I’m currently finishing off a PU foam board but when that’s finished I would really like to try doing a balsa board.
So, how does one go about making a balsa blank? And also, are there any balsa wood suppliers to the UK that don’t sell that end grain flex stuff with fibreglass on the bottom?
To be honest I want to try and keep this board as eco friendly as possible. Using linen cloth and epoxy, unless I can get hold of some cambridge biopolymers eco-resin.
There is a distributor of balsa blanks in the UK but they cost 350 quid or 700 dollars pretty much, which is obviously quite expensive if you can make one yourself for cheaper.
If you buy balsa wood that has been shipped half way around the world the surfboard you made from it would not be eco friendly. It would be expensive! There is a lot of wasted wood when you make a chambered balsa board! Just think of all that money laying on the shop floor in the form of wood shaveings. Linen cloth is not good. If you are useing local grown wood and useing the best epoxy resin and glass cloth and making a surfboard that will last 100 or more years then that is eco friendly !!!!
If you want to be as green as possible - source wood locally and go with either an extremely chambered board or a hollow construction. You might be surprised by what will work if you carefully select your lumber. Poplar’s an option, and even pine can surprise you sometimes - Marc Billion built a heavily chambered pine egg from select lumber a few years back near me and that board went really well. Not so green options include Samba, which is a bit lighter than poplar and generally a lot cheaper.
But, if you want to stick with balsa (I love the stuff personally) - it’s pretty much always a pricey venture. 700 for a blank, considering shipping costs, import taxes and all the rest, is pretty reasonable. I’ve imported blanks and lumber into France half a dozen times and it can be done a bit cheaper, but not that much unless you’re ordering several. MP me for details if you’d like - who I’ve ordered from and how and all that - too long to go into here unless its helpful to others as well.
Lumber won’t be much cheaper than a blank unless you get really lucky (we (read Jean-Marc from Shaperoom.fr) found a stock of old aeronautical lumber in a sawmill once, a great score!) From Sharkbay or Balsa Flite or most anyone else, you don’t save enough to make it worthwhile unless you want to do a special glue-up or rocker, or just want the challenge.
We’ve got balsa blanks at the shop form 6’6 to 10’2 - but getting one to you might be tricky. Transport to the UK is always high! No lumber until the next container gets here, which means whenever the guys in the southern hemisphere get around to it. Any plans to make it to the Southwest of France?
Yeah ideally I’d like to stick with balsa for this first venture into wooden boards.
Suppose the balsa blank is the way forward really. Either that or buy some balsa seeds and start my own farm. Haha
Would love to get to Southwest France one of these days, need to get some practice in for my french. Bit rusty, hasn’t been used for a couple of years.
I was going to use these guys to buy the blank, have you had any experience with them?
I don’t know anything about that company. But, they should consult with someone who knows a bit about surfing’s history. That website is filled with gross errors. Like, who the hell is “Rabbit Makaha”?
You know, Fall is a perfect time to practice one’s French… sure that there’s time for a sentence or two between waves.
I haven’t worked with the guys on the balsasurfers site. Mostly with Sharkbay and Balsa Flite - though there are also a couple of other companies importing lumber. This latter is really only an option if you’re looking for quantity!
If you can hand select your blank, you’ll find that there are some huge variances in weight and wood texture.
Balsa’s not cheap, but its great to work with. What type of board are you planning to shape?
And finally, for the five year plan: plant a few paulowina trees! Grows fast, easy care, etc. Not as light a balsa, but good stuf none-the-less.
I was probably going to do a 6’ 4" quad fish similar to the one that Ocean Green produce. I’d rather go with a tested design for the first foray seeing as it’s not a cheap thing to make a design error on.
Yeah I’ve seen a lot written about paulownia on various american sites, but again it’s not that easy to come by here in the UK. It’s definatly one for the future though.
Haha, I’ll have to bear that in mind, be nice like because by then I would’ve finished off both boards. Got some friends in France that I’ve been meaning to see for agesss. Hmmm, road trip springs to mind.
How common are issues such as varying wood density with balsa? I know it’s a soft wood generally, but I’ve read (probably here on swaylocks) that you can come across denser lumps that become a b*tich when sanding?
Just to echo what’s already been said, I can tell you from experience with cutting balsa trees, milling them and curing them, that the density varies not only from tree to tree, but between sections of the same tree. I have zero experience in buying balsa sticks, but if its possible, I would speak with the broker/seller and request that the peices be as close in density as possible. If you place two pieces of diffrerent densities next to each other in creating the blank, you’ll have a very hard time sanding them equally.
In any case, balsa is a joy to work with. Happy shaping!
This was on magic seaweed a while back, know nothing about the seller but could be good
Hi everyone, I am a Boat Builder/Surfboard shaper and have just returned
from living in the Canary islands & Costa Rica to the u.k after 10
years. I have brought back with me first quality balsa
wood. All the wood has been sourced from sustainable farms in Ecuador,
some sections are (160mmx80mmx3.0metres) perfect for surfboard blanks!!
But I would be glad to cut any size you might need. I can also build
the blanks if required. Please feel free to contact me on
‘woodworker1@hotmail.co.uk’ Thanks
“How common are issues such as varying wood density with balsa? I know it’s a soft wood generally, but I’ve read (probably here on swaylocks) that you can come across denser lumps that become a b*tich when sanding?”
There will be pretty big variations thoughout the length of a given piece of lumber, even on a pre-made blank. Hard spots, soft spots (hopefully no pith to deal with), grain changes… but if you go slowly it’ll go fine. I do tend to use a big Hitachi carpentry planer (thanks Balsa) to do my roughing out as that thing doesn’t care what it’s carving through, and it keeps my lines a lot closer to true than with a little guy.
I’d strongly recommend a thorough look at the archives - there are some great hints and tool techniques from years past.
Some great advice in your post. The taping idea is clever - an easy way to avoid a lot of hassles.
And I fully agree with a skim coat. We’ve tried a few things: thinned or not, uv vs regular and ended up keeping it easy with a thin coat of lam resin, preferably late afternoon as things are cooling down and the resin is pulled slightly inwards. Very few bubbles of any size with this method and no delamination issues whatsoever.
I’ve found the same as far as weights go -literally all over the place within the same shipment of wood. A bit of careful planning, as you said, will spread that out functionally.
All this wood-speak has me thinking its time to break out some balsa!
After first weghing the logs and laying them out how you want them , the various densities with balsa only really become a problem when you get down to the fine sanding..........if you have a need to cut , say a 6" by 4" down the middle , the two halfs will rarely be equal in weight , because the trees are just not that big in diameter....in any case the rocker in the logs will determine how you can use them . Full quartersawn logs are hard to come by