This thing has been a long time in the making.
I started this several months ago, thinking it would be a relatively simple project. I just wanted to make a better rail-marking tool, one that could be used to draw a line a set distance from the rail, deck or bottom, with precision and repeatability. No more wavy pinlines or uneven cutlaps, no problem.
It turned into a months-long exercise in problem-solving… It was re-engineered a half dozen times and totally shelved twice, both times throwing my hands up and swearing to cut my losses and forget about the whole thing. I finally finished it after my buddy Jeff at Spindriftsurfboards kept hassling me to turn one out for his shaping bay. Sometimes you need friends like that to crack the whip on your lazy ass. So, I found solutions for the design issues I was having (simple is better, over-engineering is for showoffs), and finished them up.
So, here’s my rail marking tool:
It is adjustable to mark a line from 0" to about 4" from the rail. Photos also show rail/bottom guide in position (upside down) for marking bottom of board.
Adjustable for board max thickness as well. In this photo, the guide is right side up, for marking the deck.
The angle of the pencil is adjustable, so a more oblique angle can be used on foam to prevent tearing, and more vertical on glassed boards. This also allows the tool to be used the same direction on both sides of the board (ex. tail-nose, tail-nose).
The pencil holder is a carbon-fiber tube almost exactly the diameter of a Papermate Classic #2 yellow pencil. The pencil has to be sanded just slightly (not even all the way through paint) to make it a perfect slip-fit into the pencil holder. The pencil stays in perfect alignment relative to the rail, but can be raised and lowered within the tube “on the fly” to adjust marking pressure and to adjust for changing foil thickness. NOTE: The pencil must be sharpened accurately. Since the pencil can rotate in the holder, if the point of the pencil is off-center, the line can wander if the pencil rotates.
Using the tool:
The basic premise is that with the bottom guide held flat against the bottom, and the rail guides held against the rail, the pencil holder will be held a fixed distance from the rail. Regardless of if the bottom or the deck is being marked, the rail/bottom guide will always be held against the bottom and the rail.
For marking a deck, the tool is used by first setting the desired distance from the rail, then adjusting the rail/bottom guide for the max thickness of the board. The angle of the pencil holder is set (lower angle for foam; higher angle, up to perpendicular, on glassed board). The tool is started at the nose or tail, and one hand holds the rail/bottom guide flush against the rail and the bottom while the other hand adjusts the pencil for pressure and thickness. The tool is moved along the board, keeping the rail/bottom guide in contact at all times, until the end is reached. Then the angle of the pencil is reversed, back to the starting end of the board again, and the process is repeated for the other side.
For marking the bottom of the board, the rail/bottom guide is removed and flipped over. It still rides the bottom of the board and the rail, but now the pencil is on the same side as the bottom guide. No depth adjustment is necessary on the bottom, the pencil is simply oriented to one side or the other of the bottom guide, and the tool guided along the bottom and rail with one hand while the other adjusts the pressure on the pencil tip.
It may sound a little cumbersome at first, but then at first so does the idea of adjusting depth and angle of a planer on the fly. 
The results are worth it in the end though, perfect cutlaps and pinlines every time. The bamboo inlays and pinlines on the board we used for the photos were marked with this very tool. The purists may scoff, and in the case of a good tapered cutlap or pinline they’d be right, but this has made it possible for me to do a pinline without wasting a whole afternoon “eyeballing it” for perfection.
Thanks to Jeff (joyride here on sways) for “modeling” for me.
In the interest of economy of scale, I (stupidly) thought it would be just as easy to make a few extras while making my own. Countless were the times I wished I hadn’t, as it was a monumental pain in the ass to go through every step twenty times instead of just once. A few are already set aside for gifts, but the rest are up for grabs.
Unless foamez wants to order 10,000 units injected molded in taiwan, I will never ever make these again. Way more hassle than I ever expected. Once this batch is gone, they’re gone.
They come in exactly the form you see in the photos, mechanically complete, but cosmetically unfinished. I’ve got them functional, and I really don’t want to mess with them any more. Besides, anyone with the kind of personality to shape their own surfboards would probably enjoy taking all the square edges off their own rail tool and making it their own. There’s lots of “extra” wood on the main body which could be sculpted into a more ergonomic shape, fingerholes, etc… It’s birch ply, so it’ll take any kind of finish no problem. I’ll be very interested to see how folks personalize them, so if you get one don’t be shy about showing it off.
See new pricing info below in post #10
Also available are two “blem” tools, with wood whose veneer got messed up during the build process. Mechanically perfect, but not up to my cosmetic standards. PM me for info on those.
