nocean, the last few chambered paulownia boards I have made I have not put any glass or resin on them and they are holding up really well.
The first chambered paulownia board I made, I just oiled it with a linseed and beeswax mixture. I weighed it before and after the first surf and it did gain a bit of weight, however I am pretty sure that there was no water inside but it was just the wood soaking up a bit of water.
The oiling method does work, if like wood ogre said, your joinery is good and there are absolutely no gaps or cracks. But it requires a bit of maintenance and being careful, which is fine of you are making boards for yourself, but I think if you were selling them, they might not last as long in a customers hands. Paulownia is ideal for that method because it won’t deteriorate much if it does get wet inside.
But recently I have been using a bio-varnish which is completely natural and skin friendly. no gloves or mask needed and it finishes nice and glossy. It is quite a durable finish if you do it right.
The next board I want to make is an EPS core with thickish Paulownia skins glued on with a marine epoxy. Then just oil the paulownia.
I am thinking that the epoxy glue will seal the EPS nicely and will prevent any water getting into the core.
I wouldn’t get too hung up on making an ultra light board. Unless you want to boost air all the time (which I don’t), then weight can be a good thing. Wooden boards resonate, and flex differently than foam boards. They are different when you are paddling, and when you are surfing. Water slaps against a lighter foam/fiberglass board. Wood is heavier and resonates the sound of the water in a more quiet way. I like wood better.
The first board I built was a no glass balsa board. I sealed it with several coats of marine spar varnish. It is currently my favorite board, and I surf it all the time. It has gotten a lot of abuse. One time my leash broke, and it washed up onto the rocky shore at Windansea. It had a minor dent that was easy to steam out. I often surf at lunch, so I’ll leave it to cook in my car during the day. It doesn’t have a vent, and I have never had a problem.
The bottom line is that you just have to build a solid frame, and skin it at an appropriate thickness. Spar varnish is 100% waterproof, and it is lighter than fiberglass + resin. I’ll re do the finish on my board in a few years, and then it will look as good as new again. My attitude is that I don’t really care if I bang my board around. Dents just add character to the board. If I ruin the board, then I guess that means that I’ll have to make another board.
Hey guys, I agree that precise joinery and the type of sealant and glue used all play big roles in the success of no-glass wood boards. Like Wood Ogre pointed out - it's really just scaled-down ultralight boat building, and ultralight boats are either thinly glassed, painted or varnished. BTW swied, beautiful looking board, and that finish is niiiiice!
So, I guess one of the core arguments should be: Can a person build a 20lb stich-n-glue or lapstrake solo canoe or kayak? - Sure, but how will that boat withstand being crushed under 1000's of gallons of water over and over again for several hours at a time?
I do like the heavy wood board I've got now. It is really fast down the line, easy to paddle in, and just glides over chop and foam. Besides that, I've ridden the biggest, longest, nastiest waves of my life on that board. Would I try pulling some of the same maneuvers on it as I do riding the foamies - no way in hell! The same momentum that thing gets down the line is right there as it's being tossed around inside a closed-out barrel, or falling from the sky from a last second kick-out. Kind of reminds me of hanging onto a psychotic girlfriend because the lovin' is good . . .
6'6", 19.5, 2 3/8 mahogany, cedar, and 1/8"birch ply. Semi-hollow rails and 1# EPS core bring it to about 13lb.
The great thing about this subject and build method is that there is so many ways to go about it!
Surfinggreen, sounds like you have done some cool builds.Yeah I think a heavily chambered board is a pretty ideal build method but I just havnt been brave enough to embark on a full build like this yet.In the meantime ill try to work at my joinery skills. The Bio varnish sounds good, I think I have used something similar on flooring and it comes out pretty shiny after several coats and cleans up with a citrus based thinner!
Camplus, board is looking real good , cant wait to see final glassing etc…
Thanks for pointing that out Tio. Looks like they went missing as a result of me rearranging that account (?) I’ll relocate those and get them back up this evening along with some new shots.
OK - looks like I can’t edit the post that kicked off the thread or find those images in my Flickr account, so here’s the two missing images from the top:
[img_assist|nid=1051735|title=First 'Webbed' Rail Build|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=640|height=216][img_assist|nid=1051736|title=Proposed HWS Bracing|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=266|height=640] And the couple shots from further down of the heavier semi-hollow cedar/mahogany 6’6" board I’ve been riding for a while now that I built a couple years back.
[img_assist|nid=1051737|title=6'6" single fin|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=640|height=480][img_assist|nid=1051738|title=Semi-hollow Rail Construction|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=640|height=480]
Thanks for posting the pics. Very cool to see the progression and evolution of this rail design. I hadn’t realized this was the same frame concept as your ‘Group’ at Tree2Sea. Oddly enough, I’m in the middle of building one of your frames wrapped around foam. Its working out well so far.
That is one of the most logical wood builds I’ve seen. Keeps the overall wood frame but fills the void with easy to shape EPS. I can imagine you could use .75 lb. EPS in there and even get rid of the center stringer since you have nice thick wood rails.
Bag on some 1/64 veneer skins with glass under/over it and you’ve got a light weight, relatively easy to build wood board. I’ve got a 1.5# stringerless board with only a 1/64" veneer on the deck and it’s still in great shape a year later. That’s my baseline for guessing you could go with .75 lb foam and veneer skins with the wood-rail build.
I realize the EPS kills the “green” concept for most but using super-light EPS in there solves so many problems and makes it easy to still shape the board traditionally. You could basically make close-tolerance blanks like this for production shaping.
Anyways, great looking board Tio. Make sure and post the finished results and some ride reports once it’s done.
No problem Tio. It is the same perimeter rail concept as that on T2S, and what has kept me interested in finding a complimentary bracing configuration - basically nit picking, making small models, drawings etc. I was in a car accident right after coming up with the rail design and certain complications as a result of that (can’t say much more on it) kept larger projects like this build out of my reach for quite a while. I feel like I’m just now starting to ‘get back on the horse’ - physically, mentally, emotionally - and seeing your build last night has been a great encouragement, and had me pulling those empty frames out of the rafters this morning. Thank you.
So, before I get too choked up, here’s a look at a few ideas I’d been kicking around while down and out for the last several months:
Right now, I’ve got the materials and measurements together for making a deck bracing system similar to what John Mellor proposed above. In the image below the mock-up is done with cedar strips, but I’m giving the first attempt a try with a combination of flax and carbon fiber roving.
I’ve also been thinking about the deck and bottom skins, and built this small model from 1/8" thick cedar that has a single layer of 6oz spanning the voids and 1/4" thick bracing underneath. Seems pretty strong, and I have a raw panel ready to fit into one of the frames. The panels were actually made by gluing lengths of 3" wide lumber together and ripping the resulting board on the bandsaw and joining those panels. You can see what’s left of that board next to the full size panel in the bottom pic.
Very nice camplus. If the interior work is kept clean like you are doing that board will have a cool architectural appeal what with being able to see the structure inside.
awesome!! this makes so much sense - i like the slatted one but this concept seems pretty cool - just wonder how it works when you factor in the rocker.. maybe some slack in the intersections if this was fabricated in 3 to 4mm ply.. hmm...
Hey Camplus… I think when you’re a creative person… a builder of things, you find inspiration in so many different places. Your rail design got me all fired up when I saw on T2S… just pure, raw creatve energy. It was like I had to try it. I’m glad you got stoked seeing my build, but honestly, all the thanks go to you.
As for the build, I should probably get myself hooked up to vac bag. I’ve been building hollow woodies and haven’t had any need to get a setup for bagging. I know there’s a ton of info on vac bagging here at Sway’s, so I’ll track that down.
I’m honestly not sure I’ll even put a veneer on it. I was thinking I’d just go with 3 layers of glass on top and 2 on bottom and get it in the water. For someone who builds HWS, putting a veneer on it feels like a cheat. What do you guys think?
Bamboo would definitely be a choice material for the direction this one has taken:
Paulownia frame with paulownia/carbon fiber sandwich strips for deck and bottom bracing. Bent bracing between the fishbones is teathered with carbon tow and saturated with epoxy.
This one is framed out for skin-on-frame construction like Greenland style kayaks. Just finished prepping it for the skins this afternoon - knocking down any visible bumps, and taking the hard edges off of every surface the skin will be in contact with.
Getting 9oz ballistic nylon skins sometime tomorrow. First the deck, that will be sewn to each deck strip in the middle of each span from the inside for added support from above. Then the bottom skin goes on. After that they’re shrunk, sealed, and fins installed.
One thing I designed into my board was the ability to translate a design
from Aku Shaper/BoardCAD/Shape3D into a HWS, and I can’t see a simple
way to do it with a honeycomb.
To do a Honeycomb you need to translate one of the Cad programs in to RHINO 3D - Rhino is a good program to refine a design or concept.
