Tails and Buttcracks

Recently, I received a comment on my last post requesting that I describe a little bit about how I went about doing the tail on the Datsun Twinnie (which I was in the middle of working on when I was so rudely interrupted by local thieves). So, I'll try to describe here what I did (and did wrong) as requested. As with everything I do, this is by no means the best or "right" way, its just how I happened to do it....mostly by feel and guesswork. hehe

The tail was pretty easy actually, but really the one pictured in the Datsun Twinnie is only half done, it still needs lots of fine tuning. For one thing, I should have started by thinning down the blank a bit more near the tail closer to desired thickness. As you can see, the tail is a bit chunkier than it probably should be. But, in any case, once the blank's tail area is down to thickness, you can draw in the outline.

For the outline, I used the nose portion on the board's original template to draw in the swallow from the edge to the stringer on the bottom of the blank. I think lots of people have special templates for swallows, but there's something nice about being able to reuse the nose portion of the original template for drawing in the tail. Reusability is always nice. :)

Cutting in the tail would've been nice if I had an electric jigsaw, but I used a small handsaw instead, stopping just short of the middle of the stringer from each side. Then by hand, snap off the cutout.

After cutting it out, I then took a small (rattail) rounded file to file in the 'buttcrack'. After that, it's really just a matter of using a small surform and sanding block to sculpt the contour of the tail to blend in with the crack. When finish sanding the stringer/crack, it helps to protect the foam with some masking tape along the edge of the stringer so that you don't sand into the foam.

Well, thats about it. Sorry I don't have progress pics, but maybe next time....whenever that will be.

kc