Here is one from our old friend Roy. The below text is simply cut/paste from a website… not my comment.
The Rampant by Roy Stuart
Price:$1.3 million
Although the Rampant may simply look like an antique with its wooden body and gold-inlaid lion, it might just be the future of surfing. The board’s BLEF (bumpy leading edge foil) is a serrated tail fin, which actually cuts through the water more efficiently. Even with the new technology, the price is still a tad high for us.
I thought he sold that board a while ago for 1.5 million or something. These beautiful wood boards are sold here for $20,000.
It’s too bad there isn’t more of a market for the hollow wood boards. But as has been said here before, shape comes first.
So Shark; who made those? Got a link?
This is the website. The company makes expensive doors and other fancy wood products for very high end homes. The shop is in the old Wailua Sugar Mill where quite a few of the big name shapers make their boards. My brother and I found this place in 2005 while we were checking out Jeff Johnson and Jim Richardson’s surf shop. Griffin and Arakawa were making their boards in the same area, but a different building. The guy that makes the boards was nice enough to gives us a full on tour and show us how they makes these boards. They were also making a Robert August longboard. The guns are Brewer designs, and are rideable.
My favorite part of that video was the shot of him with the bloody knuckle. He went right on going, never putting a band-aid on it, or caring it was there. He looks like a wood worker.
I didn’t see that video earlier. The photos show the guy who was making the hollow boards.
Looks like they’ve moved on to compsand boards with a foam core. Probably learned from Jeff and Jim. Jim had a dozen or more rocker beds for all the surflight boards they were making. http://www.surflight.com/Surflight/Home_Page.html
At the start of last week I had just jointed blank halves, had some balsa edge rippings to joint and glue for offsets stringers.
Instead of moving the fence over instead of leaving nearly 6" of blades exposed and sliding the guard over, I was nearly finished when my fingers slipped off the balsa and straight down into the throat of the jointer. It felt like I had been hit really hard, I grabbed my hand, held it tight for about 10 seconds and knew I had to look. The fingers were still there, but the blades had hit my nails, slamming my finger tips into the edge of the infeed bed. I’ve used power tool for nearly 60 years, first time getting hurt, it was 100% my fault
A lot of hollow wooden boards look like they were shaped by or with a potatoe.
Huck’s always look epic back when he made them.
Jim - hope you heal up quick!
Sounds like it could have been a lot worse.
the problems with hws are related to being hollow and dealing with the expansion and contraction of all that air, and the way they fill with water when dinged. they are fun to make but i find them impractical for a daily driver.
as far as wonky shapes, wood is harder to shape than foam, and the density is uneven, and then you have the grain to deal with, and most of the shape comes from the bones, so there are just a lot of ways for the shape to get a little off.
But with good planning and craftsmanship they can be as well shaped as a foam board. And with venting the expansion / contraction can be dealt with. So they can be good boards.
And Jim the Genius - OUCH! That hurts just to look at. Thanks for the reminder we all need to remember how quick a power tool can bite you!
Damn Jim, I hope you heal fast.
A momentary lapse of concentration is all it takes.
I sliced the top side of my left thumb a couple of weeks ago using a bandsaw. Just a few weeks earlier I sliced the tip of my right thumb on a razor. The tip and underside of the fingers seem so much more sensitive.
Take care.
That plain sucks. Hope you heal quickly. I can only imagine… would rather not. It only takes a split second.
[Quote=sk8ment]A lot of hollow wooden boards look like they were shaped by or with a potatoe.
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I know what you mean. Roy’s fit that descripton, plus a few others. Not going to name names, but I’m often surprised by the praise they get.
It is easy to buid a HWS, getting it to resemble a surfboard from afar, to an untrained eye. It might even surf surprisingly well considering the heft and inaccuracies of shape, but most are for wall hanging and the Ooohs and Ahhs of those who do not surf and cannot see the warbles in the countour or lack of rocker.
However building a HWS with a nice smooth rocker, outline and foil, without twisting, and accurate bottom contours, keeping it light as possible, yet strong, is a serious challenge. One fears the trained eye’s opinion.
When nearing completion I will start a build thread on my current and what will likely be my final HWS. I have been having to walk away from it as sometimes I find no joy in working on it, but so far I am happy with the results. Except for the weight. I tend to overbuild considering a well placed knee hitting the center of a compartment. I am unsure how much weight it will lose when shaping the rails which are still square. I have got most of the Chassis built, need to adhere the deck then shape rails and hull, then glass and insert 5 proboxes.
As for venting, my board is getting 2 airvents, One thumbscrew vent in nose, one minimized brass vent in tail to be opened only when water inevitably gets inside and cross flow ventilation is the call. This HWS will be strong enough that there is little fear of a closed vent and a cold board placed in the sun, but I will still avoid such a situation.
Preventing interior wood from absorbing moisture is another consideration with my current build.
All previous builds I have wiped the interior wood once with epoxy before laying down the deck panel(s), but it takes more than this to seal it from ponded water, especially exposed endgrain, and one can easily add a lot of weight to it sealing the interior.
Interior sealing leads to secondary bonding concerns and the prevention of possible secondary bonding failure greatly increases prepwork at each subsequent stage.
Right now I have been fighting a work table which itself is twisting and bending, an Unlevel concrete slab and a workshop(dilapidated shed) which flooded 6 inches deep in the one corner in the last storm. Luckily I had most of the important stuff well off the floor.
I’m working on a couple of unique builds. One is a hollow balsa wood board. I’m making it out of model airplane balsa. The wood I’m using is between 1/2" and 1/16" thick and 18" to 48" long. I have a lot of balsa sticks that are only 18" long and between 1/16" and 1/4" thick. I’m using as much of that on the rails. My goal is to have about a 1/2" of wood in the top and bottom, and the rails will be at least 1.5" thick. The outline of the shape on the rocker table is 18" wide. My end product will be 21".
