Enviro friendly wood

What would be the most enviro friendly (and compsand friendly) wood for Southern California? I know balsa is like a weed ut it is all imported from tropical areas right? FSC certified cedar or redwood milled down to 1/8" ? Is that too stiff for compsand?

bamboo?

Bamboo? Grows fast, easy to harvest and strong. Though I don’t know jack about compsand.

Recycled wood? Lightweight packaging wood?

Surfing it is better than throwing it away.

Only take out the nails, also recyclable.

Could take some experimenting, I found a few interesting pallets from Indo.

Soul

what feels best for me is 2nd use. I just found 2000 sq ft of full dimention redwood barn siding in the central valley for $1000. The problem is the cost of storage.

One of the sources I’ve found in SoCal is garage door co’s (perfect for CompSand boards) They throw away the old redwood doors which you can get for free. 99% of that wood is verticle grain.

1/8" is pretty plyable

That sounds good. I love redwood but was reluctant to use it for obvious reasons.

Care to share any specific sources? PM if neccessary.

Thanks

Funny you should mention the indo pallets?

I have found 3 balsa pallets from indo in the the past couple of months. I took them apart very carefully. One day I plan to make something cool out of them. I have already used a couple scraps as tailblocks. What I like about the pallet wood is it’s really light and usually water stained so it looks interesting.

Howzit soulnpower, By any chance is it Tiger wood( we call it pheasant wood) which is native to Viet Nam. We have gotten a few pallets made of it which is amazing since it costs about $40 a board ft. here.Aloha,Kokua

Hi Dane,

mine are not balsa I think but a little heavier wood,

still superlight, density is somewhere between balsa and redwood,

made the stringers for the last boards out of it.

There was a stamp on it saying it is treated against bugs.

These are the water stains I think.

But it is very flexible and strong wood

and free

Soul

Hi Kokua,

I try to make some pics tomorrow when the sun is up again.

Still guessing what it can be

Greeets

Soul

It takes a little bit of work to handle the bigger doors but can be very rewarding. Use the phone book first, and then stop by garage door companies in your area. Ours is grateful for eliminating the disposal or transport elsewhere.

A flatbed truck helps a lot.

I’m all for reusing wood. If you are looking to save the enviroment, however, you might need to consider different construction methods. If your board has foam, fiberglass, and resin then you simply cannot call it an enviroment friendly product. Unfortunately, it is a tough choice if you want a high performance surfboard. The only truely environmentally friendly construction method that I can think of is the method employed by the ancient Hawaiians. They produced boards out of solid wood from locally grown trees, and sealed them with natural oils.