custom stringers

General Discussion
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this question is more for the most experienced of the old-school masters, but anyone who’s had any experience with this please feel free to chime in…

the cost for custom stringers is really gettin’ to me, but something just doesn’t seem right about an old-school longboard with nothing but a 5/16" basswood stringer. a clark 9’8"S costs about $83, but to add in two 1/8" stringers an inch or so off center and make all three stringers redwood boosts the price of the blank up to about $125 (that’s a 75% increase!!!). anyhow, i have a project coming up, and i want a very intricate, and very specific stringer setup. balsa w/ redwood t-band center stringer, and then redwood w/ balsa t-band on the outside, but i want the outside two stringers to be curved outward in a butterfly sort of fashion. also, i’m looking to net a 10’6" board on this one. i haven’t called clark for a cost estimate yet, but i imagine it could very easily induce cardiac arrest. my question is this… is it feasible for someone with my limited experience to attempt making all of these stringer modifications myself?!? i have a general idea of how i might attack something like this, but if it’s a reasonable thing to try, a step-by-step guide from one of the masters (i.e. Jim) would be most appreciated.

here’s a pic of the board that inspired all this lunacy:

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Call up Walker foam. Seems more up their alley.

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Howzit soulslice, A lot of those Greg Noll curved stringers were wood inlays not full stringers. Aloha,Kokua
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Soulstice, I had the same idea as you once upon a time. So I had Clark send me a blank with the cuts in the blank only…no stringers. I then milled and glued up a T band (why do they call it a T band anyway?) for the center and did 1/8" cedar for the side stringers. WHAT A HASSLE!!!

I had resin all over the place, and it started to go off half way through the process. At least 50 % of the resin dripped onto the floor. Plus you have work out a system to glue up your stringer material. In your case it will have to be ridgid and over 10’ 6" long. Also, the wood isn’t cheap. Remember that you have to buy pieces wide enough to take in the entire rocker. Probably 8 inches wide. There will be a lot of wood lost.

After that experience, I thought that 25 dollars per stringer from Clark was a good deal. But don’t let me stop you. After it’s done, call me and I’ll give you the number of our support group: “Guys Who Glued Up Their Own Stringers and Went a Little Crazy”. Doug

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Soulstice, you definitely CAN do it yourself but it is a hell of a difficult and precise work. I did this one a few years ago with stringers set just the opposite of what you intend to do, but it’s just about the same…

Here’s how I did it: first, I made a plywood template of the curve I wanted and drew it on both sides of the blank. Then, using a good jigsaw with a long (about 4") blade, I did my best to cut along the line in a continuous and regular way. Of course, I did not succeed and the curve did not look regular and smooth at all. That’s when I decided to try and correct it by sanding lightly both sides of the cut. This almost drove me mad since everytime I got it right on one side, I had to modify the opposite side to try and keep some symetry. Hours and hours passed before I eventually decided it looked more or less O.K. Then I attempted to glue the stringers in. Since they were curved, they kept sliding noseward or tailward while the resin started to gel. I had to stop everything, clean the mess, calm down and start again, this time glueing one stringer at a time… In the end, it turned out nicely, but I tell you, it was a real nightmare. My advice is: don’t do it that way. I think you should use a router with a long cutting bit such as those used to cut out templates, and run it along the curve template. Must be the only way to get a perfect cut. Any other idea, someone? Oh, and don’t let this stop you doing it: all experiences are good…

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Doug, I think I deserve to be admitted to your club. Please, send me an entry form…

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I think the inlay idea is a good one. You would get a very clean look if you laminate your board first with 1x6 oz top & bottom, then use a router on a pivot board to cut your arcs all the way through the laminate. If you have the floor space, you figure out your arc radius and put one end of the pivot board on a nail. You clamp the other end to your router base. You then measure where you want both ends of your surfboard to be, mark them out, and you’ll get the same exact arcs on all 4 cuts.

Glue in veneer tape however you want it to look, then re-lam the whole board with another 6 or 8 oz layer. I wouldn’t mess with cutting your blank into curved pieces.

Sounds like a cool project, however you do it. Keep us updated on the process & progress…

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oh yea…I picked up a 10’3 extra stringers,colored glue…$153.00, but it will look like a

$1000 board when finished(coke bottle tint,etc.)

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benny… why would you need to glass with 6oz first? wouldnt you be able to do that on the foam then ,glass as usual?

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thanks for the input, guys. it seems that everyone has their own method, so i guess i’ll share whatever process i’ve got in my head…

i plan to first bend/curve the wood to the desired arc (is it safe to steam it and then dry it out, or should i just leave it bent for a week or two and take whatever i get?). when that looks good, i’ll glue up the wood t-bands (expecting that they’ll all fit together happily since they’ve all got the same curve to 'em). then, take my curved t-band stringer and trace it out over the blank on each side (giving me 2 lines – inside/outside). i’ll cut right down the middle, and then sand it right out to the lines i traced (i’m a total perfectionist). i figure this should make the curved stringers really fit like a glove between the foam. then, glue the stringer against the center piece of foam. then, glue the outer pieces of foam to the curved stringer (one at a time). finally, grind the excess stringer flush with the deck and bottom of the board along the rocker curve. and voila…curved t-band stringers. by the way, i was thinking 5-minute epoxy for all glued stuff (wood to wood, wood to foam).

so…am i going about this all wrong?..am i going to ruin a perfectly good 10’8" blank?..or will it be awesome!!!

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keep track of your time and you will see that the additional $40.00 bucks is a bargain. $125.00 for a custom stringered longboard blank will work well when you realize how much work goes into the wood process.

Remember, your recreating something for a time when labor was a lot cheaper, and experience goes along way.

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the extra $40 was simply for 2 straight 1/8" redwoods offset the center stringer. i imagine that an undertaking like what i have in mind would cost well in excess of $125.

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have, glassing first isn’t probably required, but I think it would help. The edges of the glass would hold the veneer in place better, as you’d have to be bending it too. It doesn’t go down through curves like rubber, it wants to go straight. Into slots in foam, I think it would be hard to keep it from springing up out of the cut and straightening out. If it was down in a glass slot, you could put weights on top. It wouldn’t add much to the end result but would make the process less frustrating, I think.

Brandon, you might get a better result trying to glue a lot of the curve into your built-up stringers. Any steam-bent wood, when you release the clamps, will spring back about 30%. So if you want a 10’ radius curve, you have to steam & bend it and clamp it to about a 6.66’ radius curve. If you’re doing all your pieces separately, you’re going to need a lot of molds. And different kinds of wood will spring back different amounts.

If you bend in the curve when gluing you stringers together, you’ll still get spring back, but less. And the thinner you make each piece in the stack, the less springback you get, as the glue is holding the curve together. So you could cut your 1/8" balsa outsides (if I remember right) and cut your 1/2" redwood inside into 3 or 4 1/8" pieces. You’ll have a lot of thin pieces of wood. You make a mold with 3/4" MDF (medium density fiberboard) with your radius curve cut on it. For 10’+, you’ll have to join 2 pieces together. You drill 1.5" holes along your radius curve about every 6-8" for your clamps. You’re going to need lots of clamps. You then coat all those thin pieces with glue and pile them in your stack. Center it on your mold and start clamping from the middle. Working towards both ends, you’ll press out a lot of glue and press the curve you want into the built-up stringer. The thin pieces of wood will slide against each other, where really the radius of the outside pieces is different than that of the inside pieces, and the glue holds it that way.

All this is sometimes called cold bending or glue-laminating. Another old woodworker’s trick that may help is to add a little steaming to the process. For a bunch of long, thin pieces, all you need to do is very gently mist the wood with a household-type sprayer then warm it all up in an electric blanket for a few hours. The heat & moisture will get into the wood really nicely. You’ll have to work fast on the gluing, though, as your glue will dry faster if the wood stays warm, or the wood will get cold and you’ll lose any bending advantage you may have had from heating. You can also keep your wood warm with the electric blanket while its clamped to the form, but your blanket will probably get glue on it.

Clamp for 24 hours and then do the other one. You’ll still get 5-10% springback, but both stringers should come out dang close to the same. The heat will help minimize springback too. Good luck

edit: it may be obvious, but once your stringers are done, you set them on your blank and use them to scribe the cuts in the foam. Don’t try to cut the foam first and try to make stringers that fit the foam.

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Nope. Walker will just call me with the order, they refuse to get back into it

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Soulstice, plot out the curves on the blank, top and bottom, if you are working off a template. Otherwise a batten will work, but you need to add in plot marks from the first one you draw in, the curves otherwise will be all different. On figure 8 sticks, I have a saw that I cut the blade down with a dremel cut-off wheel to make it narrow enough to easily go around the curves. I put a handle on each end and then have my man-bitch get on one side and me (refered to as the alpha male)_be on the driving end of the saw and both of us saw on the line. This requires the blank to be on it’s side. After getting about half way, tape or rubber-band the rear portion together so it won’t wobble and ultimately snap off. After finishing the cutting, the inside curve can be cleaned up with a sanding block cut to the arc, or close to it. The ouside curve can have the planer run over it on a bare minimum cut, just enough to hit the top of any foo-foo’s, then block sand it. The foam is a lot more flexible than you think and most small wiggles will be clamped out. The stringers will bend no problem and for glue, resin is good, but you will be scared shitless at this point and too much catylist is as bad as not enough, so I think that the gorilla style of polyurethane glue is much better, but wear disposible gloves, as it won’t come off with solvents, but will give you sufficient time to finish. Finding suitible wood will be another problem, bought clear heart redwood a few days ago, 108.00$ for a few 12’ 2x4’s, George Robinson can get you the balsa in Fla. Regular bar clamps are too short to get to the center of the rail, old bike inner tubes cut and split into strips work excellent, but you’ll be reaching under a glue dripping blank, (a real need for a man bitch). Before getting into the glue stage you will have to do a dry clamping to draw the rockers on your stock and find some one to split and plane the stringer wood. As my old man used to tell me and Cleanlines “the devil hates a coward”

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That’s a pretty wide piece of balsa w/ foam tband + the thin, vertical grain redwood and foam offsets. Good redwood or cedar is hard to come by in California, let alone Miami. I’d say if you can find good clean boards, that you’ll have $75.00 in wood alone. The re-sawn wood that I’ve seen from Clark foam is pretty good for this day and age, considering their volume. I’m constantly on the hunt for good wood, new or 2nd use. It’s hard to come by

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A few thoughts / suggestions:

Use a yellow glue such as “Titebond” or a poly glue (“Gorilla Glue”) for laminating your stringers. It’s got a longer “open time” (working time before it sets up). Cool down your shop or do it on a cool day to slow down the open time.

To get a 1/2" stringer use three 3/16-" pieces. Redwood, cedar, basswood, especially balsa will bend easily in these dimensions.

Don’t mess with steaming or heating 10+’ long boards.

Don’t use construction grade lumber. Use only kiln dried Clear all heart redwood or similar cedar which you can get from hardwood lumber dealers (places that specialize in furniture grade lumber).

If you don’t have a bandsaw find someone to resaw (rip) your bands preferably all from the same board (boards) to ensure uniform color, grain appearance, grain direction, workability.

After slicing off all the thin pieces, sandwich them back together agin using a couple of finish nails driven all the way through the bundle (as if it were a full 2"x6" x 12’ again and bandsaw out the curve of the rocker on all pieces at once. Cut them to general oversize. This way you won’t have to hassle with grinding down all that lumber, as each stringer will be closer to finish shape of the rocker in your board. Place the finish nails where the rocker will be cut out or where the remaining holes from the nails will be hidden safely inside the surfboard.

An extension of the previous note: When gluing up a few thin pieces together to make a thicker stringer, spread glue on all pieces than take together with tiny finish nails to keep them from slipping and running wild once clamped together.

Jim’s idea of using bicycle inner tubes to wrap clamp everything up is a good one. If however, you don’t have time to run all over town to find enough bike shops to supply you with enough tubes there’s another way. Go to the Depot or the Low place to the garden department and buy a lenght of rubber pond liner sold by the foot off wide rolls. It’s the same rubber as bike tubes and you can scisor cut it into many strips (2" wide +/-) to use for your wrap clamps.

remember 9th grade geometry, or if you’re as old as I am and can’t remembr 9th grade you can draw out an exaple of the fact that you can’t expect to cut a long figure-8 with a thin saw blade and expect to fit the two sawn pieces neatly back together with a 3/4" stringer between them. Since the saw blade is not the same 3/4" thick as the stringer, you won’t get a fit. You can get by with a thin stringer because the soft foam will cheat its way back when clamped. However, expect an increased width in the stringer to result in a forced sloppy fit and gappy glue line unless you make two cuts (one on each side of the stringer).

Just a few thoughts than jumped out that you may want to consider. Be methodical, think through each step, and Enjoy the ride!

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Oh man what a hassle. but everyone should try it at least once. here are some pics of my 5th board including adding my own stringers.

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