FIVE Surfboards: 5' 10" Sweet P - Gets new bottom rails

"Surfboards are as disposable as Dixi cups"

With a slow last week of surf, the Five Lab has been pumping out work;

Fins, glass jobs, pie shaped tail rebuilds, blank building and a whole slew of repairs on a wide variety of boards. Its always interesting to reverse engineer a surfboard. Envision its first stages as a production blank, the first passes with the planer, to the careful examination of the complicated contour lines all blending together seamlessly. All of this, to simply make a "surfcraft" - sometimes it seems overwhelming that so much labour goes into such a disposable tool of the sport.

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5' 10" - Sweep P - Bottom Rail Shaping;

The steps are simple - use a series of geometric measurements to obtain either a 50:50 (boxy) or a 60:40 (down-turn) rail. As Harry has requested a 60:40 rail to make the board surf better while maintaining a substantial amount of thickness for float. We will be focusing on the ":40" part of the ratio. Special tool jigs and a keen eye are very important for the bottom rail; As the bottom rail line is the main contact with the water and the first to "grip/release" when "setting a rail".