balsa RAILS!

I’ve done a few balsa boards, and my usual volume of urethane boards…BUT…I have yet to do a URETHANE board WITH BALSA RAILS! I would like to attempt one, and would appreciate all your (collective) technical info about how to approach this. How do I attack the rails? (glue-up, chioce of tools, when and how to take the balsa down). What’s the best way to approach this combination of media?! Best way to maintain consistency? What to avoid? Any caveats? (what dat?!). Please help a slow - but aesthetic - shaper! Thanks in advance!.. tom.

I’ve done a few balsa boards, and my usual volume of urethane > boards…BUT…I have yet to do a URETHANE board WITH BALSA RAILS! I would > like to attempt one, and would appreciate all your (collective) technical > info about how to approach this. How do I attack the rails? (glue-up, > chioce of tools, when and how to take the balsa down). What’s the best way > to approach this combination of media?! Best way to maintain consistency? > What to avoid? Any caveats? (what dat?!). Please help a slow - but > aesthetic - shaper! Thanks in advance!.. tom. Tom, first of all you will need a lot of tools or access to them, mainly a jointer for truing up the mating surface where the balsa and foam will meet. I have roller stands for the infeed and an 8 foot extension bed on the out feed. Cutting off the foam rails isn’t that important, the jointer will clean it up. Gluing with resin is easy enough, you’ll need clamps or lots of old bicycle inner tubes cut into strips for clamping. As for the shaping, take it all the way with the planer, no sense even trying to use a surform, it will clog in 4". Take you time with the planer, small bands and lots of them. tune the balsa with your razor plane until it is a finished rail, sand out the foam right up to a fine sand. Take some 2" masking tape and mask off the foam, leaving a gap about 3/4" from the balsa. Now you can sand out the balsa rail with out erasing the foam. When you are satisfied with the wood, pull up the tape and CAREFULLY fine sand the area that is between the wood and foam, sign and glass it. http://www.JimtheGenius@aol.com

Thanks for the useful info, Jim…I really appreciate it! Aloha, T.