I was lucky enough to watch Rich Luthringer rough shape one of his beautiful boards a few weekends ago. It’s crazy to see a perfect, little swallowtail emerge from a pretty primitive blank. Luthringer has made thousands of boards- literally, he stopped counting at 3,000. Sawing and sanding are second nature to him now, and he can (amazingly) feel imperfections in the boards by running his hands over the foam. Then he simply smoothes them out. No big deal.
“I could probably shape a board blind,” he says.
“Really?”
“Yeah, I just wouldn’t use a planer blind.”