I asked a dealer what kind of tape to get for a 5'5" 88L board and he took these couple of snaps: Suggested I get 5"x2" Xtreme SUP rail saver, over the 4'5"x3.5" Clear SUP/Wing Foil rail saver. I'm ready to install this 5"x2" tape. It covers the side of the board pretty much front to back. 1. Should I trim this tape? There is a decent rocker near the front and am not too sure how much the tape will like the curve. Heat/hair drier might help but simply holding it next to the board I can tell it doesn't want to turn around the curve.
2. Do people who put on rail tape use water, a little bit of soap, and spray bottle? To help adjust and more easily get rid of air bubbles.

Thanks

I used this method on a sup foilboard.



It didn't go as smoothly as on a sup with a fat rounded rail and relatively little rocker. I think I ended up using a hairdryer too.

Spray on lots of water it'll give you a lot more working time. Also spray the surface, once applied to help slide the squeege without damaging the tape. Don't worry about the spray, it doesn't effect adhesion at all as long as you squeege it out. The key is to get all the air bubbles out, that'll be your failure point.

2" is the right call, the sharp curve on the top of the rail will make it almost impossible to follow the rocker. It might be better to cut the tape into 2 pieces and pick the two best straight lines through the curve.

Don't worry if it's not perfect, you're just going to end up scraping it against the rocks after all.

I've done 2 Armstrong 5.11 boards with RS Pro and a cheaper, copycat 2" product. The RS Pro 2" didn't need any water or special techniques/tools. My 5.11 was being used for SUP, so I used slightly longer lengths of rail tape up the nose to prevent paddle strike damage. To prep, I simply applied a little rubbing alcohol along the rail first to clean any oil/contaminant then lined up the tape with the centre of the tape along the apex of the rail starting at the nose and applied fingertip pressure in the centre of the tape all the way down to the tail end. The sides were left unstuck. I then cut off the free paper and started back at the nose carefully applying pressure to the edges making sure the bubbles got pushed out. The rocker of the board didn't affect the application at all for me. Worked perfectly with no edges or wrinkles left unstuck. This board got warranted and was sent back to the shop.

The second one I did with the cheaper product was only slightly wrinkled at the nose on one side using the same process due to the adhesive being a little less tenacious. It's 5 sessions in and has not worsened. Same process, mostly same result I was happy with. Easy peasy. Just be slow and methodical. For winging you really only need a short section that covers the section of the rail that will be in contact with the beach or your body scrambling up on deck.

While I've never seen an armstrong board in person, from what I can see online, the rail line on the 5'11 has virtually no rocker and thicker rails than the 5'5". Good to know the expensive stuff is easier to apply. I was using 10$ amazon special tape and a lot of lube.

Pretty sure the board shop in Caddy Bay is selling rail tape now. Not sure of the brand of quality but I assume it's legit.

I did the tape in the living room with the heat cranked. I did it dry, after a wipe down with rubbing alcohol. I didn't bother cutting and was able to do a decent job starting back to front, so I got that rocker at the end after it was mostly aligned. Used a small squeegee to push out bubbles (found the cardboard piece of packaging didn't take much pressure to fall apart).

I usually have an inventory of RSpro tape.

South Island Composite

My board got banged up on a rock pretty good coming in at high tide the other day. I’ve filled a couple previous chips/dents on it with epoxy filler. But I’m wondering, because I have epoxy resin and fiberglass cloth, could I do like a 3”-4” strip of fiberglass along the rail, then sand smooth and polish — would this be superior to the rail tape or provide similar protection? Or too heavy?
Sand lightly 80 grit, clean with acetone prep?