Pre-shaped yesterday. Started chambering today. I forgot I had this mortiser. It's going quickly. I will switch to smaller bits for the nose and tail.
Bravo! I like it.
Enjoy the ride. It seems many people (here) aren’t able to put in the required time to get through the learning curve with alaia’s. Personally they have done wonders for me and I’m glad I didn’t miss the alaia boat. Some of my best memories of surfing so far have been with them.
You know any who are willing to discuss rails, outlines, thickness, wide points round these parts?
My first hollow was made last year and as usual I enjoyed the challenge of getting the snappy flex dialed with my materials.
I can’t really tell by the pic on my computer what kind of wood you have. Whatever it is it looks blemish free.
Thanks Bill I can always use some encouragement.
dlock, It's red cedar. I saw a couple clear quartersawn 4x4s as I was walking by the stack. Resawn to about 1 5/8". I think this would work well in paulownia but I ran out. All is speculation now. I'll post some pics as I progress and report on the ride... hopefully soon.
In the last picture ( which was supposed to be the first) the left center board is showing the right side. It is chambered from the other side leaving about 3/8" for a stringer. Probably not necessary. The board has a domed deck and also a concave. Since I pre-shaped these features before hand there is still 1 1/2" thickness through the center section. The tail shows some extra stock in in the last photo. I planed on foiling the tail when final shaping. I increased a little tail rocker and tapered the deck in the tail.
Gorgeous!! I’m droolin again.
Ok, first ride report. The board sets in the water about the same as other alaia boards. I did notice a difference with this one. After a few rigorous paddles it will start to plane and you can actually cover some distance. Good for catching waves too. adding a little more volume would probably do the trick but then again it wouldn't be an alaia. I think the design would work well in balsa. I only got up twice to note of. Waves were very weak today. I still need to test it on a larger day. It road great prone. I don't know why but another one I have with a similar rail line also rides great prone. I'll follow up with another report.
Hi!
This is my first post on Sway, I couldn't decide if it needed it's own topic and discovered this one dealing with a somewhat similar project. I hope I don't pollute the great stuf posted above too much...
I've got a background of shaping skateboards and being a surfer as well, I always wanted to give surfboards a go. After years talking about it and searching for wood I finally scored paulownia wood from a sustainable source at a decent price and started shaping two hollow alaias.
Being more familiar with the horizontal lamination of skateboards I planned my shaping a bit differently compared to Tbod's. He chambered strips of wood running side by side when I laid up 3 planks on top of each other the centrer one being hollowed and the 2 outside ones partly carved symetricaly.
This technique allows me to give some rocker and lift to the blank during the glue-up, just like for a skateboard sandwich of wood layers inside a press. The main inconvenient being a very thick board and no flex whatsoever; I could have gone with only the two outside planks...
Well enough talking here are the pictures (you'll notice that the pictures belong to two different boards and have different structures, witdh and outlines):
[u][b]Step 1:[/b][/u] The outline is traced as wellas teh chambers on the center plank leaving enough space for the future shape of rails and concaves.Tail:
[img]http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5254/5471133054_3180a9e34b.jpg[/img]
Nose:
[img]http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5216/5471133364_bf7c200a15.jpg[/img]
[u][b]Step 2:[/b][/u] Forstner carving
[img]http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5174/5470541693_8009d3c493.jpg[/img]
[u][b]Step 3:[/b][/u] My crappy jigsaw made a poor work finishing the chambers
[img]http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5096/5470542409_b510e0604d.jpg[/img]
[img]http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5055/5471134216_b2faec6b49.jpg[/img]
[u][b]Step 4:[/b][/u]This hollowed center plank is used as a template to carve wood out of the two others.
[img]http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5295/5525952157_97a8e7ea47.jpg[/img]
[u][b]Step 5:[/b][/u] With a brand new jigsaw i cut the center plank outline.
[img]http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5172/5553117152_90390c89a0.jpg[/img]
[u][b]Step 6:[/b][/u]Once everything is cut I used a smal handplane to get closer to the line. First shavings!
[img]http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5184/5552532705_df51d43a1b.jpg[/img]
[u][b]Step 7:[/b][/u] After masking the offcuts I use them as template/mould to align the two first planks glued together
[img]http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5183/5553118058_d8dd34c458.jpg[/img]
[u][b]Step 8:[/b][/u]Here it's drying under constant presure to allow the sandwich to take some rocker and lift (very little)
[img]http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5263/5552533463_68e0b84004.jpg[/img]
End of the first weekend of shape.
[u][b]Step 9:[/b][/u]Rough domedeck seen from the tail:
[img]http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5310/5612566665_5aee014819.jpg[/img]
Notice the leash plug that I originaly glued up inside the sandwich? Considering a bit late that it might turn lethal, I finaly took it out.
[u][b]Step 10:[/b][/u] Nose and rails starting to take shape:
[img]http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5181/5612566671_ec4752dda4.jpg[/img]
Sideview
[img]http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5065/5612566675_210f51ed5a.jpg[/img]
The whole board is manualy shaped using handplanes and blisters let asside I enjoy this!
[img]http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5181/5612566681_42b97db6db.jpg[/img] :D
[u][b]Step 11:[/b][/u]Concave and underside rails bevels marked:
[img]http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5307/5612566683_22b7eafe16.jpg[/img]
[u][b]Step 9:[/b][/u]And concave slowly taking shape with a 2.5cm maximum depth running up shallower progressively to flat 80cm from the tail.
[img]http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5262/5612588739_261c369f44.jpg[/img]
[b]The first one is shaped[/b]:D
Seen from above:
[img]http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5064/5630452893_3f4dd63dfc.jpg[/img]
Sharp rails:
[img]http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5022/5630452889_7ff7c5c2e6.jpg[/img]
The leash loop now leash hole !
[img]http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5303/5631021036_77c7f062c2.jpg[/img]
Tail concave:
[img]http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5142/5631021034_e5a90e2737.jpg[/img]
Still some TBII glue to get rid of...
Concave 45cm up the tail:
[img]http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5102/5631021028_92d8ef301a.jpg[/img]
Concave again 80cm from the tail:
[img]http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5030/5631021020_0367f4b192.jpg[/img]
Bottom rocker and lift:
[img]http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5186/5631021016_ccd2847861.jpg[/img]
Top rocker curve:
[img]http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5024/5631021014_585112402a.jpg[/img]
The final board is hard as a rock and still pretty heavy at 2m long and 40cm at the widest. Maximum thickness is 5.5cm...
Total weight before a last fine sanding and resine coats: 9kg!!!!!! Heavy but It could have been worse!
Ill update this thread with pictures of the second board I finished last weekend and later on with the art, logos and bio-resin coating.
Hope I kept a couple readers till the end! Thanks!
Hi overlord,
Thanks for digging up my old thread. Welcome to Sways. At first your method seemed strange to me but I think it has posibilities. Much faster to chamber your way. Consider contouring the center piece and then apply say 1/4" top and bottom instead of the thick boards. Esentially do more shaping of the core than the outside?
Hi Tbod!
Thanks for your answer, I was wondering if you were still around...
Can you maybe offer a feedback on your hollow alaia? Did you get more riding time on it? What finish did you choose, oil or varnish/resin? I sketched a lot before deciding on an outline and played with the idea of parabolic rails just like what you did to finally abandon this idea as it sounded to me that it wouldn't work best on a stiff board.
What can you tell about them? Is it efficient?
Concerning your comment, I think you are right, if I was to do it all again I'd probably try and keep the thickness to maybe 1/2 what it is now maximum; on the other hand I'm very curious to see how those super deep concaves work with sharp rails and a thinner board would not have allowed to carve them this deep.
I discovered this thread after I had already started working on my project unfortunately; things would maybe have turned out differently.
My main ambitions were to have a first experience with wooden surfboards shaping and alaias just sounded like the easiest way to go. I also wanted to add thickness and wolume to help buoyancy and get something that would takeoff with less effort than an usual alaia; I needed to keep things simple so I used a method I was already familiar with to add rocker; and finally I wanted to keep things as clean as possible.
For the moment I acheived those objectives and most important learned a lot during the whole shaping process!
In the future I'll try to shave more weight, make the fabrication process even more simple and once I'll have tried those in the water probably change tons of things in the shape itself!
A guy walked into my shop and saw the board and offered me too much for it so I didn't get to ride it after that. I took it out one other time in bad conditions. The rail line seems to work well for me although the tail rocker I added was probably a mistake. I will go with a strait tail and run the concave to the end next time.
I put just resin(no glass) on it. I would just do a varnish next time because the resin either wears thin or gets dinged on the edges and is a pain to maintain. This has some to do with the fact that I was trying to keep the coat sanded thin for weight. with the varnish the finish will take some minor dings I think. Lots of people have success with oils too. I've got a bare one that I rub wax into the end grain before I take it out each time.
I don't think the my board was thin enough(flexible) to effect the parabolic rail action. I like the outline you came up with more so than what I did. It is probably more responsive.
A couple more pictures of the finished second Alaia (wider fishy one, standing à 11kg).
Concave:
Rail (board was upside down)
Finaly both boards side by side for comparison. My nephew Jules is about 135cm tall...
I'm still waiting on some bio-epoxy to finish the boards and use that time to work on art and logos...
I finally managed to finish the two boards and they were succesfuly tested in Biarritz at the end of the summer.
I dropped the idea of a green epoxy finish and simply coated the wood with a natural oil hoping for no leaks, to sum it up, they float and paddl well even if a bit on the heavy side; but once you take off they take you all the way to the beach. It takes a little wile to get used to ride without fins but the deep concave and sharp rails are working togethere better than expected and prevent the tail from sliding too much. The rocker is also a nice addition compared to usual alaias.
Here are some pics from the first session in Cenitz:
So good you don’t stop until it’s really to dark to see…
I'm working on handplanes as a next project, one is being tested in Morocco and another one in Biarritz as we talk!
Hope everyone is enjoying the big winter swells!