I haven’t finished a wood surfboard in years. I have a chambered board on moth balls, and finished my last fish-bone hws years ago. I would like to start a thread on wood surfboards to rekindle my enthusiasm for wood boards.
Also to ask: is there a current forum exclusively for wood board builders?
My last woodie looks like a corky…
Its an 8’0 single fin, midlength and I like it very much.
The cork is laminated under vaccuum and it does not need to be waxed. Bottom is plain wood, the board is a balsa HWS.
My actual project is a 9’4"; it will be a corky too…, but I do not have pics by now.
Regarding a forum, woodboardforum.com is dead, and undortunately even being a founder and administrator, me and the others do not really know nor understand what happened.
The administrator responsible for the software platform and software administration does not respond to mailsvetc. anymore and nobody of the other admins has the rights to get answers from the provider. I assume that something strange must have happened… There is still some money on the account…
Tree to sea does not operate anymore too…
OK, I’m gonna make an attempt at a wood surfboard forum, using an old forum atttached to a blog that I abandoned awhile back. If it takes off, I will probably upgrade, but for now I’m just gonna see if there is enough interest to put any more work into it. Its been awhile, so it’ll take me a little time to re-orient myself.
http://forums.delphiforums.com/surfersover50/start
If you need assistance and some input, just give info, I would be glad if a new forum relating to wooden boards could be created; even if it is only a new section here…
thanks, I will def be recruiting some help if there is enough interest.
I have changed my old blog and forum, which I had let slide, to reflect the new emphasis on wood surfboards. As long as tree-to-sea and woodboardforum were up and running, I didn’t have anything dedicated solely to wood boards. But I do appreciate wood boards, and am thinking of getting back into building them, maybe try some wood compsands as well. And I have an unfinished chambered board too.
Wood boards are a bit different from the standard Swaylocks fare, and hence have never been real popular on this forum, although they certainly do show up from time to time. A forum dedicated to wood boards is called for in my opinion, but only time will tell if the forum I have will draw any traffic.
My old surfers over 50 blog is now wood surfboard enthusiasts, and it is here **http://woodsurfboardenthusiasts.blogspot.com/ **Blogs are kinda dead now aren’t they? Vlogs are the in thing (video logs), I follow a few on YouTube. But I have the blog, don’t know if anyone cares enough to follow?
and the forum is now the wood surfboard forum, and it is here http://forums.delphiforums.com/surfersover50/start
Let me know if the links work for you, and post something up on the forum if you are able to get in.
Huck , quite simply you are wrong , your projects Paul Jensen and other wood surfboard builders have been of great interest on Sways especially if there are lots of pics , dont sell yourself short .
I really like the wood bottom and rail, just never was a fan of cork. Nice.
I appreciate the work that goes into the wood boards and I can especially appreciate Huck’s rails-first build process. The lighting bolt board is eye-catching by any measure, and I expecially like the driftwood board too.
It’s just unfortunate that a lot of the builders - apparently including some of the kit vendors - don’t have any experience with shaping so that’s kind of a buzzkill all by itself. No matter what, and as McDing has commented before, shape comes first.
I do love the craftsmanship and time consuming patience that goes into every wooden board. Building a wooden board requires skill and a disposition that I never acquired. Huck’s foray into shaping foam boards should have a positive effect on any future wooden boards that he may delve into. I was told in a brief phone conversation with Andrenni once that Yater did things with foam because of his background in wood, that Andrenni himself would not attempt to do. By that he meant that Yater’s background in Balsa and Redwood very much affected his shaping and style of foam boards. Like Dirty Harry said; “A man has got to know his limitations”.
The interest in wooden boards hasn’t dropped of at all , as far as I can see . I think it has actually increased …what has dropped off , is the traffic on surf forums . Even Swaylocks has lost a lot of traffic.
You are right and wrong too (if seen in a special way)
The right fits to myself. I was on a surf trip in Africa, Senegal, where I met some guys, building a wooden board right in the surfcamp. This started my board building hobby. And if you start you do not know much about shapes, even if you build ten boards, like myself, I still do not much about shapes.
This is finally because it still is a hobby, you need time to ride your boards regularly (I’m landlocked…) and although you are always try something new, you are reading all about shaping what you can get, you become a good shaper if you build and ride boards, lots of boards, the more the better.
The shaping of a wooden board, is done by designing the board. Once youre board is designed and you start building, there is not much room left for variations. Shaping is somewhat limited, but not really, you can almost do everything in wood, you can do in foam.
But its not a shaping with a sanding block, shaping a wood board is designing in advance of the build.
Coming to the wrong:
The above applies to all builders, especially hobby builders, no matter if you shape in foam or wood.
Usually you begin with copying something existent and then you progress, the more the better. A hobby foam builder still is not a shaper after some boards, you need to learn shaping, after strating the build or before. You need to learn what will happens, how will the board ride, react, when you design or shape a board.
Shaping for me is thinking and finding the necessary board specs, including dimensions and all curves, that are necessary, to create a surfboard, that finally does, what the shaper wants it to do. and it is a long way to get there, if ever… This is opposite to building, whether in foam, or wood or whatever; this is why I sometimes wrote, I’m more a builder than a shaper, because I still miss the shaping wisdom. I got some good knowledge by now, but I’m still far away…
@Huck
I registered and logged in, unfortunately the names Surfdude and Olddude, where not accepted by the system. So I changed to BalsaDude!
I’ve greatly enjoyed building HWS, but have also cursed the time consuming nature of forcing wood to form into one’s desires. Building a close tolerance blank, both strong enough and accurate enough to be surfed hard, properly, regularly, takes a huge amount of thought, effort, tools, workspace, time, will, gumption, and vile curses.
Whether it actualy surfs well depends on all the other facets of traditional foam surfboard shaping and design, keeping in mind the less flex and extra momentum of wood on water, factors which are still mostly unknown, and highly variable depending on the specific surface wood used, and the structure within.
If duplicate machined Pu or EPS boards can surf differently just because of the specific grain structure of the wood in the stringer, imagine if the whole thing is made of wood. They even flex and feel differently when the air inside has contracted due to a warm board entering cool water. The volume changes slightly, as well as the flex with more pressure inside than out, or outside than in when the water is warmer than the air, something few surfers experience…
One might, with a lot of experience, or planning, or the proper technology, be able to somewhat duplicate rocker and rails, foil and planshape, of a trusted favorite design, but that does not mean it will translate well to HWS in actual use, but where else to start? How to modify that for the extra weight and less flex?
Building something from wood that can surf just as well as a costco wavestorm… or hang on the wall and look like a wood surfboard, can be a tiny fraction of the effort required to build something that one will take out in waves of consequence, with confidence, and be strong enough to endure doing so again and again for a decade or three.
Building something out of wood a skilled shaper’s trained eye will not immediately find tremendous fault with, is nearly impossible. If something is obviously wonky in low res internet photos, its glaringly obvious in person. Many eyes are trained for symmetry comparisons, but even bookmatched panels vary across the kerf of the blade. I’ve had trained eyes skolded by my square and tape measure, not to say My boards are anywhere near perfect, only that nit pickers with trained eyes have been proved wrong in their claims of unintentional asymmetry. Other have said ‘what about this’?!. oh yea that happened, good eye, moving along…
At this point I’ve got all the boards I need for any waves I intend to ride, and they will last me until I am too old to surf/live. Perhaps building them, the dust, the arthritis, the VOC’s and adhesives and solvents, all might have a say in how long either/or might be.
Nobody will ever come remotely close to paying what I’d want to build another HWS, or even buy what I’ve already made and might have never ridden. I did make a few with dimensions way too small for me to ride, as I became way too attached to all those that were of appropriate volume for myself. Little interest in those I made to be sold., and I still have them all, some have not seen light of day for years.
My favorite LB and shortboard are simply not for sale at any price, and they were both far from perfect on initial baptism, and both are battle damaged. If I travel to the tropics, I’m painting them white. Last time some doofus asked me if my board was a wirefire, I wish it were indeed painted white.
Not that strangers feel comfortable approaching me, but I been not asked to teach someone worthy, all what I have learned along the way about forcing wood into a highly functional and durable HWS. Little interest when a Close tolerance PU or EPS blanks can be mowed or programmed to be mowed, sent to the glasser in a few hours, for a fraction of the time and price, and soul. From Lumber yard to Baptism I have built HWS in as little as 3 weeks, that was my first, the longest took 2.5 years, that was my last.
I’m too detailed oriented, too much an attempted perfectionist, and that means I am way too slow, and each thing I am sending to, and have sent to the landfill, bothers me. So enough’s enough. My HWS’s can, and likely will outlive me.
I have no desire to build another HWS, but can’t stop thinking about how I would, if I were to, but I wont, I have no desire to mow foam, or desire to own any more surfboards than I already do.
I’m gonna keep designing and building wood fins, for myself, but I’m done building boards HWS or other.
How long is the rounded pin wrcsix8 ?
Id be in for a new site. Seems to me that foam replaced wood in the early days for lightness and speed of construction.
Wrcsix8 nice shapes. I like the two on the left Do you have templets that you can share.
Sounds like yor’re disgusted. And maybe the whole process depressing? No joy or satisfaction? You creative life’s work is done? And I’m not being sarcastic. Just wondering. Lowel
The double wing round pin is 6’11" x 22" x 3" and weighs in at 15.5 lbs without fins or wax. Mild double to single to double bottom. I weigh 220+ lbs currently, and have since I was 17. I always hated pointy nose potato chips and the whole shorter wider flatter trend of recent years holds Zero appeal for me, and never did.
I love how it surfs.
The HWS longboards I built are 9’6" and 9’7". All HWS boards I’ve built are western red cedar and some have redwood rails. I’ve never worked with Pawlonia, and regretted each piece of balsa I used internally on the swallow tail. Frustration splintered that board to non existence, because of that interior structural Balsa getting wet when I was experimenting with minimal exterior glass, in a foolish quest to further reduce weight. Repairing it would have ben more labor than building it a new, and that realization had me splinter it against a non moveable object, in a much regretted act.
The 9’6" squash I took templates from a well liked Steve Seebold G&S triple stringer. I made it thicker than its foam version @ 3 5/8" iirc and it does not have the same get up and go when trimmed forward. I figure the belly and tail rocker is not relaxing as it would on a thiner foam board when perched on the nose, Or I unintentionally added more rocker along the way, or both. I don’t really enjoy how it rides unless the pockety wave peels slowly. At racey beachbreaks it lacks trim speed, but does paddle and turn well with a thick fin, but I have become a hardened Round pin convert since building it in 2002.
The 9’7" round pin is my all time favorite longboard. It barely reaches 3 inches thick. Very high mileage, built in Leucadia under tarps, in 2003. The outline and foil templates were taken from a Donald Takayama 9’ 6.5" but the foil is 1/2 inch less thick at its thickest with knifier somewhat down rails in the tail, but no edges. It weighed about 21.5 lbs new but is closer to 25 now ,I assume, with deck reinforcements and repairs. The weight is not a factor, its at least 15lbs lighter than the Greg Noll I learned to longboard on in the mid 80’s.
All the interiors are a One off. No kits or cnc machines. The templates I took from other boards are hardly perfectly true and I still stretch/tweak them to meet my marks. The big difference with my templates is I also have taken some stringer/foil templates, and only the center stringer bears any resemblance to the original foil when all is said and done. I used 3 or 5 stringers and they are not always parallel. The rails are cut from a 1x12, tapered and stacked for minimal bending forces/ clamp requirement. Have not though about offloading the templates I have made, even though I plan on building no more boards.
Building them was both joy and satisfaction and tremendous frustration all at the same time. I went so extremely overboard on each and every step on the 6’11" double wing round pin, knowing It was my last. I also walked away from it for months at a time when other endeavors required my concentration or frustration with an individual step, overruled rational thought processes. The interior is unlike any HWS I built before it. Preventing twist and unintended contours and achieving maximum strength for minimal weight gain stymied progress completely at times.
Its a labor of love, and I am no longer in love with such labor. I could never ever come remotely close to making it worth my while to build these, and if I could, the usual ‘OMG!!! its sooooo heavy!!’ would keep them on wall racks, instead of actually being used as intended, which pisses me off to no end, as does the hyperlight disposable HPSB always, spastastic style, in crap waves mindset.
If people want a wood skinned board to actually surf, the compsands will meet their expectations at a fraction of the weight and price, and the available selection of veneers available today can be truly beautiful. I’ve no interest in developing that skillset/method personally, and dont mean to bash them in any way.
I could build a hollow unrideable wall hanger in 1/50th the time, but have no interest in ornamation for ornamation’s sake, and I’d still want more than anyone would ever pay, as most cant deduce quality on their own. The name/ label is way more important to them.
It is rare that I don’t get multiple compliments on the board when I surf it, but I no longer gain the satisfaction I once did from those, and often point to my ear plugs and shake my head when queried.
Curmudgeonly before my time, I guess.
So it goes.
Wow, fantastic boards posted here! So far this thread is doing exactly as I had hoped, rekindling my love of wood surfboards.
I guess I should clarify, I never said or implied that my (or anyone’s) wood boards aren’t appreciated by some here, or that there is any tapering off of interest in wood boards. What I said is that wood boards are not the common fare here on swaylocks.
The reason I think a different forum is called for is because most of the issues facing wood board builders, by and large, have little to no parallel in the foam board process. I’m guessing there is little crossover between this site and the woodboardforum membership.
I started off making boards with the tree-to-sea forum. I became a moderator, and stayed on until the bitter end, long after the site owner and other moderators had bailed ship. I’d still be there deleting spam now, if I hadn’t gotten locked out by a glitch that the site owner wouldn’t correct, as he was long gone.
I wanted woodboardforum to succeed, but I didnt participate much because the site had a “no edit” policy that just didnt work for me. I tried to reason with the site administrators, most of whom I had mentored at tree-to-sea, to see it wasn’t necessary or conducive to open discussion, but to no avail. Roy had left such an indelible scar by deleting all his posts on T2S that they all chose the reactionary path, IMO. All of which is just water under the bridge.
I love wood boards, and would be tickled pink to have my wood surfboard forum become a hub of Intel & support for wood board builders. And by this I mean modern or vintage, chambered, alaia. hws, compsand, veneer, and foam boards with added wood details like extra stringers, tail blocks, and whatever else the imagination can conjure.
I only have a limited number of boards left in me before I retire from board building, and I’m hoping some of them are wood.
When I became aware of the wood board forums, i was a bit upset. I had this delusion I was one of the very few to be making and riding HWS, even long after I gave up any short lived aspirations to actually make money from doing so.
A lot of the shapes I saw, on tree to sea, simply did not impress me. though some of the woodworking was certainly superior to mine. One thing which turned me off was the one thing saying that only HWS using method X was really to be posted. Method X or whoseever it was called, with the single center stringer and ribs every X inches, was nothing like the method I was taught and modified, and I did not want to share my method, and am still stuck there despite never intending to build another.
I never joined, and only sporadically browsed them, and had no idea of the underlying drama as I’d only look at the photos of shapes that i thought were mostly poorly executed and wonky.
I was more interested in design and knowledge base and the archives here on Sways, despite the perhaps wrongly perceved anti HWS vibe. I did acquire experience with PU/PE shaping and glassing a few years prior to being taught HWS, the guys who taught me their HWS method, had None, so we traded skills.
I’d had little woodworkng experience previous to it, but always loved watching the New Yankee workshop with norm Abrams on PBS. Milling the planks on a tablesaw is still something I enjoy, and there is nothng like saturating that wood with epoxy or oil that first time and seeing the wood’s character come alive.
I think the HWS weight and chop dampening/busting makes them great for Semi guns, not that anyone rides semiguns anymore.
I am brand new to the wooden surfboard actually have never shaped a board in my life but I love the look of them and I am super curious to feel how they ride I have been looking and studying shapes designes and theory for almost a year I’m finally ready to get my project started but I don’t want to buy a kit or use a board cad or anything like that I want to design and make my own board from scratch and experiment with different material and construction right now I have an idea of What I want to do and I have made an outline of a 5’8" fish I cut my stringer yesterday and glued it to my bottom skin just to get my rocker then I’m going to take styrofoam from ceiling fan boxes and cut “ribs” so it has the fishbone like construction with springier lighter material and it’s a good way to recycle the foam and I have a softer styrofoam I’m going to put between the ribs just for extra deck support I wanted to just use tung oil to seal it even though I’ve been told glass hollow boards but I just want to experiment a littl but I’m still having a hard time wrapping my head around the rail system like how thick to make them how wide and how I even get the measurements for them but any tips or tricks and info are greatly appreciated and any critique on my “design” would be greatly appreciated because honestly I’m to poor to buy a surfboard and all my material come from jobsites I work on lol
