B. Hamilton Style Cloth Rails

Has anyone here experimented with these? If so, how real is the strength to weight ratio? In other words, does the strength of the coth rails make it worth the extra weight or is this not an issue?

Howzit SrPato, First Bill has a patent on using cloth on the rails. He got the patent because the cloth is supposed to add stregth. As far as extra weight goes the cloth doesn’t add that much. But people have actually used cotton cloth to glass surfboards so the cloth may actually add strenght.Aloha,Kokua

Thanks for the info Kokua.

I guess the patent means that I better not show up at Hanalei next October with cloth rails eh?

I’m not planning on using it but a picture of one of his boards did pique my interest. Especially in the design factor.

Howzit SrPato, Funny story,I did a sponged rail design with multiple colors and people thought I had used cloth and I would get S&*t for it, they were surprised to find out it wasn't cloth just paint.Aloha,Kokua

I might be wrong about this, but I think Bill Hamilton has a patent on his process for applying cloth rails, not cloth rails in general. Anyone have the lowdown on this? I’d be interested to know. It seems like a hard patent to enforce if it says he’s the only one who can do it. Doug

Howzit Doug, I know for a fact that Bill threatened to sue a board maker on Kauai for doing cloth rails on a board. After the Bear surfboard fiasco Bill got very serious about patents and made sure that with this patent he is legally the only board builder who can do them. Aloha,Kokua

Guys,

I’ve read the patent statements from the patent office. First, the patent clerk who approved it had to have his head up his ass, and no knowledge of how surfboards are normally constructed. It’s been well over a year since I read it, but as I recall, the basis of the patent was based on a “C” beam concept adding significant strength around the perimeter of the board. The patent in effect describes the normal and ordinary construction process of having extra strength produced by extra “cloth” on the rails. That extra cloth that forms the perimeter “C” beam is the normal and ordinary lapping of the rail of a surfboard. A process that has been in place since the late 40’s. Or about sixty years. The pickup in strength by adding print cotton cloth is insignificant at best. I believe it is purely cosmetic, and does look good if well executed. But the patent on its face seems to patent double overlap rails. Kinda silly, since it has been “state of the art” in glassing for longer than than Billy has been alive, or close to it. As I recall there were a few boards done at Surfboards Hawaii around '66 or '67 with print cloth rails, and we did at least one at Hansen during the same period. The glassers complained that it was a real pain in the ass, and blew thier production time. Upshot was that it didn’t make sense in a high volume production environment, and no more were done. Hamilton was riding for SBH at that time, and I’m sure he was aware of the process then.

Howzit Thrailkill, Yep sounds like bill pulled the wool over the patent guys eyes on this one. I think that after Bill got the shaft from Milius over the Bear name he got real serious. I talked to him once about how he should have been able to keep the name since if he was the only one using the name in Hawaii he had the rights to it. I went through a similar situation and came out on top. But Bill said that the legal fees would have been huge and Milius had the deeper pockets so he let it go. Bill took every piece of clothing that had a Bear logo and cut the logos off, it was funny seeing him wear a hat or Tee that had the logo cut out. Like you said the process is a pain but they are still cranking them out and they have it down to a science. Aloha,Kokua

Yes patents are benchmarks in 'modern’inovation

getting a patent about 40 years after the inspiration is about right.

magazine articles are about 6 months late.

news stories are usually a week late.

surf reports are a day late

knowledge? after the fact

wisdom is omnipotent.

assemble patents,magazines,news stories, surf reports,and know-aledge

crumple that crap up wholesale and access inspired intuition and transcend

to creative thought …

protection of product is timly for " art " about to go mass market

in the mass market the squabbling gets really going

Or when its time to Really REALLY sell-out you gotta get yer money before Whammo or Kransco or Exon decides to rip yall off

you can sell’em the patent

and boast at the 19th hole

or the bar on the corner

where the lasting credit and credibility is founded like Bethlem Steel

…ambrose…

real Samurai swords were hand made.

the process was not aplicable to the patent office,or mass production

you wanna hula hoop?

a frisbee?

a whiffle ball?

dont even think of making em yerself!

you’ll be under threat and penalty of serious litigation

litigation has no place in the surfing of waves

or the making of the tools for doing so

            surfing waves is

    the last remaining freedom

I saw rails like this in the 1960’s.Major pain to do but not impossible.Surboards Hawaii and Oceanside in Cocoa Beach did a few.