Where is a good place to start rolling to deck off to lower the rails.
Hey steve, once you have your outline true and vertical, set yourself some guide lines with pensil and finger gauge(or ruler)(same both sides)l work my way in from the outline, the first bevel angle l do is at 45 degrees and depending on how thick the rail is will determine the amount of sweeps that l take, from there l do the same thing on the next edge and so forth working my way in towards the stringer, obviously the first bevel is the biggest but from there l keep hand testing the rail until it has the curve that l want. Good luck, other guys will give you some more tips, this is just whats easy to me. KR http://groups.msn.com/MyKRSurf/krcomweb.msnw
your deck roll will affect your bouyancy, forgivness & how you hold your rail in the water thru solid turns. if you keep a record of the deck roll/curve you use from a few different parts of the board and compare it as your shaping progresses you can relate some of your boards performance to it! KR has descibed the best way i have found too. maybe after a few years you may find you dont need to use a pencil anymore and can get it quite nice by eye!i have a real nice design that has a fairly flat curve from the rail to a point about half way up the deck where it turns quite abrubtly to another flatish curve to the stringer. this gives a nice flat feeling deck under your chest and feet but a relativly lower volume on the deck 3-4" inwards from the rail extremity! i wish we could just post a sketch to show you easily what i mean, dave http://www.feraldave.com
Hey I’ve been usung a drawing package called Visio technical to draw the ouitlines of my rails. Mail me at and I’ll send you the sketches in an MicroSoft word file. They will make perfect sense when you seem them Brian (Ireland)
Hi justb read the thread . im just starting out in shaping would you be able to email me the rail disigns that you speak of if not tis no drama . thanx danny
For longboards I use Jim Phillips method of skinning top and bottom and doing most of the deck roll and foiling before templating and cutting the outline.Basically you are taking a fat blank and turning it into a fine tuned blank before actual shaping.It also leaves a thinner rail when you saw it out and a lot less work cleaning up the outline.On smaller boards I do the same but no pre deck roll.Rail Bands are easy if you know how but very hard to explain so I aint gonna try.Navigation marks are useful but they change for every board.Its all in the eye. (for an old geezer like me with no computer skills.) R,B. .
also, the blanks now are roll decked and it´s more easy
The rail bands have to be the most difficult thing to shape in. I have yet to see a tool that draws bevels proportionate to the thickness of the board. This is crucial in short boards because the thinest part of the board(nose) and the thickest(belly) are so close. Point, the static bevel marking tool that is in the resource/photos/tools or diagrams is not going to benefit you in marking rail lines on short boards. I think KR challenged someone to create such a tool???