chambered balsa shortboards?

General Discussion
1

hello,

wondering if anyone has built a chambered balsa shortboard or fish? how much does it weigh? what does it feel like surfing?

i calculated the following: with a weight of 150kg per cu m and a volume around 26 litres it should weigh around 3,9kg. if i took approx. 20% off when chambering, weight would be 3,1kg (think its possible to take even more off). 

with gelcoat to seal it and plus finboxes, weight should be under 4kg - realistic or not? and yes i dont want to glass it. 

what do you think?

 

2

This is the shortest i’ve seen:


3

Doing one at the moment, have not decided if its gonna be a fish or a eggy type board. I think wider outlined boards for cruising on will be more successful at this weight as opposed to a performance ish shortboard outline etc , Ill let you know what weight it comes out at and post more pics as it goes along…

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4

The shortest I’ve built is 6’9 I think, but I’ve built a couple in that size range. Maybe a 6’6. Nothing high performance, just functional single fins in the slightly generous dimensions range.

If you do a good chambering job, and your initial balsa isn’t too heavy, you’ll come out with a very ridable board even by ‘modern’ standards. Won’t have much flex, but plenty of drive and dampening characteristics. 

5

pretty sure I have seen some very short balsa board on ACE’s website, significantly shorter than the Andreini fish posted, whether they are chambered I don’t know.  

ACE’s website… at least the part regarding photos of balsa is here: http://acesurfboards.zxq.net/Site/photos.html

ACE posts here, so maybe he might chime in when he can.

 

I am personally very interested in this shape, ACE’s “Squish”…shown here in balsa

looks like a small wave fun machine

6

Hi, That Ace one looks heaps of fun! I have decided to go with a Stubby type outline for the shape finally : 5’6" x 20 +"  and 2 3/8" ish.

Glued square blank weighed in at just under 7kg , I glued all the pices together with spots of P.v.a glue and have begun shaping it, unfortunately split it in half while flipping it over on the stands shaping :frowning: oh well no drama just gluing it back up again , the only annoying thing is its interupted the shaping process…

Be more gentle next time!, it proves that it will hopefully split pretty easily for chambering though:)

Here is rough outline and shape being reglued:

 

 

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7

hello, just finished my chambered balsa board! except for the finboxes + resin they are installed with nothing toxic on that one.

its 6’ x 20 1/8’’ x 2 3/16’’ and weighs 4,4kg plus fins.  stoked!

 

8

nice one! did your weight calculations turn out right? Do you have some more build pics?

9

the wood seemed to be a bit heavier so i ended up with this weight.

here are some more pics:

i think i can take way more material off next time…

reglueing…

closeup…

 

10

great board! didn’t see that you posted the final weight already. you’re better off with the heavier balsa anyway because it doesn’t dent so easy.

11

nice  shape , nice looking board !

 

  can I ask  .... why you went with the white tail areas ? 

did something happen when the fins were installed , maybe ? [I just ask , because the original  'all wood' board was what you started with ...]

 

  cheers !

 

  ben

12

thank you.

no, everything went fine with the fins. i just saw a wood board with a white tail on the internet and thought it was good looking. the next will be without  colour though!

 

13

Hi Dude,
Unfortunately I cant see your pictures for some reason:(, anyone else have this problem?
Just completed mine , came in at 4.2 Kgs which im pretty happy with, now to water test it…

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