Iam shaping a board from scratch. I'm using hand tools. The rails have me scratching my head . my intent is not hard, not round but 80/20. I have room to work as iam not at my widths yet.
how can I maintain a consistent shape, and should I alter it toward the rear?
its a FSW shape 105liters plan, generally like a Simmer Quantum, Tri fin.

At this point some of the blank looks to be FAT, but I'm afraid to remove too much, IM using a Skate as thinckness guide, by a measure .

Shape and rail suggestions, most welcome . Other pick on me remarks ok, I have thick skin sometimes.

I normally mark the tuck limits on the bottom and on the rail, approx 15mm each way at widest point, this stays reasonably constant on the bottom towards the nose but tapers to 0 at the tail, the rail measurement varies with thickness. I jiggle the outline template a bit to get the tuck line on the bottom, roughly following the plan shape. I've no idea what a "skate" is, I use a profile gauge or a length of soft wire to copy the rail shape and check it along the board. Of course don't forget to allow for the sandwich if you're using one.

Thanks couple good tips there.
Fanatic Skate, is their Freestyle board, one of the better best , crossovers to FSW.

Pics ?

Cleaned up more today, after photos. Still have widths to make right. It's about 1-2 cm too wide in spots yet, going slowly.
228x 63.5
44 nose 39 tail. squash tail. Simple nose. Bottom shape mostly flat, but slight Vee from mast track back.
tri fin, sides 1.75/85 toe. USBox and probox sides.

Seriously that lawn , could you not quickly run a mower over it.
Did you use a template for the outline ?

It's a good idea to make some rail tools. These are sanding blocks at 30, 45 and 60 degrees for the bottom tuck. Mark the tuck line out using your outline template as a guide and sand to the line using the different angles as you work your way in to the line.
The curved sanding block is real handy and made from a piece of 150mm drain pipe.
The other one is a deck line tool and is molded off a board whose deck curve you like.

Do your rail designs on a sheet of paper and use the points to do facet lines on the blank and then connect them up and work to the lines.

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Te Hau said..
>>>Mark the tuck line out using your outline template as a guide and sand to the line using the different angles as you work your way in to the line.

imax and I doubt there is an outline template, but one sure would be handy.

Mark the bottom with the template cut from the bottom, that way any slight deviation from a vertical cut won't affect the shape any where near as much as if you've cut from the top. Get that sorted and square the rails up before doing anything else, that way you've got something to work from. If the outline isn't right, nothing else will be.

Dog likes the grass just fine, it's actually a piece of drive way .
no i have none of those tools.
yes I have a template.
its not done yet

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Te Hau said..


Do your rail designs on a sheet of paper and use the points to do facet lines on the blank and then connect them up and work to the lines.

What ?

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forceten said..
What ?

I've known a few shapers that do the rails this way, mark tangents on the blank and shape down to them. I've never tried it, too many lines on the board just confuse me. I tend to shape by eye and feel, just keep planing until the board you want appears. But a lot of this comes with experience, if it's your first go, it's probably safer to be a bit more scientific. Using the above method it's much more likely to give you what you want.

I completely finish the bottom first .. I made a 10 inch wide plank wider than the board and a bit of handle on top and glued rough 40 grit sandpaper to . Its my favorite shaping tool . Use this to finish the bottom rocker . Its great for adding v shape .
Then mark the outline using a half template and flipping it over , to keep things even .
Cut on the outside of the lines a quarter inch or so with hand saw or wire cutter .
With an electric planer in one hand and a square in the other , shape to the line keeping it square to the bottom . If there is v just keep it square to that . If you don't have a planer it can be done with the sanding plank .
I then use my sanding plank to finish the edges .
Flip over and do the same on the deck , flat , to the edges to the desired thickness . Its then easy to check the side heights at different points to keep things even on both sides .
Flip over to bottom .
This is when I go for the rail tuck . Mark the bottom to where you want it . Its easiest to copy a board that you like .
With the big sanding plank its easy to neatly remove and blend in the tuck .
Flip to top again .
Shape the top to the rails to the amount of boxyness your after . Again use the sanding plank lengthways to blend it all together .
Slowly slowly catch the monkey .
Flip over to bottom .
Then as a final finish I use a medium grit sanding mesh sheet which I hold in my hands and bend around the rail and gently go up and down the board , changing curve angles as you go , watching you don't take any of the tuck edge off .

Disclaimer :
Warning ,
This is how I do it ,There are undoubtedly better ways .

I have some old flooring that will work on this , thanks. Brilliant idea.

monkey is fast and illusuve

is now the time to mention how awesome cnc is.

no mess and the monkey is already at the zoo.

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Imax1 said..
Seriously that lawn , could you not quickly run a mower over it.
Did you use a template for the outline ?

You can tell when it's windy season at my house. Yard work does not get done. I feel zero shame.

Back to the topic at hand - learning a lot. Thanks to all.

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Gestalt said..
is now the time to mention how awesome cnc is.

no mess and the monkey is already at the zoo.

This was cnc .,but a basic one, outline , rockers and large enough to permit mistakes.

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forceten said..

Gestalt said..
is now the time to mention how awesome cnc is.

no mess and the monkey is already at the zoo.

This was cnc .,but a basic one, outline , rockers and large enough to permit mistakes.

is this the F10 99?

speaking with guys in the industry when getting blanks cnc cut you always need to hand shape the rails. in future, getting the cnc cut closer to finished size would probably be easier.

it may be time to buy a japanese saw and cut the outline. as mentioned by decrepit you need an accurate outline. it must be hard to shape the rail without knowing where the apex is. normally, you measure up from the rocker and draw a line then blend the tuck and deck roll into the apex from there.

CNC , pffft !
Wheres the sense of adventure

^^ exactly
I'm trying to learn Shape3D and every time I do, I give up and go shape the board faster than I could design it on the stoopid 'puter

designing boards in 3d is really the way to go. the benefits are worth the time.

you can rework everything about the design and compare it back against previous iterations to see how the foam flow has changed or just copy elements of previous boards.

in 3d you can control volume unlike in 2d. rails especially, you can loose or add 10 liters just by how the rails work.

that aside. just because a board is designed in 3d doesn't mean you need to use cnc. my latest board is the first time i've used cnc. prior to that id design in 3d and send scale templates to the shaper who would do everything by hand. mind you he switched to cnc years ago.

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Gestalt said..

forceten said..

Gestalt said..
is now the time to mention how awesome cnc is.

no mess and the monkey is already at the zoo.

This was cnc .,but a basic one, outline , rockers and large enough to permit mistakes.

is this the F10 99?

speaking with guys in the industry when getting blanks cnc cut you always need to hand shape the rails. in future, getting the cnc cut closer to finished size would probably be easier.

it may be time to buy a japanese saw and cut the outline. as mentioned by decrepit you need an accurate outline. it must be hard to shape the rail without knowing where the apex is. normally, you measure up from the rocker and draw a line then blend the tuck and deck roll into the apex from there.

The cnc cut was done off a Flikka 99 shape but larger, I want 105, difficult to Judge that, going mostly by length and width , and a 110 l board.

I think I have enough info on the rails.

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forceten said..
I think I have enough info on the rails.

Its not possible to stop , the launch sequence has been activated .
We need pics every step of the way ,
Oh , and please skim over that lawn .

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Mark _australia said..
^^ exactly
I'm trying to learn Shape3D and every time I do, I give up and go shape the board faster than I could design it on the stoopid 'puter

My experience exactly!!!!! I'm not doing too bad on outline, thickness and rocker, but the rails are impossible, give it tuck in the middle and you instantly have tuck at the tail. remove tuck at the tail, and there's instantly no tuck anywhere! The only advantage I see at the moment is the volume read out, but I don't have a lot of faith in it's accuracy.

You can control the rails really well...however I have the pro version so not sure of how much control you have with the free version. You just need to have the tuck applied to your cross sections and the program will do the transition.

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mr love said..
You can control the rails really well...however I have the pro version so not sure of how much control you have with the free version. You just need to have the tuck applied to your cross sections and the program will do the transition.

yup that's my take as well. i don't have the pro version. am using the design version.

other advantages are volume and area distribution curves. i also like being able to adjust the apex and contours in profile view. that's super handy for smoothing out the transitions.

what's missing from the design version are the 3d layers used for fish tails and cutouts. recessing mast tracks can be done without 3d layers but it's time consuming.

the design version is also missing the export features which limits the amount of people you can get to cut the blank.
most of the other items the pro version has you can work around it just takes longer.

umm the other thing that i would struggle without are the curve tangents. now i have a few known rockers i can tell by the tangent number if it's to much curve or to little curve for the use of the board.

i also use the guides a lot.

Obviously some of you, are into this big time. Iam mostly seat of the pants, but using another board/ boards as my guide. Yesterday's results on one side look good.
i will refrain from photos in the driveway .

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mr love said..
>>>>You just need to have the tuck applied to your cross sections and the program will do the transition.

That's what I figured, but I change one and all the rest change, I don't seem to be able to do them individually