When you are making a surfboard out of paulownia lumber, do you need extra material? I.E. if my goal is an 7ft surfboard, should I purchase 8ft paulownia lumber? The concern is any mistakes on first try for shaping. Found a good source for the paulownia wood in South Carolina but better safe than sorry.
Solid wood has always cracks from the drying process on the ends of the boards.
Depending on how carefull the process was done, the cracks are longer and deeper.
On my current paulownia board, I had to cut of a 5-10cm piece on either end. I bought 2.5m for a 2m board, so plenty of safety margin.
Since it is getting difficult to get very long boards, you can join them together since due the shape of the board, you only need the most inner ones to be the whole lenght of the board.
for the side planks, the offcuts get longer and longer if you use very long lumber. Also way to expensive to throw them just a way.
I do a half lap joint for the boards. Plenty of glue surface so it works well.
So you can re-use off cuts from the side for example to extend the boards near the stringer.
On the final product you have to look close to see the joint. Even more if you watch out for matching grain
I came up with a ''routering the rocker/foil ‘’ method which you might be interested in.
I made a ply foil template then screwed it onto the paulownia piece, making sure the screws go into chambered areas, then cut it out on a home made router table.
It’s a 2 person job, one hand pushing against the router bit, another hand pushing down if there is a slight bow in the timber and a third hand for pushing/feeding along the router table.
Routering paulownia surfboard rocker (youtube.com)