Need to know the important design specs of the back 1/4 of a (short)board, namely where the bottom rail turnsto a hard edge and volume under the back foot.
Things like how will the board surf if you change the:
-Thickness
-Width of back end(absolute tail(4 1/2 inches or whatever))
-wider tail (a foot back)
and also what will happen if you put a top rail on this area, the reason i ask this is because i accidentally put one in whilst getting the hang of my planer. after one surf i noticed i couldnt put much weight on my bottom turns before it flet like i would slide out. could this be something else? fins etc?
also i would like some tips on good foil back there, i find myself thinning down too much because i have not figured out putting rocker in yet, and also the waves are fat round here so i keep the rocker of the blank. this results in a back end that ever so slightly slopes downward off the tail(not noticable), not to mention more dents under the back foot due to more milling.
I think you threw too many questions in at once… hard edge in the back 1/4 of a shortboard, yes, pretty much ALL of the back 1/4 should have a hard edge (on the bottom). How much volume you keep back there? depends on the size of the surfer, for one thing, and the shape of the tail. A hard edge on top of the back of the board? A little unusual but not horrific, shouldn’t cause disasters. Not sure what your other questions are…? try being more specific.
dont worry bout the hard edge, im mainly interested in the volume back there, under the back foot, and how different volumes affect perfomance. say:
if i leave the tail nice and thick, what will happen?more sluggish?
for what reason would you increase the width of the tail(very tail)??just for a bigger person?
i often see similar shortboards of the same length with different size back ends and im wondering why.
i actually OVER planed the back end rails on both sides, like the very back has a tapered rail as apposed to just a rounded hard edge. i just wanted to make sure this was why i couldnt put much weight on my bottom turns and not for any other reason, like fins.