hi guys, i can’t find basswood, spruce and redwood, anywhere, the question is, can i use some different kind of wood like plywood (or similar) for making a stringer? Thanx!
Where are you from?
Any clear cedar available?
Would steer clear of plywood - tough to shape and even if you could find fine enough ply, you’d have to buy a whole sheet probably.
Pete
Yes, you can. I glued those myself, but many blanks come factory-glued with plywood stringers.
i’m from italy!!!
What kind of surf is there in Itialy?
what kind of plywood is better ? Birch or poplar???
what you mean?!
Quote:
what kind of plywood is better ? Birch or poplar???
Birch is very stiff and a bit heavy whereas poplar is light and much more flexible. Depends what you’re looking for.
what u suggest me to use!?
I mean that I am not awear that Itialy had surf and I am curious as to what the conditions are like.
Cheers.
It depends, i actually surf just on the ligurian sea, there might be 2mt 3mt waves , in sardinia there are a lot of spots! conditions are good in fall and winter. the scene is growin’ up but it’s still pretty underground i think 80% of italians doesn’t even know that italian seas can be surfed! Kelly slater had a trip across italy!
Balsa,
I should have been more specific in my response. I thought - wrongly - he was in the U.S.
For some reason, Europe has dealt with plywoods differently - and better - than we have here in the U.S. We make it more for utilitarian purposes, where you use it as much for aestetics as function,. That’s why your ply choices are much better than what we have available.
Though we have European style plys available, they are prohibitively expensive compared to native woods.
My mistake.
Pete
No mistake whatsoever, Pete. And you’re perfectly right about one thing: plywood is hard to shape. Besides, alternating grains and a very hard formaldehyde glue make it difficult to keep sharp blades on tools. As a matter of fact, plywood as a material for side stringers (on a three-stringers board for instance) is a nightmare to level with foam.
On another note, plywood is usually cut to your specifications here in France (and I guess it must be the same in Italy). Almost all “Home Depot style” stores will do it. (What we have here are King Fisher’s owned stores that are called “Castorama”) So it’s no issue to have a 8’ x 6", in any thickness, cut for you, no need to buy the whole pannel. It’s just more expensive, of course.
Castorama RULES!!!
Merci beaucoup
Bonjour Balsa here’s the thing, should i use higher density foam with a plywood stringer!? cause poplar plywood looks really frigile. i can have 40 kg/m3 foam is it good or too heavy?! Thanx!
Is that polyurethane or polystyrene foam? In any case, 40 Kgs/M3 is about the weight that “superlight” blanks come in. (The blanks I use weigh between 45 and 50 Kgs/M3, depending if they are short or longboards blanks).
it’s polythisterene, i m gonna make a 6.5 and 6.4
If you’re going the EPS (polystyrene) way, and although I don’t know much about it, my advice would be to go with the lightest possible density and to count on fiberglass and epoxy for strength and flex. The stringer will help you as a reference point for symetry when shaping and as a rocker guide maybe, that’s all. But you really should take advice from the EPS “pros” here. I’m not.
thank u very very much! i got a lot of questions especially on glassing but i don’t wanna waste yuor time, now i ll fucuse on construction! thank u very much!!!
welcome to swaylocks mate !
I found a couple of other guys here from italy …maybe you can chat to them / get a surf with them too ?
here you go …
Search for a user: Username Location E-Mail Address Real Name Number of Posts
Username Location Online Title Posts Last Seen dave_wave (Message) Ancona, Italy No User 22 Aug 29, 2006, 4:12 PM flavian-san (Message) Italy No Journeyman 86 Jul 5, 2006, 11:47 PM moai (Message) North PB, San diego (from Italy) No Journeyman 91 Aug 29, 2006, 6:49 AM tavlas (Message) Genova, Italy No User 27 Aug 8, 200
cheers !
ben
[and Rhino , there was an article , I think it was surfer or surfing mag recently on italy …some nice waves were shown !]