I have a private Brewer rocker, from just ahead of center to tip of tail is the 9’5"S, then it morphs into the gun nose lift, a 10’4" Barnfield rocker is almost identical in the tail, but the noses are very different, where Dick’s flips fast, Bill’s has a slower entry into the tip.
Here’s questin for the pros. If a design is to have set rocker measurements, do you shape those in and measure them before or after you shape in bottom contours, ie concaves? And I guess I would ask the same of thickness. I ask this because as I near completion on my two summer builds I’ve gone back and meaured everything (having oft heard how a bad sander- ie me- can mess up a good shapre). When I put the straight edge at center and measured rocker I was spot on. Then I put the caliper on and I came out thin. Now, being an old fart I don’t like the idea of losing volume. Then I remembered I measured and shaped in the thickness before putting in the concave. Now I was back to spot on. Except now I’m wondering if I have more rocker than intended? How do pros measure their published numbers?
I keep bottom contours and thickness in mind when foiling and rockering. Depending on the blank, there may be concave already in the plug. All you may have to do with that is adjust the depth and/or location of the concave’s deepest point, and where it fades in and out. And if you’re going from concave to vee, you have to account for that as well. So you gotta kinda put the whole big picture in your mind right from the start.
Which is why deck rocker of the plug is so important, so you don’t overshape the deck in order to get your desired rocker and foil. And which is why custom blanks are the way to go.
Hi Llilibell03,
I’m not a pro, but I’d like to throw in my 2 cents. When I shaping my bottoms, I follow a different order than the shapng videos you see. I don’t flatten the blank, and then add concave. I run my first passes right diwn the stringer line, and get the rocker perfect. That becomes my guide. For concave, I then start working the rail areas, bringing them down to where I want them. For concave, I don’t bring them as far as the stringer pass. For convex, I bring them past the stringer pass.
But my process is always do the deck first, just the minimum, to keep the hardest foam intact, Then flip it over, and with calipers and a rocker template, do the bottom to correct thickness and rocker. Then do the bottom rail area, then do the rail bands.