I’ve embarked on the journey of building my own surfboard, and I hope to secure some dialogue on this site concerning the project.
Dimensions:
5’0" x 22 1/2" x 23" x 22 5/8" x 3 1/2"
length x width 12" from tail x widest point x 12" from nose x thickness
Nose rocker: 4"
Tail rocker: 1"
Materials:
1x 4x8 sheet 1/8" plywood
2x 2x4 pine
gorilla glue
1 qt Man o War wood varnish
Hollow board with a bracing pattern of 1/4" thick stringer 8" squares (1/8" thick) coming off the stringer to make a grid, and a nose cap of 2x4 for the last inch of nose. The tail will be 1/2" thick braces, and the first 2 1/2 feet of the board will be 1/4" thick. Rails will be essentially square.
Some topics for discussion:
I am thinking fir or pine for the plywood and 2x4s, but does anyone have any other ideas?
For the rails, I plan on glueing slats of 1/8" ply down the length of the board and then sanding the edges to a quarter round on all but the last 12" of bottom rail which I will leave quite sharp. Is there anything that might work better, aside from having to laminate thick rails myself to shape them to a slightly more normal surfboard shape?
What I am going for will NOT be a “normal” surfboard by most means, more like a floating box, but that being said, I really would like it to float and I welcome any ideas and help that anyone would like to give to a first-timer with a quirky imagination.
For 1/8 inch skins u need much more frequent ribs/stringers than 8" grid.
Try 3-4" instead. And/or at least glass the inner side of the deck with 6oz glass.
And consider 4mm/ 3/16inch ply for deck.
Or use 1/4 inch deck with little or no frame under it.
Look at huck’s threads, he knows the way to go and has done some
economical/easier builds as well as really, really, complex labors of
love.
He did at least one board with 1/4 inch ply skins with NO internal structure, good labor saver there.
For the rails consider changing your plan, if they are that square it won’t be likely to be fun to ride in my opinion. A surfboard needs rails.
If you don’t want the labor of strip building the rails, I would suggest you get the rails out of cedar 2x stock, miter-cut to get the outline and rocker or just stack and carve. Hollow rails out substantially also drill, router and/or mortising bit.
Never built anything that way but that’s how I might do it.
seann, You have not done your homework! You have no idea about what material to use or how to use it ! Go to this sight tree2sea.com . After you spend a couple weeks there then you can come back to sways and ask some intelligent questions . BWD , don’t give advise on something you don’t know anything about !! Some day I might build something, but I will be sure to do my home work first ! Grumpy old Wood_Ogre
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no internal structure huh? Sounds like my kinda gig.
I’m thinking if I make the rails out of 2x4 I’ll be able to round them sufficiently, and I’ll be able to use 1/4" deck on the top with just a stringer for inner bracing (or maybe 1/8" bracing every foot) with an 1/8" bottom.
For rails, I can just add 1/8" ply on top of the 2x4 to achieve my 3.5" thickness
I’m having trouble finding huck’s thread on a board with no internal structure, but I’ll keep looking and see what crazy ideas that puts in my head.
Don’t remember the thread and like the ogre said don’t make me your main Data point 'cause as I said I’ve not made a board that way.
But wood ogre btw I’m perfectly qualified enough to know something about wood structures even if I’m no ogre and I’m not telling anyone any made up exact recipe just common sense advice and a pointer to more knowledge, cheers
I think he was trying to tell me that I hadn’t done my homework, bwd, and to that I say please go condemn someone else’s surfboard project.
Right now, bwd, you’re the only dude in the e-universe that seems to give a flying fluck about my project, so I appreciate your input and I will look at some 1/4" ply, mainly because I want to avoid having to do a lot of bracing.
hi Seann if u post up some pics so we can see what you’re up to, its usually a lot easier to respond to a visual - even if its just pics of your drawings
Tommorth: Thanks for that link, it seems like it’s pretty close to what I’m invisioning, except my deck and bottom will be solid pieces of ply. Also I’m not quite sure how the last few pictures came together, but maybe I will try to contact them on that. It’s really amazing that I’ve been looking at these type of boards online for some time and I’ve yet to see that one. It’s beautiful the way the laminates look all sanded down to rails.
Huck: I’ve been searching for your elusive “fully hollow wooden board” on swaylocks for some time (it seems that there is no search bar?). I would really appreciate it if you could direct me to the right thread to find some more information on this concept you seem like a guy who’s been at the wood board game for a while and might know some tricks of the trade.
Each square box is 2", and the orange highlighted marks are foot markers. The measurments on the right ( or top or blue, there are fewer of them) are distances from the STRINGER. The measurements on the left( or bottom) are the entire width of the board.
The area of the drawing with a lot of horizontal lines is the nose, as I felt width measurments needed to be more frequent to maintain accuracy.
More pictures. The last measurement on the nose is 9 3/8" wide at 4’ 11", and that is where I would stop the rails and perhaps add a nose cap piece for the extra inch.
All the scribbling in blue is right next to the tail. From the 1’ mark to the 4’ mark, the measurements are 22 1/2", 22 13/16", 22 15/16", and 22 3/8". This is because I have read often that these style boards shaped this short need to have nearly parallell rails, and I figured it would give me extra float and planing surface anyhow.
Right now, my tail is 17 1//2", but I am considering widening that up to 22" because then I would not have to laminate 2x4’s together to achieve the current narrower tail width.
I’ve also attached an image I’ve been working off of sent to me by Donald Brink, whose “5’2” kookbox" inspired my build.
I apologize for the thousand posts but I have been having a hard time with adding pictures, though I think now I have a good system figured out.
Here’s a picture of the rocker. I’ve actually been thinking about modifying it to something more like 0 rocker in the tail, for simpliciities’ as well as that I’ve been reading that it has worked for others building foam minisimmons. What are people’s thoughts to this prospect?
I found something on the net pretty similar to my goal, even the dimensions are almost the same (if roughly scaled up):
Hey Seann - I will attempt to address some questions and issues in your posts that I hope will be helpful to you.
Since you start off by saying that your board is not “normal”, but the product of your “quirky imagination”, I hope you realize that limits the responses anyone could give. In other words, its difficult for even the most experienced surfboard builder to give helpful ideas on a project that few to none have ever done before. Nothing against being different and original, its just that sometimes you get more dialog with “here are some pics of the different and original board I made” than asking “what does anyone think about my ideas?”.
Not trying to bust your chops, just hoping you can see why myself and probably a lot of other people found it difficult to respond with anything meaningful to your original post.
Since you describe it as a “floating box”, you might enjoy this board by ilovesabrina…
I don’t think I had a dedicated thread on it on this forum, just some pics - I did have a thread on the tree-to-sea forum, but I’m pretty sure the pics are gone now, and I don’t have any copies on my computer.
Anyway, it was somewhat successful, meaning less than fully successful, so I’m not recommending it at this point.
Tree-to-Sea (http://www.grainsurf.com/forum/search.php?search_id=active_topics) is a good forum for getting answers and insights for a lot of what you want to accomplish, which Wood Ogre took the time to tell you - I was surprised by your response “go condemn someone
else’s surfboard project”, instead of “hey thanks I’ll check into it” or “appreciate learning that there is a wood surfboard forum” or something like that.
Wood Ogre is no slouch, he knows what he’s talking about, and builds awesome boards (see pic below). Probably you didn’t get it because his style of reply threw you off, but he was really giving some good advice.
I don’t know much about the simmons type boards, but there are several good threads on the subject. The search function is down, but there are some workarounds. http://www.swaylocks.com/forums/search-and-props-gone
Yeah let’s bend some 1/4" ply and shape some 2x4 rails ~ Ouch. Just go for it Seann and keep the pics coming. Perhaps we can all get a good laugh somehow. Don’t sweat it ~ as you said, its an experiment and your first. Wish you the best. More difficult things have been accomplished. xo
Huck: I am very much inspired by the “ilovesbrina floating box” posted up above. That’s pretty close to what I envision. Glad to know there’s someone crazier that I to cook up extending the bottom deck beyond the rails. Your information has been absolutely fantastic and I really appreciate it.
My verbage was perhaps not the best in the original post but I should have said something like: I’m not going after something perfect, complicated, or traditional, nor do I have the woodworking skill to approach these ends, but I appreciate the fact that there is a lot of knowledge I’ve observed floating around this particular message board (as well as tree2sea, on which I may post the same project) and I think it valuable to myself and to dudes like myself who will search for such a thing in the future to contribute my project to the cournacopia of surfboards.
dlock: “Yeah let’s bend some 1/4” ply and shape some 2x4 rails ~ Ouch." That’s pretty much my plan, and like you said (ouch) I’m pretty sure I will hit some substantial roadblocks, but it’s already been a blast and I’m stoked on it. I’ll keep posting pictures and updating, and I’m sure it will at least be good for snickers. It reminds me of the time I paddled out a 4’7" sawed off softtop and got some wierd looks, but I have to tell you, that was the most fun board I’ve ever ridden. it might be just the design phase, but if this stays this fun, I don’t think this’ll be my last project.
speaking of progress: I actually foraged some 2x4s at a burn house construction site so I’m planning on using those for rails, and my local home improvement store is having a sale for the long weekend, so I get 15% off of my lumber and clamps and glue woohoo!
I admire your adventurous spirit! As a thought you may want to look up parallel profile methods of construction. Roy Stewart , a former contributer to this site, does these and for your project it may work well. It is a simple and effective method and as Roy has demonstrated can be quite attractive. Your 2x and ply plan will actually work well with it I believe. As a note of caution, do not use lauan ply as the surface veneer peels away very easily. Also it is riddled with voids in the interior strata which make it brittle and weak. Instead , go for birch or maple veneer ply. Not only are they attractive but their cores are much more dense and solid. You will have a blast doing this build and learn a lot along the way. I am a 16 year master carpenter and will answer any questions you have on the woodworking side of things. Happy to help. Aloha always.
If you’re looking for birch, look around your local lumber yard for 1/8" baltic birch. It’s a 3 ply thing, two with the grain going 1 way and the interior grain going perpindicular to the other two. I’ve built many longboard skateboards with it, as have many others. Bends decently in a vacuum bag or some sort of mechanical press, depeding on how crazy your bends are of course. It comes as 5’x5’ sheets I believe, I pay like 20 bucks for one.
Schmidt is right about the luan, it’s got a crappy filler core or something along those lines. We had a miniramp surfaced with it, it doesn’t like water too much.
Schmidt: Thanks so much for the advice on the ply! Not being an experienced woodworker, I had no idea that the composite materials of plywood could alter their characteristics so much.
I have the choice (at my local lumber yard) of going with 4x8 sheets of 1/8" fir veneer, birch veneer or 1/4" “marine grade” ply. Noone around me has specifically baltic birch, but rather the above are my options, and the birch veneer is only birch on ONE side…
The marine grade ply is $50, and the rest are $25, I think it might be worth the extra, especially since I’m only buying one sheet. Per the lumberyard employees, it’s used for “boats” and it should take to bending and glueing just like any other ply. Anyone have any experience with “marine grade” ply? worth the dough?
I can’t find much information other than on Mr. Stewart’s site about parallell construction, however it seems like my design (with close to 0 tail rocker and very full rails) is pretty close to what he was doing, (minus all the experienced carpentry haha!).
I think I should detail my construction process as I’m sure it could do with some helpful hints. Speaking of which, thank all of you who have already provided me with loads of great tips and info!
cut deck slab of plywood.
cut rocker into 2x4 rails and possibly a stringer slightly thicker than my rails which would make the deck slightly more rounded and also allow me to MAYBE forego dealing with an intricate network of bracing.
glue ply to rails, leaving 3/4" overhang outside of the deck slab with which to shape a decent rail out of. Leave 1" free at the nose and tail for blocks
figure out bracing (probably 1/2" ribs every 1 foot with 1/4" ply, but I really need to get my hands on that wood to determine adequate bracing)
Glue bracing to deck slab using concrete blocks placed on top of a sheet of extraneous plywood on top of the braces on top of the deck.
Sand bracing down to match rocker
7.Create nose/ tail blocks (huge question marks here)
I recently had the opportunity to purchase a 4’6" “catch surf beater” for $40 on craigslist. I am stoked on this thing, however unfortunately it’s going to rain for the next week or so. The gods are not on my side, so back to the wood. I bought the board to compare its performance as it’s a smaller version of what I would like to create, per the dimensions on the website, however I didn’t know that the rocker (not posted on website) is virtually non existant. There’s tons of video around of people shredding this thing in tiny surf so this spells good news for me and my mostly flat surfing box.
