Dave Daum's Railmaker Tool

Aloha All:
Anyone used the King’s Paddle Sport railmaker tool designed by Dave Daum as shown here (http://vimeo.com/11538816). I would like more info and feedback on it.
Thanks,
Dennis

The railmaker tool was shown at the 44 minute mark.

uncled, It was hard to see what he was useing.  My thought was that he may have used someing like a zip saw with a fence to get the angles he needs for the rails

Its a laminate trimmer set in an ajustable jig with a large 45 degree bit.  You can make something that works the same by mounting a fence at right angles and using the guide side against the bottom; this will “scribe” a wedge cut at the distance you mount the guide fence at.  After that you just plane out the rails.  It provides a guide and can help in some situations.  Dave’s a crafty bugger, trained as an engineer, a pretty cool guy, and my friend; furthermore he’s ultra smooth on a SUP; and KING"S in my opinion make the best SUP’s in the world. 

It is the same ryobi laminate trimmer used in the future fins installation kit

Double post

YUUPP!  As the “Rat” stated;  A guide, not a finished rail.  A laminate trimmer with an adjustable fence.

Hopefully the railmaker can save me some time drawing in the guidelines. I wanted feedback on anyone who actually used the tool. I like the way Dave shapes and his design concepts. I agree, I think his SUPs are well built. Thanks for the feedback.

Dennis

Don’t get me wromg.  I think it’s a great tool to use to define a starting point on your rail bands.  Actually one of the best I’ve ever seen, I really like the extended fence he put on his planer for truing the outline.  I use a planer to true my outline but not every time.  Sometimes I just take a Surform and a sanding block to my outline.  I’m seriously thinking of dedicating a Bosch single blade planer  to planing outlines,  A single use tool.  The fact that the dust port can be switched to discharge on either side is a plus.  The extended fence enables it to sit at a stable right angle.  The single blade should be no problem for oultime use only.  I like Dave’s shaping method and it is very similar to my own.  Only differance being I don’t cut my outline first thing.  Instead I skin the blank and take it down to within a fraction of an inch of thickness before I cut my template. Otherwise the cuts and finish are all done the same way Dave does it.  Hope you are doing well Dennis.  Raining up here in Oregon.  But the Salmon are running,   Lowel.

You say you wanted feedback from someone who actually used the tool, and I already gave it to you.  Its not a cure-all, and it doesn’t do that much, but it can help.  Yeah I have used it, a few hundred times.

McDing: I was thinking about creating a dedicated planer for the truing up the outlines too. Like you, I line to clean up the blank and do the thickness prior to cutting out the plane shape especially on PU blanks.
Don’t tease me with the salmon. You can’t beat the taste of fresh salmon and us Hawaiians love lomi-lomi salmon made from salted salmon. During my last visit to the NW, my brother turned me on to Copper River salmon. With one bite, I was hooked and returned to the market to buy the biggest one I could fit on the grill. Good stuff!
Mahalo,
Dennis

Rat: Mahalo.  I need all
the help I can get. Also, I like gizmos and tools.  I only shape about 12-20 boards a year so I
don’t have it down yet.  Do you have one
of Dave’s railmaker or did you make your own? Thanks for your feedback.  <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /><o:p></o:p>

Dennis <o:p></o:p>

Does anyone have some close up photos of the tool?

…that tool is only good as the bottom of the blank…

Check the bottom from rail to rail and then you ll see what I say. More on small blanks for short boards. Also a problem if the blank have concave bottom

Got a picture on my phone of the tool so if someone can explain to me how to upload it I will.  Its not a bad little tool and anyone with a little bit of creativity can make one.  I know most of the stuff Barry shapes are out of close tolerance US Blanks, and the tool doesn’t do much there, but when you are shaping by hand square chunks of styro between 4’’ and 6’’ thick it can come in handy.  Like someone said shape the rocker profile on the bottom, before you use it.  Still I use skill saws and grinders, as well as, my trusty skil’s, and watch the rails come to life.  The tool saves quite a bit of time walking rail-bands when used correctly.

Dave’s tool does not cut a true foiled rail band, it just gives you a flat surface for the planer at 45 degrees so that you don’t have to start cutting on an angle.  Banding is just a repeated process of cutting the top edges off at decreasing angles.  If you could guide off the outline with an edge-follower router bit, it would do the same thing, but that edge is too soft and this was Dave’s design for getting around that.   Here’s what I posted on a related thread on doing rail bands:

There’s a couple of aids to use.  (1)  Make a
sanding jig or a “Fred” tool to cut this 45 degree first band,   (2)  Rail marking tool:  This won’t draw true bands
(they’ll be parallel), but it will give you something to follow and help
keep the cuts the same on each side. The planer in both cases should be
set a bit over 1/32" fixed.  Once you get good at this, you can run the
planer (still fixed) backwards where the band should be wider when done
normally.  They used to call this “scrubbing”, and it was a technique
used with planers that were hard to adjust for depth.  Both of these things are just crutches so dump them as soon as
possible since they aren’t going to further your skill level.

Machines cut bands that aren’t foiled but the tool path becomes straighter towards the stringer to make them like a foil.  You can see from those shapes that it takes too many narrow cuts if you tried to replicate this by hand.  True rail bands start narrow, go wide,
then back to narrow which gets the contour in fewer passes.  It’s really a matter of knowing where you are along the rail with the
depth control and visualizing the tool path.  If you clearly mark the
wide point on both sides, you can use that mark to know where the depth
should be at max.  When the planer is on an angle the cut depth controls
the width of the band, not so much the depth.    With any planer, you
can’t see what’s going on until after the cut is made and you’re already
past it.  That’s why going back and forth keeping  the depth fixed
shallow allows you to learn where the cut is happening.   With
beginners, I always recommend that they keep the clicker engaged on the
Skil so that the cut depth is more controlled.  Always do the first band
with board on a rail, never flat  so you’re holding the planer directly
in front of you.  If you’re right-handed, the cuts will be right to
left.  This is so that you don’t have to hold the planer too differently
than for flat cuts using the depth control.  You can do either the
bottom (Aipa) or the deck first (T. Martin).  If you look at perfectly
banded rails, you will notice that there’s an 1/8" band in the middle of
the rail which matches the outline that was never touched in the whole
process.  So when you start the first band, you have to focus on holding
the planer at 45 degrees and cut 1/16" from the rail center; mark it if
you need to. Having the blank standing on a rail is so that the 1/16"
is right in front of you, not on the side.  The whole point of banding is really about holding the
planer at an angle and cutting on an edge rather than a surface.

Band one rail and try and match it up as best as possible to the opposite; it doesn’t need to be exact.  You even it up using a long sanding block or surform in a sweeping arc working mid-board from the opposite rail (blank flat). That arc sort of follows the curve of the outline.


 

Aloha PeteC:
Great explanation and insights. BTW, I will be ordering a bunch of vents this week. I need to start glassing and catching on some of my projects.
Mahalo,
Dennis

As a shaping tool nut myself, it’s an interesting tool. However making rail bands with my planer just seems like the best way. PeteC, pretty much describes how rail bands are created. I open and close my planer and vary the cuts to save time and passes. They do taper of at the ends of the board. I make pencil marks on the deck and rails for guides. I have a series of measurements depending on the rail thickness. The same measurements don’t work on all rail thicknesses. 2-3 passes per band.

Cool tool, but my planer is more efficient for me.

Barry Snyder

This is my Railmaker tool.

barry you must be a leftie with your dust shute set up that way?

Hello GhettoRat.....you can take the cell phone photo and send it to an e-mail address......then save it on your computer...and then post it on Sways....but I'm old and thinking about buying a Ghitterbug phone....ha ha ha...you know...the phones with the easy to see buttons and no gadgets.....If you had a Smart phone it would shape a surfboard from the photo!..........

Ray......

and I started to watch the DaveD flick but got bored after about 3 min....did a YouTube search for Martin Potter and got stoked on some awesome surfing.....Dave Daum is a great guy....

This image is from GhettoRat.....