Your Shaping Procedure: Pinched 50/50 Rails

Hey Guys,

I’m working on a 10’ 3" Surfboards Hawaii longboard.  The board was purchased new by my pal Joe in 1969 and duplicated about twenty years ago by Terry Martin at Hobie.

The rails are tightly pinched to a point and I love the feel of this board,  Joe does too as he has surfed this same shape for over forty years.

To compensate for the pinched rails the bottom is slightly rounded with a little “V” in the tail.  I know it’s perfect for Joe, so the design characteristics aren’t the question… I’m wondering your thoughts for achieving these difficult rails and a perfect rounded hull?

Thanks,

Tommy

First, read this: http://www2.swaylocks.com/node/1018545

Definitely do all your bottom planer work, including rail bands, before you go to deskside (provided you have desired deck curve glued into blank). I don't think astevens was talking about planing from ''stringer-out'', just taking off less at stringer. Working from rail towards stringer, going to shallower cuts as you go, is the proper way to convex a bottom.

Marking a rail apex on the template band (outline cut) might be useful if you're having trouble visualizing the rail you want. I've never done it, though. Marking on the deck or bottom won't take into account thickness variations in the blank that you should want to shape out.

 

I was thinking about the rails all night, man some boards just get in my head!   I agree about marking the verticle rail at the mid-point and adjusting as the board contours towards the nose and tail.  This will definetely give a great visual mark of where I want the rails to knife. 

One local shaper said to do the bottom rail first, then the top.

I’m thinking of doing the bottom mid section with the same thickness first, then the top until the rail looks like what I’m shooting for, then blend the nose and tail to follow this line fluid?  Thoughts?

On the last old school fish (the one from the video), I did the rails a little different than I have been.  The board was 3" thick with lotsa foam in the nose.  I usually prefer to shape my rail bands with 40 grit wrapped around an long oak block.  Which has worked pretty well, but on the fish it just wasn’t doing it for me.  I decided I had the rail I wanted in my head so I grabbed my short 4" sure-form and simply roughed out the rails (deckside) from nose to tail… 

I had them pretty much exactly how I wanted them in a few minutes, then simply made a few drag passes with a sanding screen. 

The belly contour technique sounds right on… In the past I have scribed a 2" line around the board from the outside rail, then a line another two inches in (four inches) and planed the outside with say 4 passes then the inside line with 2 passes.  I like the idea of planing from the stringer out better though! 

Wondering if you mark your lines parallel to the the stringer or from the rails.  The rail side scribe mark would give a pattern like a warped bullseye and the stringer would obviously give straight lines.  You dig?  The roll of the belly would be more 3-D is marked from the rail side, like a conical contour.

Thanks,

Tommy

I just did a 9-4 with more like 60-40 rails, but what I did was figure about where I wanted the roll to start and end on the rail and put a line there. I did one deckside as well, planed to the line and tapered it out nose and tail where the lines crossed.                                            The shape looks alright, just haven’t figured out how to ride the thing yet, but then I haven’t ridden a big single fin in a long in a long time.

Mark the midpoint of the rail with your square and a pencil. shape your 50/50 rails and use this line as a guide point as to where the deck and bottom rail will eventually pinch to.

As for the rolled belly bottom contour, make a pass with your planer at the stringer, then make 2 passes several inches away from the stringer, then three passes many more inches from the stringer. Continue this pattern until you end up at the rail. You'll end up with something resembling stair steps climbing from the left and right and eventually meeting their max point towards the middle of the board. Blend these "stairsteps" with a surform or sanding block, and wahlah, a rolled belly bottom configuration. remember to set you planer to a small cut because you dont want to screw up being that this is your first time trying this.

I don’t know about the hull to vee idea… I’ve never ridden one, or shaped one. But for a full bellied bottom, or “hull” type bottom, with pinched rails, I rocker and foil the whole blank first to get the stringer rocker and thickness flow I want, then I shape the rolled bottom by working from the rail to the stringer with full passes, opening and closing the blade along each pass, from nose to tail and/or tail to nose, to make the roll fade in and out at the ends. Watch your thickness in the tail, keeping in mind you’re going to flatten the roll in the tail to get your vee (I guess). Once your bottom is fully roughed out, then you look at your rail thickness flow, true them up, then start shaping your bands. You’ll find that after you shape your belly, you’ll have much less rail volume to knock down to get your final rail shape and volume you want.