Im going to start my next boad soon, it will be a retro 10’ 6" longboard… for the small surf. I have aconcept for it that invovles wood. I didnt want to cover the entire thing in wood, but I am thinking of trying a “wood inlay” basically, take an eps shaped blank, cut out a design in wood, put it on the deck, trace it, and groove out the design to the appropriate depth, then glue in the wood design into matching groove, then glass the board. this way, it will be a mostly white board with a wood shape in it. Has anyone tried this? if so, how well does it work/any pics?
as soon as attachments are back up, ill post a pic of what im thinking… done in AutoCAD
Hey scott, I just tried doing a wood veneer on an EPS blank. NEVER AGAIN!!! that was a night mare. I suppose if you had a little thicker piece of wood it could be done. However without a vacume bag I found it very hard to get the wood to adhere perfectly in every spot. I got small air bubles under it in spots and am not sure if I’ll get them all out. I’ve had to rip off the veneer in spots. Many people have done it here without the vacume, but I would highly recomend the vacume bag method.
the wood i will be using will be plenty thick… Bubbles wont show, so im good in that respect… just wondering things like… will it delam? how does it look?
bubbels showing isn’t the problem. It’s bubbels that don’t show thats the concern. If you trap any air under the wood it will likely lead to a de-lam. read up on vacume bagging and bagging without a vacume tons of helpful stuff there.
how can you tell if theres trapped air? also, isnt eps basically a bunch of trapped air?
I don’t know if you really can tell, that’s why you have to make sure you properly wet stuff out and hold the veneer down evenly over the whole area. By no means am I an expert in this. I have only done the one attempt at veneer and it was not the best of results. It can, and has been done without a vacume so seek out those in the know just giving you my personal experience with it. But by all means give it a whirl in the grand scheme of things what do you really have to lose.
Scott, I’ve done something similar, although on a smaller scale. I set a 2" x 3" picture frame with a “Duke” stamp in it in to a few of my boards. The procedure applies to a larger scale though. This is what worked for me:
Thickness of the wood was about 1/8" to 1/4" (3.25 mm to 6.5mm). Bevel wood edge so bottom of the piece is about 1/32" smaller than the top. Lay wood on the board and scribe around the piece with a very sharp pencil. Cut that line with a razor blade, then route out the center area. Set the wood in place and press it into the foam. The edges will tighten up as you push it into the foam.
I set mine in with resin (thin brush-on woood and foam) and let it set up before glassing. Easy with the resin so you don’t get squeeze out on the edges.
Good luck. Sounds like a fun project. Show us some pictures. Doug
I tried a pretty simple wood inlay on a kiteboard: two strips of this pre-made inlay from a place called the woodworker’s store. Little bits of wood glued toegher already. I just used a straight-edge and routered out a shallow slot to glue the inlay into, then sanded the inlay down to the surface of the board.
Picture here, first board on left (large picture):
http://gallery.kiteforum.com/albums/albup46/P1010008.jpg
On a surfboard I think it would look pretty cool if you did a pinline with this type of inlay.
Im thinking od doing a flame pattern or something like what I did on my first board. post - (My first board FINALLY done). but i think it would be sooo cool to do a wooden flame inlay working from the nose down.
WOOOOOO… Next board i do after my flames idea, im going to inlay 3 game boards into the bottom of a longboard… be able to play chess checkers and backgammon on a surfboard. lol… ill post pics if i ever do that. thanks for the inlay link
I’m stealing that idea, seems like half the time I spend kiteboardsing is spent waiting for wind.
Ya, when i go surfing w/ y friends, we always end up waiting… might as well play games… Monopoly inlay?