rails,rails,rails...rails

General Discussion
1

The one remaining and highly critical design ingredient that remains highly subjective are rails. 

“How do you like your new board?”

“Like everything about it, but the rails are a little too…”

 

Dimensions, rocker, fin placement, bottoms, overall foil, and per the discussion on volume, all very dialed in these days.

But those last few inches so critical to the rail…not so easy.

Went into my buddy’s surfshop and checked out his latest crop of boards.

3 boards from 3 different shapers, all within an inch of each other in length, same thickness, volumes/foil all really similar to each other, very different finishes on those last few inches.

 

 

Recent email exchange with a shaper who lives hours away on a new order.  Rails on last board had been too full and round, his medium plus obviously much fuller then my medium plus.

Shaper - wrap the rail with your thumb and forefinger, use your calipers, measure gap of first knuckle, second knuckle, and tip of finger.

Me - how big are your hands?  Mine are XL plus.

Shaper - uh, medium…oh…ok, measure the distance from the rail apex plus the gap for each point…

It was much easier to just template my favorite rail, trace it on paper, email it over, rails on new board came out close enough.

 

Rails - the one tangible that remains literally ‘by feel.’

 

Be nice if there was some way to standardize rail profiles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2

Rail profile templates would be the way to get consistent results.

IMO rail “foil” is the unexplored frontier – so many possibilities.

It seems like thruster and quad setups have held back rail foil exploration and progression.

Math is the path:

http://bgboard.blogspot.com/2014/03/march-82014-afterr-seeing-recent.html

http://ellipticsurfboard.blogspot.com/2015/11/ellipse-based-rail-profile.html

…

3

I would be intetested in peoples thoughts on rail volume vs fin size?

4

Tom Wegner has some interesting ideas on rails. But he’s talking about longboards, and I think in terms of different theories when I consider longboards and shortboards and big wave boards. I think Wegner’s “suction” theory applies to longboards, and to an extent big wave boards. But shortboards are a totally different animal.

When I teach my class (for garage builders at a local community college), the one thing I try to get students to separate in their heads is rail volume vs. rail shape. I think that’s a good starting point from a design perspective. It’s like… a circle can be big or small, and it’s still a circle. If you think about those two things independently as you build and ride different boards with different rail shapes and volumes, you start to distinguish the affects of both design elements. Terms I use to talk about rail shape are pretty common… down rail, boxy rails, egg rails, pinched rails… these refer to shape, not volume. When I communicate terms of rail volume, it’s a lot less “standardized”… thin, medium thin, medium, medium thick, thick. What’s that mean? Then there’s edges… you can have a hard edge or a soft edge on any rail volume, and on a number of different rail shapes.

5

I’m not a pro by any means but I build my own boards to be surfed off the rail. personal preference is a knifier rail and when i make a board that likes to be banked onto its edge and pushed hard, I have found that less fin is better cause I’m using the rail as a fin in a way( for hold, control and down-the-line drive)… this is solely based on personal experience

-adam

6

Adam,

I'm with you. Broken Fish Keels are great for understanding that fins are just parsley.

Ride what you make is the best feeling anyway.

7

Hynson and Diff started it with the Down-rail.  Tnen the Thruster and the modern shortboard perfected it.  Now it’s up to each shaper to determine and perfect the rail that works the best for the design he is shaping.

8

Wegner’s got quite a gig going down there on the farm.  But a modern day shaper he is not.

9

I’ve had a related question for years.

There’s no standard for communicating rail sizes. Well, the many pages of rocker measurement threads showed many “standard” ways for measuring rocker, so maybe rails are the same.

Like the opening post above said, it’s hard to communicate rail shape and easier to cut a profile and slap it on until it fits.

But I’ve been using a standard of rail thickness an inch in from apex. At least this way we have a fighting chance of communicating rail foil (but not rail profile).

10

“Terms I use to talk about rail shape are pretty common… down rail,
boxy rails, egg rails, pinched rails… these refer to shape, not
volume. When I communicate terms of rail volume, it’s a lot less
“standardized”… thin, medium thin, medium, medium thick, thick. What’s
that mean?”    

Exactly

 

“But I’ve been using a standard of rail thickness an inch in from apex.
At least this way we have a fighting chance of communicating rail foil
(but not rail profile).”

A critical measurement, however, wouldn’t a 2.5" thick surfboard with a 1" thick rail 1" from the outer set the foil angle = profile?  What it doesn’t do is define whether a harder or softer finish.

A surfer can pick up a board, and immediately know if it’s in the ball park for them, the moment they grasp the rails. 

Bit surprised by the the lack of response on this, perhaps because each shapers rails are uniquely theirs…I would have thought the machine shapers would be doing more to quantify rails, as once programmed in, that rail is /should be replicated shape after shape…

11

You just can’t use a “cookie cutter” formula for a nice rail.  You have to use your Eye, your hand and your Base shaping ability to blend a nice rail into a deck.  I love Billy barnfield and everything he has written over the years on this forum and in “Surfing” Magazine.  But;  Sometimes it just  comes down to a good eye and the ability to blend with a planer, Surform, Dragon Skin, sandpaper and screen.  Lowel

12

I"m a rail to rail, vertical surfing style, tail rider, surfer, got to the lower levels of 4A in California, but mostly surf OBSF for fun…or used to.
I always preferred blocky turned down rails with a tucked edge, flat decks, and thickness close to 3" on my 6’ shortboards.
TomEberly shapes where nice rails, but a little thin for my likings.
Brewer shapes by SteveMorgan, mainly on his 8’+ guns, had rail shapes and sizing closer to my ideals.
One of my best friends, a certain ex editor of board design for Surfer Magazine, preferred really thinned out rails, wider shapes, for his boards. He said they turned quicker and easier.
I was flabberghasted. He was mainly a trim and runner, while I was a vert surfing bottom to top surfer.
Maybe EITHER rail shape can work for either surfing style!!!

13

You’re right, rail thickness is more about deck profile than the rail.

Absolutely!

Perhaps height of the apex is a good standardized indicator of rail profile, when combined with the arc in and out of the apex. But then again, boxy, down, eggy, etc does do this, albeit in a rather qualitative way. And where is the apex in a boxy tail rail - top, bottom or centre? (I always set mine low so that they can flow to high in the nose).

I know that my rails are a spiral in and past the apex but the curve increases dramatically at the undertuck. This is reversed in the nose rails. Short of detailed measures or a drawn profile I can’t think of a way of communicating the rail profile to a shaper.

 

 

14

The thing I think that would be really great — and is missing — is a way to quantify our rail likes and dislikes, needs etc.

Even if it was crude and unable to capture all the nuances inherent in a truly sublime rail, at least we would have a reference point. The terms we use are just too vague: hard / soft / low / down / boxy / tucked - only 50/50 begins to express something mathematical. I imagine something akin to a measurements such as: 2 3/4" tail rocker - we know this is hardly the whole story re: the actual subtleties of the tail rocker in the board that measures out to 2 3/4" at its completion, yet IT IS useful in that it tells us something finite and thus we can make an apples to apples comparison with something like say 2 1/2" tail rocker. While we know that the rockers of both these boards are complex 3 dimensional curves, we have a way of comparing them, establishing a preference, and having at least ONE finite reference to relate our otherwise infinitely complex curve to.  Add  just a few more of these points and you start to get pretty close to an extremely accurate but more importantly USEFUL & QUANTIFIABLE reference.

I would love to be able to speak with my shaper and say “Those 1 1/2"” apex @ 3" with 3/16" tuck rails were right on -what do you think about increasing the apex on the next one - maybe 1 5/8" ?" ---- By using some system such as this we would be not shooting at a moving target - at least not the ghost in the dark we shoot at now. Instead we would be having a conversation (still about constant curves with indefinite terminology) but with a basis in some relevant hard numbers. I don’t know what that system would be and I by no means am suggesting that my ‘apex by inches and amount of tuck’ are in any way relevant other than as a placeholder for whatever a meaningful set of measurements would look like…

Like I said I know such a system is far below ideal in that these increments are constantly flowing to larger or smaller values, but with the somewhat arbitrary measurement of e.g. tail width (12") up while being only a single point along a flowing curve, we manage to use this measurement to great benefit in creating an apples to apples system to talk about template re: how wide the tail is.

Here is my question to the serious shapers with a lot of boards under their belts: if a customer was to ask you “How can I quantify the rails so we can work on repeatability and refinement in an ongoing manner?” what would you tell this customer about the board you just made so you could have an apples to apples discussion about improving the next board?

 

15

Profiling can be fairly accurate.

There are contour gauges at the local hardware store that allow you to come close if you have something to which you can compare - like an old board.  I went to ridiculous lengths to fabricate my own contour gauge for a ‘deep’ contour on really thick boards.

A friend of mine who is a good shaper just uses chunks of foam that have been scrubbed against sandpaper wrapped around a rail that he knows works for him.  I’ve also seen some foam rail templates that looked like a big 3-D ‘S’ with one contour on one side and another contour opposite.

I posted my contour gauge over 10 years ago in the ‘tool’ section of what is now ‘Quiver.’       http://www.quivermag.com/boards/john-mellor-2002

 

16

That’s what I’ve done John. I also took some cheese graters that have a nice flat section and bent them to the rails I like. I used them to start rails on some of the older boards I’ve done. These days, I just use a piece of screen to round off the outer edge once the top and bottom cuts are done. I’ve also used a piece of belt sander media to blend the deck into the rail. You can get a nice smooth curve, just like smoothing out the edge of the rail with the screen.

One of the problems I have with really nice thin rails on a thicker board is the amount of curve the deck needs to meet the rail. I’ve always preferred a flat deck, so I’ve done a couple with a flat deck that meets a wide chine on the deck that blends into a small radius rail. I’ve also done tri-plane bottoms that have the outer panel with 4 to 6 inches vee’d (flat or belly) to get a narrow pinched rail.

17

“Be nice if there was some way to standardize rail profiles.” (lcc)

These techniques are ceratinly workable and great - **if you are shaping your own board **- but what I was (and still am) asking about is a set of agreed upon measurements so that we can communicate with eachother about rails in a non-abstract way. I can’t very well go making such devices and then deliver them to my shaper (a fair distance) with the instructions to ‘use these to make the rails’ - I have too much respect for him as a craftsamn to do that.

I’d still like a way to quatify. I NEED one actually. My boards are very dialed and I love this, things feel right - just so, but I have no way of talking about rails without absrtactions, generalizations, and adjectives - NO NUMBERS.

If “rail “foil” is the unexplored frontier – so many possibilities” (stoneburner) wouldn’t we like to have a way to discuss it?

I see 15 posts so far in this thread and the only one that mentions anything finite is “wouldn’t a 2.5” thick surfboard with a 1" thick rail 1" from the outer set the foil angle = profile?" (lcc) This is by no means a system but rather - if I read it correctly - a way of explaining the problem.

It’s not impossible is it? We manage to apply all sorts of measuements (to other flowing curves) that are crude and inaccurate but nontheless useful… I guess I am going to have to go put a board on a stand and get my calipers and straight edge and ruler and see what I can discover… in the meantime, someone has HAD to have done this before with all the thousands (millions?) of boards that have been made over the years. It would seem beyond reason to expect that every single shaper / board ever made has been subject to the “I just do 'em how I do 'em” process.

EDIT: just found this - http://greenlightsurfsupply.com/railband-dimensions.aspx — Pretty good reference, looking at railbands threads now…

18

These are the images that come up on searches on the subject - seen here and there on swaylocks as well as the ‘greater’ interwebs: the last 2 are .pdf and don’t display directly in the browser (gotta click). I am sure many are familiar with these already, I include them in the spirit of contributing to the thread. If I can ask my shaper “can we make the bands wider” (to lower the rail) and we can talk about such dimensions on the previous board vs the new one I will be happy. “The last ones were 2” and 4" @ 1" - lets go 2 1/2" and 5" at 3/4" this time and see if you like it better" - that would be RAD - and being rad is what it is all about now isn’t it?

 

569×786 45.6 KB

702×705 48.6 KB

19

“These techniques are ceratinly workable and great - **if you are shaping your own board **- but what I was (and still am) asking about is a set of agreed upon measurements so that we can communicate with eachother about rails in a non-abstract way. I can’t very well go making such devices and then deliver them to my shaper (a fair distance) with the instructions to ‘use these to make the rails’ - I have too much respect for him as a craftsamn to do that.”

Nothing wrong with sending a tracing of rail contours obtained at nose, midpoint and tail using one of those tools.  Few shapers are going to get it right regardless.  I seriously doubt most shaper’s ability or inclination to follow one of those rail specification charts.  The surfing world is littered with sob stories about custom shapes gone wrong.  If you trust and respect your shaper as a craftsman, just turn him loose.

A friend of mine ordered a custom 9’8" Velzy and got a 10’4" monster that he called a lifeguard paddleboard.  It came complete with a big stringer chunk missing along with a foam divot that had a big air bubble in it.  I told him he should have just grabbed one off the rack.

20

Make rail templates, and check the foils at different, but consistent places.  Its not hard to do, and there are multiple ways to do it.  Be creative for once, instead of flogging the herd.