ok well after finishing my last fish i want to make another one. i modeled the one i made after the mabile fish shape. for my next one i want to make a steve lis shape. the 5’5" as seen in that PDF file. i think i get the basic idea of how to measure out the template. but for the rail bevels, the rails on my current fish were mostly a guess. for this one i would like to be accurate. should i make those little cardboard cutouts that go on the board for when you start to plane the rails? i want these rails to be very good. how would i go about making those templates? i no how they work but i just dont know how to get the measurements for them. or is there another easier way?
i copied the 5’5" template as best as i could from the book, put a single to double concave with vee on it, made it a quad fin, and its probably the fastest board i own. If I was going to shape another one and modify it, i would put more rocker in and make it thinner, because i only weigh 150 lbs on a good day. I also might make the rails in the middle and torwards the nose of the board not so down.
edit: sorry to get off topic there, i have never tried the rail bevels method with cardboard, i usually just use a ruler and a pencil and do my bands one at time, pretty time consuming, but it works and looks decent.
Whatever style or method works to do your rails, do it. One thought I have for you is to make a rail guage out of your favorite board. Throw some 40 grit on the rail of said favorite board with the grit on the outside. Take a good chunk of foam and grind it against the sandpaper until you have it gouged out. Now you have something to help you get closer to the last board’s rails.