Question - is there some type of formula for determining where to make your rail band markings? I am getting ready for board number 6, it is going to be 6’8" 21.5 wide shortboard. I just realized in JC’s Shaping 101, he says to make a mark on the deck 2 inches in, then another at 4 inches. The he says to mark up from the bottom 1 1/8, or maybe 1 1/4 for a heavier surfer. This seemed to work OK for me on the first few boards. But as I am trying to be more precise this time I decided to make rail templates. I drew a rectangle 10 1/4 inches long, by 3 inches high (although my model board is 3" thick, it does have domed deck so the rails aren’t that fat). Then I took a feeler gauge and got a good replica of the rail but only about 1 3/4 inches in. I transferred that to my rectangle drawing and sketched in the rest of the curve up to the 3" thick “middle”. But the 2 and 4 inch JC markings didn’t seem to be a good reference against my drawing. It then occured to me, while he doesn’t give dims on the board he’s shaping, it is obviously a potato chip, probably only 2 3/8 thick (and a close tolerance Clark!). It looked to me like I need to put my deck markings at 2 5/8 and 4 3/4 in order to get enough dome in the deck. Is there some type of formula I should use depending on board width and thickness (and deck style) to make these rail band markings? I don’t want to have to copy an exisiting board, especially when the reason I am shaping is to get something I don’t already have! I searched the archives and found a lot about copying existing rails, but not much on starting from scratch.
I wish I was here to answer this question, but I’m just tagging along for the ride as I find this one a mind-bender too.
Oh for a HerbSpitzer or a Rooster to walk us newbies through this perilous area! (Hint hint…)
Heh heh.
I dont know if this is the correct way or not. Building my hWS frames on the last board I drafted out the board thickness and the width of each frame (12" spacing) and used a set of french curves to get the rail shape i wanted. I then used one of the the curves (the best fit) to do all the deck dome and rail shapes. The only varible was the thickness towards the nose and tail. Tail cuts out to a harder edge and the nose i have rounded out.
Looking down the board it all looks ok to me, the deck to rail transition is sweet. hand shaping tweaks the rail where i need it
So you could draft out the rail shape you want by hand on paper and measure the rail bands needed to get the shape…
Or just go by eye…
hope that made sense.
cheers
I’ll help you out on this one
first get yourself a marking gauge stanley tools makes it. Replace the metal scribe with a piece of pencil lead.
lay your board on its deck and set the guage at 1/2 inch for the bottom start this 1/2 line at around 15-16 inches up and run it to the nose. So you shoud have a nice 1/2 out line of your shape on the bottom of the board. Next put your board on rail and run your 1/2 inch mark the same at 15-16 inches from the tail and run to the nose. For your next line set your gauge at 1 1/16 run it just like the others. And for your final line set the gauge at 1 5/8 and run it just like the others. this will give you a beafy rail for boards 2.5-3 inches thick. the half inch on the bottom is a refrence for your fred tool. As far as the rail markings just bring the deck down to the lines as they are on the rail. Hope i didn’t confuse-joshmjosh
I don’t know of a specific formula. I know a rail scribe tool will give the same depth over the full length of the board - not really what you want I don’t think. Check the Bill Barnfield “Cutting Rail Bands” thread. You might try using an outline template - positioning it so the railbands taper at the ends. Kind of like this…
check this thread (last post) http://www.swaylocks.com/forum/gforum.cgi?post=283405;guest=6991866#283405
it has a spreadsheet for calculating this stuff provided by maxmercy.
i havnt had a chance to use it yet, but i think it could be what your after.
cheers
scot
Me and Herb together in the same sentence. I’m honored. Jeremy, I’m a garage hack like many here. Herb’s an inovative board builder with imagination and talent. I’m just glomming all the info I can and having fun. I try to share what little I know and stuff I"ve collected. Probably closer to your ability. I use JC method for making rail bands. Not the same numbers, but the system It’s a pretty simple method and works. I build simple shapes mostly for myself. I’d love to ‘shoulder surf’ a pro for a day and see how some others do their bands. Videos are very helpful. After a couple boards everyone should own Jim Phillips video. Seeing it live is invaluable. Mike
I’m just compusive,that’s all…and what it takes sometimes.
Try and not let the numbers drive you mad,because they will.
Use your eyes and brains,that’s your best tool…don’t let it be you last resort.
Ted,
If you have drawings of rail/board cross-sections you have in mind, I can help you out. If you only need measurements at nose, widepoint and tail, like JC does in the video, I can show you how very quickly to do that with PowerPoint, and you just make the smooth curves to connect the dots. My method involves 30 measurement points along the board, so I don’t even have to come up with the smooth curves with my hands, they are done for me by the spreadsheet. I never got the time to start on the egg I promised, I am busy finishing 2 other boards right now, have to be done before Thanksgiving, one is for my girlfriend, the other for my brother. Whenever I do get the time to build the egg, I will document how I go about getting everything from paper to foam, in a way anyone can get good (maybe not good, but decent) results, without making lots of mistakes.
Good luck, and let me know if I can help,
JSS
I reckon Herb’s got it right… Don’t get caught up in the numbers. Water doesn’t much care about them either. The human eye is one of the finest measuring tools out there. I once heard that the eye can detect as little as 1/16th of an inch out of parallel between two lines. If that’s as true as it feels, then just cut that bottom railband as described in “Hands, brain and soul” by Dave Parmenter and let the others flow out from that one. Trust your gut instinct about whether it looks cool or not.
If all else fails, cup the rail of an existing board between your thumb and forefinger (in the “web” part of your palm) and then keep doing that on your blank as you turn the rails. Again, trust your eye.
I shouldn’t even be posting here, because I made only 1 board, but I built a lot of foam models for work, and I just use my eyes (and hands, if it “feels” right it usually is).
when shaping my board I thought about creating cross-section gigs to check the rails as they were being sanded down, but I decided to drop everything because I thought it could numb my sensitivity to the shape.
d
i am no pro…
so i learn much from watching others do. this video helped get me to another level. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3865198894106448900&q=shaping+surfboards&pl=true
check out how he got the rail bands marked out. i made one of those pencil holders with two pieces of wood at 90 degrees and drilled 1/2" holes along it to mark my rails. i go to surfshops and just eye out different rail bands for ideas and get creative. (the pencil tool also works great for making paint lines along the rails)
after i make my rail band marks i then use the FRED tool. ( i use heavy grit sandpaper instead of surform blades with my FRED). next, i clean up the first rail bands with a surform and do the last lines with a surform. i don’t mess with the electric planer anymore. i am too green that i end up with uneven rails when i mess with a planer.
hope some of this helps.
Read the whole thread but pay particular attention to these two photos… note tapered cuts at ends. A rail scribe tool just won’t do it. In thread, Barnfield says he doesn’t jig or measure except board thickness.
Wow, thanks so much for everyone’s tips, I need to take some time and go through all these archive posts you recommended, and that spreadsheet. I did see that video a few weeks ago and Bill Barnfield’s critique of it (awesome info there) so I knew the scribe tool wasn’t what I was after. I don’t want to get too hung up in the numbers, I know what everyone means about using your eyes and hands. I just got to thinking, hey wait a minute, JC’s blank is probably 2.5 inches thick unskinned, and my board is going to be 3.0 finished, so there must be some adjustments, especially depending on desired deck contour and desired fullness of rail.
Oh, and as far as templates, I’m not going to make actual rigid templates, just draw them out so I get a ballpark on where to put the guidepost dots. I’ll post some pics after I’m done.
Those are the photos I was talking about… Good stuff.
Herb, you are right, the numbers are driving me mad! After reading through the recommended posts a bit I took a look at my drawing and discovered one key aspect I wasn’t taking into consideration. My blank is not 3" thick at the rails so if I made my reference points in as far as I was planning, I will end up with very thin rails. (now I see where I went so wrong on my third board!). I drew another “template” this time with a couple of estimated thicknesses out towards the rail (2 inches and 2.5) and discovered how bad it would be if I went in 2 5/8 inches on the deck.
The top drawing is what I thought was my “perfect” template. The bottom one is the same rail band markings but assuming an already contoured blank with either 2 inches thick at rail or 2.5. You can see that going in as far as I had planned would be too much on both.
So now my plan in general is to:
-
Skin the bottom
-
Template the blank
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Skin deck and shape desired foil
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Put desired vee in tail
-
Now, measure thickness of rail at mid, tail and nose and then draw rail templates.
Sound like a plan?
In this clip of Dave Parmenter shaping, he appears to be more or less plowing through until it takes form. I don’t see much in the way of rail band reference lines being used.
Note use of surform and sanding block. I’ve read here where one of the pro shapers ridicules the use of surforms held sideways while shaping the nose rocker in the deck but DP is shown doing exactly that and no one seems to mind.
With a semi-flexible pad and coarse sandpaper, you can do some serious blending making all the precise measuring and cutting sort of unnecessary.
Just to show that once again, there are more than a couple of ways to skin a cat.
Yes, I’m sure that when you’ve shaped similar boards from the same blank a number of times you don’t need the reference points, but for me, I still need them! However, even with those I still have to use the sanding blocks a lot to fine tune. I think another thing that perplexes beginners, and certainly is the case with me, is that you want to try a lot of different boards, and end up with different blanks (esp with Clark gone!), so that is why I was wondering if there was some sort of formula or guideline. Thanks for the video link, I’ll watch it now.
Blanks are like roads…after you have traveled on them for a certain amount of time…the bands become familiar.
No need to measure anymore ,unless things don’t look correct.
some simple easy instructions are:
…Slowdown and watch what you’re doing…Herb.