6'6 Pine Alaia

General Discussion
1

Hi Everyone,

Below are some photos showing my progress at shaping my first wooden surfboard.

My inspiration I hope is obvious and I look forward to being able to take this board into the water and feel her perform beneath my feet.

Thank you to those people here at Sways - Bj’s, Oldy etc and elsewhere who have provided me with tips.

I know that Paulownia is the preferred wood for the Alaia, but here in the north of Scotland it is not readily available. Hence I chose cheaper (I guess) and plentiful pine.

The board will be 6’6" x 15 3/4" x 3/4" when finished.

I made my outline using Aku Shaper with lots of reference to the ever increasing number of Alaia articles now popping up on the web. Once happy I printed the pattern at full size using PosteRazor (Google it !!) onto A4 sheets of paper which were matched, taped and cut out.

I used Titebond III to glue together my 3 lengths of 1 x 6 pine using the ‘rope and screwdriver’ method of clamping !

Once dry, I took the resulting (heavy) plank to work where I managed to get it passed through a thickness planer, bringing it down to 3/4" thick.

The plan was transferred and cut out using a jigsaw.

The final shape that I cut seemed quite pleasing to my eye, so I continued…

Next steps involved lots of planing and sanding. Please not liberal use of kitchen stools much to my Wife’s amusement (or was it despair),

either way they did an admirable job until I get round to building a proper set of stands.

The pine was quite nice to work with and over the course of a weekend I was able to shape the rails and concave.

That’s as far as I have progressed so far. I have purchased some Danish Oil and I m in the process of applying this to some test pieces of wood. I hope to apply a logo to the board (see my avatar) using a wood burning pen when I can get hold of one.

I weighed the board today and it comes out at 14lb.

I will post more photos as I take them. In the meantime, please comment, criticise or ask questions as you see fit.

Regards

Surfer, 35

2

Very tidy - Surfer35!

Light pine might be more desirable than the highly overrated paulownia seen here in Australia.

Seems to fit the wood type (sugar pine) that Kahanamoku used (different shape) at Freshwater 1914 -15?

The float will be lower than paulownia - can you establish density m3 - if it matters?

Regards

MF

3

Hey Platty,

Funny you should mention the camber. I was looking at the board this morning, thinking should I push on and oil it without bothering to mark in the logo or should I be patient and do a bit more work. Seeing as the weather is so poor at the moment, I guess there is no rush to complete, so I think I will do some more work to the deck to camber it slightly. I am getting to the stage where I am wary of doing too much and ruining what I have already made!

I am more than happy to post my .brd file if people want to use it as a starting template.

Regards

Surfer, 35

4

Nice outline. I’m thinking of doing one with a similar outline. They are pleasing to the eye.The grain in your pine looks good. Should look great with some oil on it. I’m preasently oiling #4 and shaping #5. Western Red Cedar is my timber of choise at the moment but i’m keen to get some paulowina. Are you going to put some camber in the deck? platty.

5

Midget,

Given the current popularity of paulownia I’d be interested to hear a contrary view - why you think paulownia is over-rated. If you’d rather send this as a pm that is ok.

Bob

6

why not eps and carbon fiber, make a 4 pound one and see how it goes

7

Very nice, welcom to sways glad to have you aboard.

Living in the UK i totally hear you on the timber choice and understand the problems we have sourcing good timber and its expence, I will also be making a pine alia shortly.

I love the template. it will look great once it’s oiled up.

Not sure about the wood burning/marking pen, use a soldering iron with a pointed tip. Maplins do a small batery powered one for delicate computer work that is ideal for intricate designs like your avatar pick. reminds me of Buckmister fuller’s geodesic dome.

I was thinking of adding thin hard wood “stringers” between the pine - purely assetic, do you think that that would impeed the flex?

8

Can you please post pics of the rails closer to the nose. I’ve been trying to find pics of this but everybody posts the tail. Are they rounded in a 50/50 rail or are they sharp the entire length of the board? thank you

9

Hey Monkstar,

No worries, I will take some more photos and post them up. In the meantime a description: I just carried the hard rail outline all the way to the nose and then blended it in. It looks like a hull underneath and a smooth curve on top. I’m not sure if this is the way to go, but based on the old saying “if it looks right…” etc.

All the best,

Surfer, 35

10

This looks great. I too am interested in making one from pine so thanks for blazing the trail. I’ve got a variable soldering iron so i’ll try it out on a piece of wood to see if it’s within it’s temperature range to burn your logo in. I’ll be waiting for the ride report!

Tom

11

I’ve tried both pine and paulownia, and apart from price and availability I can’t think why you’d choose pine over paulownia. Pine deteriorates really quickly in salt water. It’s heavier and doesn’t have the same lively flex. If you make it thin enough to flex it tends to split. It’s also a lot harder to work with.

Don’t get me wrong, surfer35’s board looks awesome, that shape is spot on! That thing will ride well, but I guarantee it’d ride better in paulownia. I realise it’s not readily available everywhere, and can be expensive, and that also why I made my first couple from pine too. But after trying paulownia (because it’s easily available here) I’d never go back!

12

hey surfer35, your board looks great mate. enjoy!

13

Nice work mate,looks like a fun project, very interesting.

I can see I’m going to have to start wearing my Gath helmet again if this movement catches on ! : )

14

S35,

One thing that particularly interested me was your shaping set-up - how did you manage to get the board not to move while doing the deck and bottom? I could see a clamp on one side of the chair when you had the board on its rail - what was the method here to stablise the board.

I shaped a board on a set of saw stills and put a wooden jig underneath, but there was still too much movement for my liking.

Bob

15

the board looks great. you guys keep posting up these awesome Alaias. makes me wanna try to make one. just gotta figure out what type of wood to go with.

keep up the good work

16

This might go against the whole alaia “thing” but what if you glassed a pine board? It could help with the flex and water issues.

17

Hi Bob,

My setup was by necessity quite basic and definately not ideal. I used the clamped piece of wood you see on the seats to stop the bottom rail sliding away from the back of the stool. By placing the stools in opposition to each other I was able to form quite a tight hold on the wood. Be warned, the stool backs left some nasty marks in the wood which I am having to hide/disguise/repair. Later on in the process I wrapped some cloth around the surfaces which came into contact with the wood and this prevented any further damage. Once I got to shaping and sanding the deck etc I found gravity and friction against the material sufficient to hold the bord in place. No different to regular shaping stands.

If after having completed this I decide to build more boards (I think we all know the answer!!) I will make some custom trestles.

Here are a couple more pictures showing the nose area of the board. As you can see I have left the transition between the rail and the hull quite sharp for now, whereas I have started to blend the rail with the deck on the top side. Having read some of the other posts in the past, I am wary of rounding things out too much.

1st pic shows deck and RHS rail

AlaiaProject_015.jpg479×638 17.8 KB

Deck and RHS again

AlaiaProject_014-1.jpg479×638 19.8 KB

Last pic showing underside at the nose.

Thanks again for the comments.

Regards

Surfer, 35

18

very nice board

19

it would have better bouyancy tho and be durable. you could make the core in polystyrene and laminate red cedar to it then glass the whole lot in 4 oz. it would weigh no more then 5 pounds and it could be similar stiffness if you chuck in some carbon fiber. just a fully hightech version and maybe with a touch of rocker.

gotta say this is one of the nicest alaias ive seen tho

do you mind if i copy it?

20

I finished work early today and managed to borrow a soldering iron too.

I decided to start work on the logo - I made a template on the computer, printed it, and then transferred it to the deck using carbon paper.

I’m pretty pleased with the result too. I had to use dots to follow the outline for two reasons.

  1. The iron did not have enough power to keep it’s heat whilst drawing lines.

  2. The grain in the pine caused the tip of the iron to jump making it very difficult to copy the pattern.

I want to add the dimensions and a signature to the board as well, I may have to come up with a cunning plan to achieve this!

Regards

Surfer, 35