Just cut out the stringer and cross frames and set up the rocker table for a 12 foot hollow wood surfboard, design is a nice curvy pin tail with a gunny nose (~11 inches) and 23” wide at mid point with 4.5” nose rocker and 2.5” tail. Board is 3” thick and the plan is to do a big glass on D fin
I have currently got the bottom pretty flat but was wondering if I should put some roll in the nose and some Vee in the tail, if so would ¼” vee be enough in the tail and how far forward should I bring it?
I was thinking of doing only a slight roll thru the mid section up to the nose 1/8” (4mm).
12 footers coming along nice, got the bottom skin on all the ribs and string glued in and ½ the rails done in a horizontal layup. Want to put in the fin reinforcement so have a few Q’s on fin type and placement
I am leaning towards a Tom Wegener inspired big DEE fin right on the tail, as I know Tom knows his stuff. However the sexy curves of a Greenough albacore flexy fin (I don’t now the correct terms for this fin) is whispering build me build me in my ear
Any suggestions on fin type and placement for a pinny 12 footer would be welcome
This is looking excellent, keep the pictures coming, I’m getting all excited over your progress. Sod the work and puppy thing, more shed project is needed.
I will be stoked to see this board in person one day …
I DEFINATELY want to be there to document you launching it Shane !
I will be sure to take some watershots .
The good thing about this board is you’ll be able to ride our summer ripples on it , so you WILL get uncrowded early mornings on it !
[of course , I would love to give it a ride too…just have to be careful with our super shallow summer banks eh ? [from that point of view , I guess a D fin , rather than a deep raky fin might be a prudent idea eh ?
Well slow week this week in between 5.30am surfs with da chipster and feeding the kids and having to do work presentations without the dreaded salt water nose bleeds. Mangaged to resist going to the pub tonight and came home early and ripped down and thicknessed the top deck planks. I had laid up some of the rails earlier in the week and I think running a hand plane along the rails making shavings has got to be as close to HWS mediation as can be. Either i had a cool HWS ZEN moment or i have been sniffing too much sellys PU glue…
This boards a bit of a bitsa I have been trying to use up all the left over bits of Paulownia (kiri) that have been lying around in the shed, have have managed to resist buying any wood, ah except for the WRC i couldnt reist the smell got to me…
any way a few more progress shots. Hope to get the deck on this weekend and the rails shaped already to glass next week, we will see.
Tools of the trade
20mm by 8mm left over bead and cove strips glued up anround and over the rails
A few passes with the hand plane and the rails are taking shape, HWS building meditation…
Just took a good look at how you built up the rails. It looks like you’re following the rib outlines to shape the rails with multiple strips? Any problems bending the paulownia? I thought about doing my next hws board that way, but promised my housemates that I would try to keep it to one 6 month project a year, and have been playing with foam.
yep building up horizontal laid rails using 20mm wide by 8mm deep (left overs) no problems on the 12 footer as curves are nice and long, both outline and rocker. I did a few trials earlier on on the 6’6" fish i built and i would have been able to do the same on that but only just without heat/water/stream bending and she is pretty flat rockered.
After sanding down will probally end up with between 12mm and 16mm rail thickness. I have had to tapper at each end and runing the strips up and over the rails helped out heaps with the transistion to wider planks (30mm). Just waiting for glue to dry and will do the last few deck strips which need to be tappered to match the rail strips laid, not a big issue but do end up with the odd gap as I am pretty rough.
It seems that you could save a lot of weight on the rails without using cork with that method. I think part of the reason my board is so heavy is that my rails are 1" solid cedar before the step-backs started on the top.
mmmhhhh weight. Yep the vertical rail method adds in weight esp in cedar at 350kg/m3. Solid balsa rails would be 1/2 as light. My rails will still end up at 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch. The 12 footer was feeling nice and light with 5mm thick bottom skin and 20mm rails. Then I went and stuck on the 8mm thick deck… nice should have heaps of momentum to catch them waves now… ah well will hit it with 50 grit sandpaper and trim a few mm off as i fine shape/sand
Spent the weekend gluing the top deck on I would be crap at mosaics or jigsaws, heaps of gaps, nuthing that epoxy and sawdust wont fix. The decks looks like a rustic barn door, from hence forth it shall be known as the barn door…
anyway photo of the deck on and rough outline shape down, bit of cleanup on the rail required and nose/tail blocks to glue on. A 12 foot rail is pretty hard to shape and keep fair and consistant, my hat gos off to the crew that use to or are doing this… 12 foot is a hole heap of board just keeps heading to the sky
I like to call it a 8 foot barn door as it looks good from 8 foot away… I have a couple of bumps on the rail that i need to take out…and a fair bit of filling/bogging to do
I have got a couple of 50mm wide Western red cedar strips on the bottom so would like to tie into that with nose/tail blocks made up out of WRC and paulownia proballtv 5mm thick WRC and 20mm thick Paulownia sort of stripy thing
