I’ve been lurking on swaylocks for alaia inspiration for some time, but finally decided to signup. I included some pics of my latest alaia attempt. When I had the chance to talk to Jon Wegener in San Diego on a trip last year he was raving about wide alaias so I thought I’d give it a try. I have to say this is the easiest one to ride I’ve been able to make. After riding it for two days in knee high waves, I broke my toe on it, but it’s still my favorite ride of late. It’s a little tricky keeping it from flattening down the wave and sending me flying (the width I think), but once I set a line it just works like a charm up and down the face and you’ve heard it before, but it is the fastest thing I’ve ridden, hands down.
I also was extra careful to make the concave a slight reverse rocker on this one for total flatness while standing. It’s something folks on swaylocks mentioned and it seems to work like a charm, but I can’t differentiate it from the other elements of the board. I also carved out the top side of the lumpy bits on the bottom-kind of a gull wing look. I like to think it makes the board flex more in the tail, but at 20" wide, who knows. I’m not good enough on it yet to tell.
Things I’ve learned after 4 alaias:
Parabolics rule-the tail seems to pivot in the wave-I like that. The rounded outlines feel more like a cafeteria tray to me with too much stick in the middle and not enough at the tail, but this might be more to do with my previous boards not being flat enough on the bottom of the board towards the tail.
super deep concaves work great on steep waves. It seems to hold it on the face in steeper drops. I had a hard time with the wegener peanut I started on and put about 3x more concave in a couple boards and its a world different. I think Tom Wegener said something about flat is faster, concave is more lala (whatever that means) but I don’t care, I need confidence builders, so I’m carving canyons on the bottom of mine. These boards are already magic carpet rides as is, who needs to go faster?
Sanding between coats of oil reallly helps. Tom Wegener said to use something like 800 grit in a video I saw, but I went with 1200 on my latest ride and it’s really different. I went back and sanded all of my boards, but haven’t tried them yet.
On this board, for sealer I was playing around in an unscientific way and used a mix of hot pine tar, linseed oil and lots of turpentine for the first 2 coats, then I had to get on a plane to costa rica. For a finish coat I used what they happened to have in costa rica for sealer, which was Sur brand aciete impregnable? Anyway, it’s “impregnating oil” and probably has driers in it, but it soaked in way better than linseed with turpentine and gave a more long lasting finish, plus I could sand it way smoother (1200). Pick some up next time you’re in costa rica, haha. Actually if anyone knows of similar stuff stateside let me know.
On the pine vs pawlownia debate, Im going to have to weigh in heavily on the powlownia side. My first attempt was pine. It was a sinker, though it rode great. It’s just that it cracked the first time out, despite sealer. Pawlownia is also a dream for the beginner woodworker (me).
That’s all I’ve got, just super stoked on these things. If they weren’t so hard to ride, I’d never go back to finned boards. I’ve got two more in the works in the 7 ft range and some templates for a hollow wood board if I ever get around to it.
Cheers…
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