If you put skins on first, then use a fillet to bond skin and rails See WMD thread for explanation.
Do both rails at the same time! Clamping them onto skinned blank with the rail offcuts. Rail offcuts are scotched onto a straight plank with double sided scotch.
And why not try and find some 5 minute epoxy to speed up the attachment of the N&T blocks? [i havent found any yet, reasonably priced, so let me know. 2 Components epoxy glue works great, but it is expensive]
hey mook it takes me about 8 hours to build a simple compsand shortboard and anything up to 15 hours on this latest cedar board which i will post finished shots soon.
so the time it takes to hotwire a flatboard, 5 minute epoxy the rails and cut the bands is actually fater then handshaping a polyurethane. materials are cheaper and overall times are faster if you include blank construction.
my core and rail cost is 15$ US ( i shit u not)
environmentally friendly and easy
to many taking something simple and overcomplicating it
grinding laps is a perfect example. if you glass correctly there is no grinding
I’m planning on doing the rails after I’ve skinned both sides: This hopefully saves some time. I used to: skin bottom, do the rails, then skin top. But shaping the deck and rails just takes longer then I reckon. Besides that, after skinning the top I always have to blend the overlap of the skin on the rails, which makes de skin close by the rail as thin as paper.
What about the wet in wet lamination: no grinding guaranteed.
Hot wire the blank , use 1.5 or 2# foam, cut out with a router/end mill and glue the high density rails on. Shape it and then bag both sides on using .6 mm bamboo. Pull it out of the bag and glass it. One shape, one bag. There are other methods but IMHO this is the easiest and it certainly gives you an accurate board coming out of a shaping room, shape finished…
Vacuum bagging and then cutting the board out and gluing the rails is a difficult challenge, causes a weak point at the rail and makes the rail difficult to glue on and glass. Plus glue on the veneer which has to be removed, you have to cut through wood and glass accurately (which is a pain compared to cutting foam) … I’ve done it lots of ways … I love having the shape done all at once and then bagging and glassing. Just easier.
i agree with greg if using foam or corcell/airex for the rails to do the rails first with 5 minute epoxy. i uses thicker skins so i can sand them and have plenty of material to shape into on the rail. its a different method to gregs. using 1 pound foam and thicker skins. where he uses heavier foam and thinner skins.
but assembly concepts are similar
i hotwire my blanks as a flatboard out of a 50mm homedepot sheet and bend the rocker in while bagging
that way your rail material is a flat strip rather then curved
I’ve only shaped with balsa so far; rails and sheets. As for the skinning first. Before this step I cut the outline first. After bagging there’s about half an inch of balsasheet overlap which is sanded of in say 10 minutes. When I should glue the rails afterwards, taping is nessecary to prevent glue dribs, especialy with pu glue. Indeed there’s a weak point between rails, deck and bottom… should I be worried about that???