Got my wood today: 1/4" marine grade fir ply 4x8 $56
Got a deal on clamps too, $8 for 16", and $9 for 24"
that was / is a great thread, so much to read and absorb, ilovesa Tina’s board is both old skool and yet cutting edge, amazing ideas from Speedneedle.
It’s not just a figment of my imagination anymore. What a torpedo! That spare ply is what’s going to be turned into internal bracing.
According to my rigorous strength tests (pushing on a piece of ply between two paint cans) my internal bracing should be about 6", so that would mean 10 ribs thoughout the deck between the rails and setting up 6" squares with braces perpendicular to the ribs.
I’m planning on creating 4 feet of each rail from an 8’ redwood 2x6 my friend gave me; the tail block out of 2x4, and the nose, well I’ll be honest I havn’t figured out the nose yet, but I’m thinking if I have enough ply I can laminate a nose section of rail and just glue it with overlapping internal support to the rail (2x6). More on that as better ideas come to me.
Cool, bring it on !
Dig the enthusiasm man, much appreciated
that is awesome!
Thanks man! I’m really stoked on it
no rocker?
You can’t see it on the photographs (clearly I’m not the best photographer either haha!), but there is the beginning (about 1/2") of a rocker in those 2x6s, it’s going to be overall about 3 1/2" of rocker in the nose, none in the tail. The 2x6s will not travel to the end of the nose, so my nose block (I’m going to laminate together my remaining ply in the shape of the nose) and stringer (outlined below) will have the final nose rocker in them.
My bracing plans have changed yet again. I plan to have a fir 2x4 stringer as that has felt the most solid to me, and I’m going to drill 2 1/2" holes every 4" in the 2x4 to lessen the weight. Next, I will have ribs of my 1/4" ply running every six inches from the stringer to the rails.
2x4 rails, 2x4 stringer, 1/4 ply skins. Don’t need any ribs.
This is a great build, can’t wait ! Keep posting please.
Sean
Lookin good man. When it comes time for your glue up are you planning to use epoxy or wood glue? If you are using wood glue I strongly recommend tite bond3 it is a waterproof pva glue I use when building cedar strip canoes and kayaks. If you want a stronger bond in your laminated parts try making some dookie schmuts from epoxy mixed with the sanding dust from your sander. Epoxy by itself is not the strongest as a glue but once mixed with a thixotropic agent it is bomb proof. Also before final assembly you may want to baste the interior of your board with a sealer coat of resin or varnish Scince you are not glassing the exterior. If you cheater coat the outside with epoxy, sand to 320 and then varnish 4-6 coats you will have a beautifull and durable work of art. Hope this helps. Keep up the good work.
Schmidt, dookie schmuts, never heard that one before, I like it! I mix up dookie schmuts almost everyday. Remember to wear protection when mixing dookie schmuts,and be carful not to get any on you! Did you know that Wood magazines glue tests rated tite bond 3 and tite bond 2 the same waterproof-ness and tite bond 2 was slightly stronger. They were so close to the same I wounder why they made the tite bond 3 ?
Hey ogre
Yep dookie schmuts, I got that one from Nick Schade. He wrote the strip built sea kayak. Fantastic book on strip building. I have read woods glue review and I think the differance between Titebond 1&2 are the waterproof verses water resistant aspect of the adhesive. One thing that is nice, Titebond 2 is yellow and Titebond 3 is a brownish color. This is nice for matching to the wood you are working with. I have also used polyurethane glue such as gorilla glue which is water resistant. I think polyurethane wood glue is rubbish. Especially due to its foaming during cure. Further it is my belief that it is weaker than pva because of this action. I do a lot of cold lamination and use either Titebond 2 or3 or good ole dookie schmuts. Wood is so fun to work with and is my drug of choice. That being said, foam is a blast. It’s fun to see my ideas come to fruition so quickly. I am working on a new method of building HWS. There will be a build thread detailing the process soon. By the way, ogre you have the chops. I love your work. Craftsmen are few and far between and hacks a dime a dozen.
woodglue: I was actually planning on using gorilla glue and I already have some so I’m at least going to use it for part of the glue work, but when I have to buy some new stuff, I’ll go with titebond 2 or 3. I think 2 is much cheaper at my local hardware store so probably that if they’re the same except for color anyway.
What is this dookie schmuts stuff? just woodglue mixed with some sanding dust? if so, what’s a good ratio?
here’s some pictures of the structural plan minus the ribbing, which i’ve decided is only going to support where my feet land (about 8" from tail and 18" from nose). Looks like a house. it seems my years in repair and remodel are heavily influencing my surfboard design. We’ll see if it’s for better or worse, i just hope it floats!
Glueing!
I still havn’t decided whether I’m going to do a 2x4 stringer or just the 1/4" bracing every 6" , we’ll see where the winds of psychosis blow me.
YES!
if you mentioned it earlier, sorry i missed it, but any reason for using 2x4s instead of something thinner like a 1x4? i like the ghetto factor of a 2x4, but seems like they’ll be pretty heavy. can’t wait to see more pics
the phrase “ghetto factor” made me actually laugh at my computer. well done sir!
My reasoning is thus: I wanted as much of the rail length as possible to be one piece of wood, therefore minimizing bending or breaking. The outline of my shape only varies by about 1 1/2" from the 2" mark to the 4’2" mark, and therefore I could use one piece of wood that was 2" thick for that entire rail section, leaving just my tail 2" and nose 10" for the nose and tail blocks and hopefully a very strong surfboard. I also want to shape the rails into something more “surfboardish” like a D rail, instead of having all sharp, kookbox rails. Using 2x4’s gives me the ability to, with the near 2" width in the narrower sections of the board nearer to the nose, shape some sort of rail, while leaving the tail’s rails relatively square to hold on waves because I havn’t decided on my fin setup yet, and might go finless as that is probably one of my most fun surfing tendacies.
Thanks for the comments! I love that I seem to be attracting people who appreciate the unavoidable bizarre/ crazy factor to my project.