chambered balsa weight

hello to all, after reading a little about building balsa boards, I have a question: what is the difference in weight of a chambered board versus a solid board, both boards with the same size? thanks in advance. Jack

This is a question for professor Phillips, but until he posts his advice I’ll give my thought based on building and chambering only a few balsa boards. At the risk of sounding cynical, your question is very relative… kind of like asking how much does a car cost, with the answer being based on what kind of car it is.

Aside from the fact different balsa boards of the same exact size can weigh dramatically different than eachother, and there’s the male vs female balsa tree factor, the amount of waste you remove during the chambering is dependant upon how far and how much you chamber. I left almost a full 3/4" on both the deck and bottom of the chamber holes and left in a lot of walls between because I was fearful of taking it too far and shaping myself into a cavern. Therefore I did not take out nearly as much waste (weight) as could be taken out if you really chamber it to the wall (so to speak).

Again, it’s relative and I suspect at some point there are diminishing returns. Let’s say you chambered to a "super safe limit"and ended up with 20 pounds of balsa in your longboard. Then you decided to really push the limits and went at it again and took out an extra half pound (that’s quite a bit of balsa dust) beyond that. You could have great bragging rights, but in the great scheme of things does the additional reduction of only 2 1/2% of the total weight really matter? A few capfulls of resin here and there weighs that much, so the extra half pound becomes an even smaller percentage of the total finished glassed board weight.

Sooo, professor Jim can jump on and give you some expert advice, but as a guy that only has a few balsa boards on his resume’, I’d say just go with what you’re comfortable with on the first one. Go careful and keep the whole thing in perspective. Some don’t chamber at all. Some guys like ocean tankers and some like speedboats, so your call. Enjoy the ride!

Thanks Richard, I did an Evo that was in the May issue of GQ mag. It is a 6’6", the unchambered blank was about 9 pounds, afterwards, 4 pounds, 7 ounces. I started another one for them , 9’5" gun, 14-9 before, so when I’m finished I’ll let you know.

Now I did some Channin balsa’s from his Costa Rican wood, 9’6", 23 pounds chambered. Channin went bullshit, had me cut it apart and re-chamber it, take the skin thickness down to about 5/16". I got less than a quarter pound more out for all that bullshit (all for a hundred and twenty five bucks)