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Step 6Attaching the rail material
This is kind of a "fiddly bit" as my aussie mates like to say. Or is it my brit mates? Whatever, it was kind of a pain.
The trick here is to take a sheet of 1/8" balsa and tape it along one of the rails so you can trace the shape of the rail onto it. Getting a curved and undulating shape onto a flat sheet of balsa, fun stuff. Once you get the shape drawn on, you can cut it out with a razor knife and use it as a template for the other sheets. The good news is, you only need four (two on each side) to complete the rails.
It is good if you cut them a little oversize (wide), it makes it easy to place them that way, but if there is too much sticking out it wont seat well when you vacuum bag them on.
Don't worry about wrapping all the way around the nose or the tail, we'll finish those in a next step.
Once you have the rail pieces cut out, you can glue them on with either the epoxy or foaming PU glue (elmer's ultimate, gorrila glue, etc.) . Either way. Come to think of it, if you're good with that stuff (I hate it myself), you can probably use it for most of this construction.
Anyway, get the glue or resin on the edges of the deck, and in between the layers of rail balsa, then use tape to hold them in place on the board. Wrap the whole thing with release film, and stick it in the bag again.
Once the rails are cured on, you can put on the nose and tail blocks. I made mine by clamping together a bunch of scrap balsa. Just cut the nose of the board into a slightly pointed shape, then use a sanding block to make the edges square to accept the nose blocks. I glued them on with the foaming PU glue and just used masking tape to clamp them into place.
In the last photo you can see all the rail pieces attached before sanding.
The trick here is to take a sheet of 1/8" balsa and tape it along one of the rails so you can trace the shape of the rail onto it. Getting a curved and undulating shape onto a flat sheet of balsa, fun stuff. Once you get the shape drawn on, you can cut it out with a razor knife and use it as a template for the other sheets. The good news is, you only need four (two on each side) to complete the rails.
It is good if you cut them a little oversize (wide), it makes it easy to place them that way, but if there is too much sticking out it wont seat well when you vacuum bag them on.
Don't worry about wrapping all the way around the nose or the tail, we'll finish those in a next step.
Once you have the rail pieces cut out, you can glue them on with either the epoxy or foaming PU glue (elmer's ultimate, gorrila glue, etc.) . Either way. Come to think of it, if you're good with that stuff (I hate it myself), you can probably use it for most of this construction.
Anyway, get the glue or resin on the edges of the deck, and in between the layers of rail balsa, then use tape to hold them in place on the board. Wrap the whole thing with release film, and stick it in the bag again.
Once the rails are cured on, you can put on the nose and tail blocks. I made mine by clamping together a bunch of scrap balsa. Just cut the nose of the board into a slightly pointed shape, then use a sanding block to make the edges square to accept the nose blocks. I glued them on with the foaming PU glue and just used masking tape to clamp them into place.
In the last photo you can see all the rail pieces attached before sanding.
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