Underoath said..
Why are all shaping rooms blue?

oi do you want to pop round now and see ?

Found a bloke on the Goldy.

A blanks $80, and getting the board machined in $30.

Also Downloaded AKU.

Hi ya. Grodad is mostly right. I'm a builder in my late 50's. Built first board in plywood at age 7, and first polyester and foam board at 13. Then a bunch of other stuff like boats, kayaks, houses. Have fu'd much to learn.
So ya gotta start simple.
1. Read all you can and look at videos on utube about shaping.
Get 2 pu blanks and go for it. 1st blank u will FU. No channels or fancy ****.
2. Read all u can and look at glassing videos.
Glass your board using 2x 6Oz on bottom and 3x 60Z on deck. You are gonna have aton of sandthrus, so over glass it.
3. Do the finish work no shortcuts. Read and research

Note: reading and research will take more hours than building.
Buy a mask with carbon filters for gas.
I recommend epoxy from the get go. It's a bit tricky but polyester is stinky with voc and goes fast. Epoxy is slower. Get Resin Research with additive F. Repeat get RR with Add F.
Buy quality tape, sandpaper and sanding pads for your cheapo variable speed polishing machine.

There us too much to learn, so you gotta be ready to invest the time. Once u have built 3-10 simple boards, u r ready to go complicated. You should have lab mindset and take notes.

I think grodad is wrong about polyester vs epoxy. Epoxy I have used, Resin Research, easycomposites and west systems all gel and harden very Slowly. My experiences with polyester many years ago is that it gels faster.
You can mix epoxy with cheap electronic scale that costs 10 bucks. It's not an issue.
Epoxy is a bit more difficult to wet out, but it's slower to kick off, so let it soak.
If you are starting from zero, I'd say go epoxy and learn it, materials familiarity is more important.

Underoath,

Have a little time. Have cold and recovering.

Someone said im building in a shed, but im in a clean insulated garage with climate control. Built some shaping lights along one wall and hang other side lights from ceiling. Shaping lights are really important. You must have them. It's possible to use a pair of florescent tube lights on stands each side of board as temporary solution.
Make some shaping stands, and lamination stands that are higher. I made some simple lamination stands with a few bits of wood, a hot glue gun and a cheap painters buck.
A low-cost builders self leveling lazer on a tripod helps to see shapes and layout straight lines on the blank. And get a short, and long, straight wood strip you can use as straight edge. I use a strip of 3mm masonite that is 100mm x 600 and one is 100mm x 1600mm.
For shaping you'll need a power planer and sureform + sandpaper 80 and 240 grit.
But if you can shape in Akushaper and have the blank milled you have better chance to get it right. I've had mine milled in UK and shipped to Sweden...
My shape is milled with the big overall deck and bottom concave and I handshape the double concave and channels.
Once you get the milled blank, knock off the tooling grooves with a hard sanding pad with soft filt bottom( flat piece of wood with 5mm carpet glued onto sanding block and wrap sandpaper onto it. Soft carpet allows sandpaper to somewhat follow shapes and not gouge). Use 100-80 grit and light touch.
Use paper alone on rails. Clean it all up with 180-240 grit.
Mark off the double concave on each outboard side with high quality masking tape. This is where I use the lazer as a guide but you can eyeball it too. Make it perfect. If you have a stringer you can use that as center guide. Otherwise use tape on centerline.
I sand each of the concaves separately with a sanding block made of a piece of high density foam with 80 grit paper spray glued to it. Block is shaped to concave shape. Then I start sanding. Big strokes, count you strokes work evenly along the board back and forth a little each length pass. I can work a 40-50 cm section with 10 strokes, move along to next 40 cm, until entire length done, Then work entire length with walking strokes. Repeat. Work until you are just about to touch tape and stringer. Switch to 240 grit and finish up to tape. Repeat process for other side, then do the channels with same method and smaller blocks.
Then shape the rails.
Takes me 2 1/2 hrs to finish the shape.
Mill and install fin boxes, I use futures and invested in one-pass installation kit. If you don't want to you can do it with router and flat bit with care. That's what I did for first boards. It's not going to be perfect like a pro. It's still tricky even if you have the kit.

For me, glassing and finishing has been a steep learning curve. I have huge respect for laminators and finishers. Those pros are craftsmen at the highest level, comparable to craftsmanship in any other industry.
I can communicate everything here, you have to read on swaylocks, use the search tool.
Basically the areas of difficulty are:
Getting glass to not " tent" over future boxes.
Sealing blank, I do it, some don't. To avoid dry lamination due to resin absorption into blank.
Lamination schedules. I do 4+6+4 oz bottom with grinded laps, 6+6+6deck patch + 4 oz on deck or 6+wood veneer +6+4 deck.
Rail lapps are a whole book in its self: grind lap, free lap, cut lap....different camps.

Getting glass down into channels and concaves without tenting takes practice and careful work with squeegee and hand. I'd have to make video. It's tricky. Careful not to stretch lam to rails, leaving enough slack.

Sanding and finish coats are big subject. Sand and clean up any lamination mistakes and then filler coat. Sand to 240. Sand rails and concaves and channels by hand. Be real careful to not sand thru.

Ive read on swaylocks that changing Temps and humity are problemayic during lams and finish coats. I dont have that problem. What I've heard is to lam and finish coat in falling Temps.

Cleanliness and dust free are important during fishing.

Swaylocks has good posts on doing gloss finishes.

Good luck!!