hey everybody,
I’m in the process of ordering Paulownia planks from Georgia, to make an ALAIA (or 2). apparently they only have a limited amount because they sold all the lumber in that size to the surfboard industry (I wonder why?).
Anyway, I’ll probably be ordering 1"x4"x 7’ at $8.50 a piece plus shipping. anybody interested in putting orders together?
then again, there’s a chance I won’t do anything 
Is that $8.50 a piece or $8.50 a board foot? Normally wood is sold by $/BF?
I would try and get a container together instead from OZ. 4 x 6 x 10 beams would look better and worth more the effort, however if your source is only $8.50 per board that’s pretty cheap and not so much risk?
Let me know if you are going to do it. I would definetly be interested in hopping on it.
Send me a pm when you decide on what you want to do.
it’s 8.50 per board 1"x4"x7’, but without shipping.
I just heard back from them, shipping is $25 for 5 boards ($5 per board), $38 for 9 boards ($4.22 per board) and I assume it will go down some more for larger quantities, but I don’t expect it to go much lower than 4 or 3.50 per board.
the container from Oz sounds ambitious, and not very “Green”. I’d rather go with some locally available wood at that point. which I might do anyway. I’m still deciding.
How many boards do you think it would take to make a solid chambered board? @ 1"x4"x7’ that could get interesting.
What do you think?
How many boards do you think it would take to make a solid chambered board? @ 1"x4"x7’ that could get interesting.
What do you think?
I used about 60 board feet when I build my 6’ 2" chambered balsa board. A 1x4x7 is 2.333 board feet. That means that you will need at least 26 boards at that dimension. I’d get a few extra to be on the safe side, though.
they only have 27 boards left in stock, and that number is dropping fast.
I also thing that, if your board is less than 7’ long, and, let’s say, 20" wide, and a 4" nose rocker is enough, you can probably get away with 22 boards.
one more thinig: the boards are “tongue and groove” along the 1" face
With that in mind I think my interest in these planks just went away. I appreciate the fact that you posted it and gave all of us the opportunity to order with you.
Thank you and sorry for any inconveniance.
2 or 3 boards would make a compsand
you would get 5 venneers per board maybe
paul, someone on your side of the globe seriously needs to look in to the paulownia export business.
get it to Long Beach and I’ll figure out the rest.
roys prolly got a container load of it
you guys should just plant it
youll be harvesting in 5 years aye
Only thing with that is that you have to have enough space to be able to dry it out in a manner that will keep the boards from twisting.
For some reason currently I am not all that interested in building a compsand. I am kinda stuck on wanting a solid chambered board. I like the idea of shaping the board out of solid wood rather then piecing it together. My dad would have enough space for me to grow it but no where to dry it out properly. I wouldn’t even know how to dry it correctly.
Can we order anything like 4"x4"xwhatever bards of Paulowina?
maybe! if roy wasnt banned from swaylocks for life
i think he sends kits for his boards all round the world
so maybe he would send you some wood only
i dunno what the rules are
anyway you will find him on
Paulownia
GREEN? What are you talking about? Paulownia is not endangered? It grows like weeds!
Getting a container from OZ is not evil?
Paulownia grows 18 feet per year!
I’m sorry Surfding,the limited supply is a piece of info I got after my original post, when I got the details on shipping
Also, my intention is to make an ALAIA, therefore 5 planks in that size are more than I need, and if other people are interested in Alaias we can build many with 27 planks
Howzit surfding, Maybe this thread should be renamed to anybody in San Diego interested in growing Paulownia.Aloha,Kokua
The wood grows like 18 feet a year so I did not think that makes it unfriendy to bring over a container that would be shared by the shaping community?
I was thinking co-opp.
sure, no hard feelings.
Just to clarify, my first “green” comment was not about Paulownia being an endangered species, it was about the fuel burning, polluting cargo ship that would bring it over. that’s why I said “I’d rather go with locally available wood”. shipping from Georgia is one thing, shipping from Australia in a different story.
Then again, we (meaning modern man) ship everything everywhere constantly, therefore your plan would not make much difference anyway, but I still think it’s odd, for instance, to drink “S.Pellegrino” water here in SoCal (and being Italian I should be happy about it), do we really need to ship containers of bottled water around the globe?
I have a wood broker looking in to sourcing at present. The first approch is to find a source here in the states. If I can’t get the size beams I want I will have to out source from a different country. The Law of Economics takes over from there.
Kokua:
I was thinking about your comment?
Kauai has the best climate for growing these trees and you won’t have to worry about water. How a about we buy a large piece of property inland and plant a few thousand trees then we can harvest in 5 years and re-plant. Leave part of the crop for older growth. In five years we can have a mill set-up on the property ready to process out first crop. We can throw in some balsa as well?
We can even plant a few 100 Koa trees for our Grand Kids (one day). That would be pretty green. Build what you grow!