. If I’m doing a tear drop, I will tape of the aforementioned penciled template. This prevents the sandpaper and screens from cutting beyond that point and it leaves a nice, even edge.

I go through several passes of various grits starting with an old piece of 40 grit then on to 60 and 80 before moving onto the screens. I take the stringer down with a sharpened block plane between grits; backing the knife depth off each time.

When I’ve finished screening I’ll pull the tape and/or put some finishing touches on the tip of the nose so that it comes out looking something like this:

I tend to favor blended concaves on my personal boards. I prefer the aesthetic. I typically ride a concave at 1/4” deep by 36” long.

I hope this short description is helpful. Send my a DM on Instagram if you have any questions or if there’s anything else you’d like me to touch upon!