I know that alot of people use balsa to make their boards but i was wondering how strong and water resistant it was.
can anyone help me out?
thanks
Strong it is, water resistant it is not.
alright thanks a lot man
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I know that alot of people use balsa to make their boards but i was wondering how strong and water resistant it was.
can anyone help me out?
thanks
[/quote]
Easy to shape.
Makes nice shavings - therapeutic ; )
only made balsa skinned compsands and nose tailblock sections but balsa sucks water like somethin outta Full Metal Jacket…
…so you need to ensure that your glassing is water tight. Dings need to be fixed immediatly and any water will stain the wood permanently.
++ definately second the easy shaping/therapeutic remarks
– downers: peel strength + compound curveswith thicker balsa
how to make it impenatrable to water???
http://www.kon-tiki.no/Ny/Dok_eng/e_start.html
“The object of the expedition was to test the sea-going abilities of the
South American balsa raft, and to investigate whether it would have
been practically possible for the original native population of Peru,
the Incas and their remarkably cultured predecessors, to have reached
the islands out in the open Pacific.”
“For more than a century scientists had debated as to whether balsa
rafts were seaworthy, and to what extent it might have been possible
for the aboriginal inhabitants of South America to have contributed
to the peopling of the Pacific islands. The experts had finally concluded
that the balsa raft was water absorbent and therefore compelled to
hug the home coast where it could be beached at intervals and dried
out in the sun.”
So, did Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon Tiki expedition prove the experts right or wrong?
Surfer Dave - nice Full Metal Jacket nod - I think the movie line goes something like
“You [balsa wood] look like you could suck a golf ball through a garden hose.”
I was thinking that S glass and epoxy might make a nice skin for a balsa -
what do you think about a poly coat or thompsons waterproof seeler?
I wouldn’t do it. The old pine and redwood boards were varnished. When they started making boards from balsa they glassed them for strength and protection.
balsa is super light and easy to work with, but once it’s exposed to water it turns to mush, any of my balsa deck-skinned boards that were dinged sucked water instantly, the interior and exterior deck laminates separated in the wet spots as now i had laminate bonded to mush(balsa) bonded to laminate, they sure ride awesome, look cool, and are light, but once dinged and exposed to water…that all changes, glass em’ heavy, dont ding em’, or use something else, just my two cents as i’ve been water issues with my balsa deck-skins
Make sure you wear a mask when you shape or sand it. Balsa dust is nasty.
Shaping a balsa board is one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done in surfing. You can seal the finished shape with a thin lam resin to minimize the wood soaking up too much resin duing the lamination. Just be careful in the waves; if you ding it, get out and fix it quick. You might think about glassing it with epoxy (which is the way I would go next time). The yellowing won’t look too bad, it’s light and stronger than poly.
[img_assist|nid=1046946|title=Cheap wood|desc=|link=none|align=center|width=0|height=0]If your super anal about dings just glass it in Volan!
Weight vs Dings.
What if the sky falls?
I glass mine 4oz top and bottom with Poly.
Epoxy turns yellow. I've seen Balsa boards stay clear for years glassed in Poly.
Are you using Male or female Timbers?
Chambering?
Balsa is beautiful and glides.
If you like weight, go ahead and armor the thing with double 10’s of volan and maybe even an extra rail patch. Light, chamber and single 4’s. I mentioned epoxy because it is lighter and stronger than poly. On a balsa, the yellowing epoxy really won’t make it look too bad…it’ll have that old age patena going for it.
I just patched the rails of my gun (6 oz bottom 2X 4 oz deck) after dropping the bugga on a curb…most of your dings are going to happen out of the water. Just keep a eye on things. Even shatters can soak up water. Thats the price you pay for the eye candy and glide.
I’ve been riding balsa boards almost exclusively for about 17 years, I’ve built a few. I can tell you from experience that the stories about balsa sucking water are exagerated to say the least. How did this myth start? I speculate that it goes back to the adaption of foam as a surfboard core and the foam proponents using this as a selling point. Misguided as it was.
We all know what water will do to foam and it’s not pretty if left unattended. But what does it really do to balsa? My post above about Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon Tiki is an example of facts getting in the way of myth.
As far as dings in my balsa board, most of my experience is with dry dings. Recently in Hawaii I got a big rail ding when one of my friends, riding one of my boards, leashless, miscalculated and wiped out. His (my) board getting loose in the soup and running me over putting a giant fin ding in my Waikiki Pintail. Since I was out at Paradise Reef (Waikiki) and it was a long paddle in I headed for the beach. Back at the hotel room I opened the ding and was suprised to find it wasn’t very wet. I dug out the small area of moisture to find it bone dry underneath the crushed wood and glass. With a quick Suncure fix I was back in the water in no time.
We talked about it later on the beach and one of my Team Balsa riders mentioned Thor Heyerdal’s Kon Tiki.
I decided to do a little experiment after reading some of the “expert opinions” on this thread. You can click here: http://www.balsabill.com/BalsaExperiment.htm to see the results. They speak for themselves.
Balsa, that is a cool test
i will repeat it, but with strips of 1/16th balsa that i use to make high perf shorties, hope to post results in the weekend
Wouter
This thread started on Nov 1. When I read ACEs post I thought I would do my own test . So I weighed a small piece of balsa and put it in my fish tank I put a small weight on it and it has been floating around there ever since . I have been waiting for it to turn to mush or sink, This morning it still looked fine. Some time this afterenoon I will weigh it and post the results. I kinda think Balsa Bills test is on target.
I don’t use balsa, because I have access to as much local grown paulownia as I like, and balsa has to come from Papua New Guinea.
I’ve heard that balsa gets the black fungi after a few months of moisture though… Paulownia can stay wet for years! Ask me how I know 
The main concern I can see is if it stays wet, but why would anyone do that to a board!
Water resistance is overrated IMHO, just make sure the board is made in such a way that it won’t stay wet.
So to me that means sealing the inside of any chambers/hollow boards, and the inside skins of compsands must be perfectly sealed. Then just fix dings promptly!
People who don’t get dings fixed shouldn’t ride wood boards