Finishing off and deciding on fins...

Still touching up the rails by hand, but also now need to make a decision between using 4 AB 1 templates for the fins or attempt to make a set of Rich Pavel Speed Dialer fins.. Any suggestions...??

Rail Shaping 101 - The board gets unwrapped

So the true shaping is well and truly underway now. Everyone will have their own technique for this stage. I sstarted using a belt sanded then went back to an orbital, then hand sanding with a block. The rails have come up pretty well so far. With the bending ply any errors in the curve are very noticeable but it also is quite an accurate guide for my curves because of the lines through it as you sand back. Below are a couple of shots of the board now that the protection of the deck has been taken off. Not far to go now.





You may notice on the second shot some glue up near the nose, this is just filling a small gap between the cork and the ply on the rail. It will then be sanded off when it dries. I didn't unwrap the board until I was ready to sand back the last millimeter or so onto the deck. The tape has protected the deck well, however there are a couple of marks that I will have to try and sand out (hopefully only I notice them)

Below are some plan shots of what the rails are meant to look like. I think I'm close but still want to do a bit more handsanding to get them perfect.

And so the shaping begins...

Now that the rails are on it is now time to shape the curve into them. This is not as easy as it may first appear and requires extra care as everything will be visible in the final product. Here are a couple of shots so far. I am shaping the top side first and then curving the underneath up to it. The shape of the rail is a rough take on one of my other boards (5'10" DVS fish). Care is of the essence now. More photos to come when it all starts to take shape. Almost complete.... Yeeeew!!!

Rails on....

So I went with cork and bending ply for the rails and just cork for the tail. Had to be really particular with the order that things went on and that all my ply strips had the correct rocker cut into them. Now to begin the shaping process, grinding the rails back to form a reasonable curve.

A bit of tail and rail

Have begun gluing on the vertical strips to eventually sand back to form the final rail and tail shape. The tail of my board will be all cork. I am still tossing up whether or not to use some other timber strips in the rails for an enhanced visual effect at the end... More work but I think its worth it. Just means I have to source more timber... Perhaps bending ply or even Paulonia. Anyway here is a couple of pics of where I'm at so far.