I used my planer ton to get the blank trued up, then a grinder to get the planer marks down…then used probably 4-5 subsequently shallower passes nose to tail over the whole board to get the lumps out from there.
after that its been a bit of planing to get the belly and dome in the deck, but all the rails and fine tuning of the rolling has been with a razor plane (this thing has saved my life).
lots of work and im appreciating it more every day!
next is the 9’3 pig…ooooooooooooh boy.
just curious, why didn’t you cut out the pith wood? Seems like you had plenty of lumber, and those holes look like a Major Pain…
just curious, why didn’t you cut out the pith wood? Seems like you had plenty of lumber, and those holes look like a Major Pain…
they absolutely suck.
cost was a factor for sure, its much less expensive to get the pithy stuff, as well as it being hard to get paulownia in the US w/out a pith. american trees are small (2-3 yrs old) so its hard to get a good sized log out of them w/out a hole, so since we needed the size we had to work with it.
we’re sourcing some top grade stuff at the moment that has no pith, that should be a big plus for future boards!
great progress. i’m looking forward to seeing the final result.
This part killed me.
I couldn’t bring myself to do the breaking, so i manned the camera once more:
chambered rails (not finished in this photo):
Mid chambering the mid section, we left a bit of room for more shaping:
and back together in once piece:
the holes were all filled up today, tomorrow is final shaping day, WOOHOOOOOO!
hey beautiful project.
what type of glue do you use that breaks apart without trashing the timber?
maybe you should take that to the “sacred craft” deal, because it sure is a “hole-y” surfboard!
thanks for posting the pics, always fun to watch!
Thanks for starting this awesome thread. Its so great to be able to access all of this information before i get started on my own.
Ive sourced some paulownia and am about to start on my new board. I want to make it with no glass or resin, just oiled with linseed oil like TW’s.
Ive been looking at the chambering process and am toying with your idea of using pour foam to avoid using a vent. Im assuming the pour foam would be a closed cell foam and wouldnt allow the air to pass though? Id be interested to know how much foam you use and how much weight it adds…
Also have a vac bag set up and am wondering if it would be worth glueing up the blank in the vac bag instead of just clamping? does anyone have any experience with this?
Also, as its not going to be glassed can anyone recommend a waterproof glue or should i just use epoxy resin to glue up the blank?
Looking forward to seeing how this project turns out and ill be sure to post mine as it gets going as well.
thanks for the compliments, although its not done yet!
we ended up not using pour foam in the chambers since so much wood was left…theres no way that thing is going to explode; just have to watch after it a bit like with any other board.
weve got some other paulownia projects rolling now, photos of those will be up soon 
hopefully finishing most of them this weekend.
got to break away from the other projects today for a couple hours and finish shape this one…
then I sealed it quick like and got to glassing!
its amazing how much the color changes when you get resin on it…this thing is going to be nutty:
finally got a good perspective on the foil for you guys:
real nice foil. classic s-deck. looking real nice.
paulownia is like golden butter when you put the resin on it.
even with variety in wood color I find that the resin brings it all back to an even tone.
that board looks wicked.
Just fantastic!
lookin good ryan! no, not you, the board. cant wait to see it all finished!
That board turned out beautifully. Nice work!
Looks great! Thanks for sharing all the photos. I’m looking forward to the ride report.