So, I’ve been lurking in the shadows of swaylocks for way too long. My gf kept telling me I was addicted, and that I was going to have a hard time finding a place to build a board in our apartment…so I turned the guest bedroom into a workshop. Neither she, or my neighbor are too thrilled about it(the wall backs up against his bedroom), but oh well, when you’ve got the itch, you gotta scratch it.
Just startign to shape the rails, but my neighbor hates the sound of my belt sander, even when I’m outside, so its slow going. It is a 6’4’’ kinstle fish that was supposed to be 5’11’‘, but I made the stringer on the frame the entire lenght of the rocker profile, Then added the swallow tail…oops! oh well. Its all 1’4’’ Lauan ply, since my neighbor probably would have hated my hand planer even more… plan is about 70/30 rails throughout, and staight keeled fins. real retro design. my 1983 sunset twinny needs a playmate.
Please let me know if you have any ideas on shaping the ply rails, the belt sander is super slow, and hand planing them pretty much sucks. I’ve used the sureform a ton, and belt sander, and block plane, and the rails are jsut about even with the top skin now…
Bleduc - get thr rails even with the skins before you start to shape em, use a flush trim router bit, the type with a bearing on the bottom. once the rails are level with the top and bottom skins shape them with any of the tools you mensioned.
Liquid genius! I love it. I always thought of it as liquid courage, but I like liquid genius even better.
I wanted to ask about the planshape. I’ve seen a planshape similar to this on fishes before, where there is almost a little waist near the tail. Kind of like a toned down version of Benny1s parabolic peanut.
What does this do, besides give it an attractive look?
Woody. I was thinking flush cut router as well. But if the neighbor cant take the belt sander the router might make him lose his sht. I did similar construction with luan and found the hand plane to be good to take down the rails. Though steep learning curve but good once you get it.
Just thought of something useful. I think i picked up from Paul Jensen. Few layers of masking tape on the deck and bottom where they meet the rails will prevent damage to them when taking down the rails with your shaping tool of choice.
Well that the beauty of a flush trip bit, as long as the bearing has a shelf to run along, in this case the deck and hull skins and the router is level and not hled at an angle, then it can’t cut any further
