I’ve recently been shaping a few different boards. On all the boards I have one problem. There is a line that is formed on the deck where the rail meets the deck when I’m trying to wrap the screen around the rail. What is the best way to remove this “sharp” line. Should I blend it out with 180 or am I doing something wrong? Thanks!
I don’t know how other guys do it but once I have my template perfect I don’t touch the rail template profile until the very last thing. I do my rail bands on the top, and I do my tucked edge on the bottom. Once I get this just perfect, there’s about a 1/4 to 3/8 flat spot on the rail. I flip the board on edge in the saddle and lightly blend that final squared edge with 220 grit, then walk away its done. It seems that if you try to make both edges meet you either get a sharp edge, or a funky rail rail profile, that you try to fix by scrubbing at the template shape, that leads to a asymetrical board, that leads to your buddies making fun of your lumpy ride.
-Jay
Jay,
Thanks man, for the tucked under edge I guess that’s done with the fred tool and the board flipped over, so that the imaginary fins would be sticking up right. The Fred-tool I made only takes that tucked under edge so far, so if I want to made it less or more pronounced I use some screen and do it too my liking and eye it on both sides. Your right, you have to stop at some point or else it does start getting asymmetrical. When using the fred tool I still end up getting a “hard” line up after the 16" mark from the tail. Is it ok to soften that down, so you don’t end up having a hard rail all the way through the board? Or does that depend on the type of board that your making? Especially for a funshape. On the 7’2 that I have it looks like the shaper left it hard about 16 inches or so up from the tail and then gradually softened it to the nose. Would the same apply to a Longboard? Would you also want to soften it on a hi-performance short or a fish too? Or is it basically depending on the type of waves and all that? Thanks for your info I’ll keep that in mind on my next board!
WC
You can slightly roll the fred tool to smooth out the rail bottom edge. I use a fred tool type thing with 50 grit in place of a surform blade, it lets me cut bothways. You can make several different degrees of tuck with different fred tools. As for hard rails in the tail, I usually soften my edge in the back so the glass will pull flat and make a non bubbly glass job. Then once the board is glassed and hot coated I put the hard sharp edge on the tail when I sand it out. As for hard edges its a personal performance issue, I like hard edges on all my boards.
-Jay
Don’t hold this as Gospel because Im no expert by any means. I also get that hard edge where the rail meets the deck and I think that it is caused by the different density of the foam between the deck and the rails. The foam on the deck should be a bit harder since you didn’t mow it down as deep into the blank as the foam in the rail. The best bit of advice that I can give is to blend that edge much the same as you would a rail band. Just go easy and light
A semi flexible sanding block works good for me when blending the top rail and deck. You can bend it to a dome shape and walk it from nose to tail.