inspiring
just about finished with my blue-cedar quad flyer2
I’ll put the clear deck pad you asked about in the mail to you tomorrow least I can do to support the cause
be forewarned though they are harder to take off than put on…
I originally bought it for traveling to fiji/samoa so I wouldn’t have to worry about wax…
best of luck…
Man! that cathedral book matched grain running across the rolled V and reversing out thru the concaves is a powerful visual. Real Presence. Are you gunna accent the grain with any dye, glaze or tints; just natural, …it shows heavy! How thick is that skin ? is it very dense? What cloth did you schedule under it. Cant wait to see the encore deck layout.
That board is too classic for cork rails. With the tapered build up you plan, you could even do a hollow pyramid stack rail. How far over the rail banding are you gunna run your deck skin? Man that outline and distribution…a real gem!
Yeah I love the way the grain runs diagonally across each sheet…looks like herringbone.
Tapering works good and easy to do by shaping in after install with the planer.
I hope you put a gloss coat on the finish…that will make it come alive.
llilibel: geez your board is looking lovely mate. such a gorgeous grain in that timber, & the concaves look as natural & organic as the wood itself. i really like the template & foil too. i look forward to following this thread, not because i think i’ll ever get my head around making a compsand, but because i like seeing people make beautiful things with their hands.
Thanks again everyone. I made about 25 or 30 boards when I was in high school (graduated in '79) because my buddies and I couldn’t afford new boards and we wanted customs. Now over 30 years later I’m doing it again, partially for the same reason. Also because my last 3 PUPEs self destructed in less than a year. Out of frustration I started asking about…Surftechs and some guy told me to check Swaylocks for info about epoxy boards. I’ve been addicted ever since.
Onuela- not sure I’ll use the tail pad. I’ve only had one board with a pad and it was in the wrong place and was worse than useless. Thanks though. I got a present coming for you. Just have to dust it off and put it in the mail.
PeterG1- the wood is 1/8" but that was rough sawn. I sanded it with 60 with a grinder. I plan to sand it to 220 before final glass ( or whatever gets the scratches out. So I’m sure it’ll end up somewhere between 1/8" and 1/16". Glass is 2.3 oz under , 2.7 over (bottom), 3.4 over (deck). Unfortunately the deck wood will not be bookmatched because the rest of the wood pieces were random pieces.
Craftee- I planning on doing a rattle can gloss, unless it comes out really light.
Oldy- Thanks mate. Your “Journey of a Quad” thread was an big inspiration. I wish my photography was a good as yours, but mine is just documantation. Anyways, thanks.
By the way, Benny- BennyTech can do funny things. If you see that pic of my effort to try to add rocker… I was actually trying at that moment to add tail rocker. I like a little flip behind the fins. This morning when I pulled the weights I still had less than two inches of tail rocker…and 6 inches of nose rocker! Too much! So now I’m trying some “reverse BennyTech engineering” to take out some nose and move it to the tail. A life of its own…
By the way, Benny- BennyTech can do funny things. If you see that pic of my effort to try to add rocker… I was actually trying at that moment to add tail rocker. I like a little flip behind the fins. This morning when I pulled the weights I still had less than two inches of tail rocker…and 6 inches of nose rocker! Too much! So now I’m trying some “reverse BennyTech engineering” to take out some nose and move it to the tail. A life of its own…
Yep, well, that’s your shape affecting panel stiffness. Your tail has those beautiful concaves, but they’re not going to want to bend. The nose is much flatter, and the deck side is less domed than the rest of the board - so that’s where its going to want to bend.
At this point, probably strap it to a plank with a wedge under the tail to add what you can, and an extra strap trying to bring the nose down. But pad your straps well, so they don’t make dents - the board is too beautiful to mess with too much! And then I’d suggest putting it in the sun inside black trash bags for a little while, or maybe even inside your car if you can monitor it. Get it up around 130* and it will stay the way you strapped it after it cools.
Here’s a photo of a planked board & straps. This was just to get the rocker right on a Surftech I was putting pack together, boardlady-style, but you’ll get the idea of the plank & straps. If it wasn’t a Tufflite (with a smooth tail area on the bottom) I would have used a wedge rather than just rolling under that PVC pipe 
Excellent thread Jeff! I like one of your first photos with all your chisels lined up just so. The board is looking great, can’t wait to see it finished. You compsand guys are real mad scientists.
Dilemma.
Upon close inspection you notice a slight hump in the deck of your board. But your board is just where you want it as far as thickness. Do you leave the unsightly hump? Or reduce the volume?
Me being a slave to aesthetics, I took out the hump. Now my finished board should (hopefully) come out to 2-1/4" thick, not the 2-3/8" I’d planned. It should be 6’-6" x 19-1/4" with a 10-3/4" nose and 14-1/4" tail if all goes as planned. I figure that should still float my 5’-11’ by 155 lb. frame.
Maybe I was designing another “wave hogger” and the great shaping spirit in the sky decided to pare down my craft? I was once accused of riding a “wave hogger” by LeeDD (the board in question was a 6’-10" x 19" x 2-5/8" ). I couldn’t figure out how that was a wave hogger when almost everyone else was/is riding a 9’-0" x 22" x 3" ??
Onuela- not sure I’ll use the tail pad. I’ve only had one board with a pad and it was in the wrong place and was worse than useless. Thanks though. I got a present coming for you. Just have to dust it off and put it in the mail.
It’s not a tail pad but a full deck skin to eliminate the need for wax which is why I bought it (for traveling down south).
probably better for those that use wetsuits than us half naked sunblocked lathered hawaiians.
let me know if you’re still interested it’s been sitting around in my “accessories” bin since the 90’s
just finished putting the fins on my bluecedar single concave quad today
hopefully I can test it this weekend after I gloss it tomorrow.
my future compsands will be either paulownia. balsa or corecell skinned as the cedar/poplar skinned blue dow just ended up too heavy even with just one layer of 6 oz. the 1/8" wood skin thickness was probably the main culprit…
we ordered our paulownia from a farm in Florida as they have up to 8’ boards for sale in packets of 6 that we rip into skins
maybe I’ll rip some panels of this wiliwili for you later when it’s dry cause its awesome light(seems lighter than regular balsa) when its dry and the grain pattern is even more unique than the darker cedar or paulownia. Kind of neat surfing on something made of a tree that hopefully brought a bunch of smiles with its red blooms to countless generations at iolani palace.
good work on the board
what kind of tools are you using to do the concaves?
one hint… you might want to seal the wood like wood ogre showed us be for you glass it it might save on some weight been wondering if that was my problem.
Thanks Onuela. That film stuff sounds like something I might try. And the wili wili. What can I say? If there is such thing as a sacred wood for a surfboard that would have to qualify.
I got lucky on the paulownia. I could bookmatch the bottom. Not the top (so maybe I won’t have qualms about covering it with clear film). But then I got all these pieces of white paulonia. Very little grain pattern. It felt heavier and stiffer too. I had to use it but it’s only small pieces in the center on the rail.
When you say "blue cedar’ is that the species? Or are you tinting it? I saw a Daniel Hess poplar that had a faint blue tint and looked nice. If you could pm the supplier of paulownia I’d like to keep it for future reference. The guy I bought it from just had left overs and is not a regular supplier.
I used a surform and 36 grit. I went to 60 grit and it felt like it was not the right tool for the job. Half the time I’m searching for the right tool. example- where I’m shaping the balsa band on the eps rail I thought a block plane would work. Nope. Surform. Nope. 36 grit. Yeah but going too slow.
Grinder at low speed? There you go, but be careful.
I didn’t seal the wood but I’m measuring out my resin and soaking the cloth in a plastic tray to keep weight down. I did seal the eps with epoxy a cabosil.
Man that looks so so good, makes me want to jump back in the shed and build anouther woody, the paulownia comes up nice with 150 grit ready for glassing and it seems not to suck the resin like other woods, no out gassing like some cedars/balsa can do as well
Ah i would luv to build a bonzer but am almost ready to jump on a plane and head off for 6-9months work, its not too bad as i am going to a great surf location (taradise) but will miss the shed…
keep the photos comming.
cheers
maybe i can come over an meet you mate or visa versa
what your work over there!
llili - looking good. very impressive bottom.
I got the deck on last night. I did another Bennytech weight job to try and correct the rocker. This time, when I pulled it out of the bag, everything was just right. 5" nose rocker, 2- 1/4" tail rocker. TedZ mentioned that compsanders are like “mad scientists.” I felt a little of that as I pulled the board out of the bag. LIke, “OK, let’s see what we made.”
I had one area where the edge did not pull down. I used 9" hg of vacuum. I was afraid to use more because I was going to go to sleep with the vac pulling and I did not want to wake up with the core flattened. As I sanded the deck I realized the area where it did not pull down was harder. It’s an area of wood with lots of figure in it (see pic). I actually thought it would be weaker there. Instead its a hard spot. I should have put that piece under where my right knee goes when duck diving.
As you can see no bookmatching grain on the deck, but nice nonetheless. You can see the small strips of the “white” paulownia furthest out.
I figure this will be easy to fix. Just pour a small amount of epoxy into the gap and clamp. Or no?
Looks great! I’m tellin’ you… all that computer mumbo-jumbo APS Aku CNC is nothing compared to a well placed pair of dumbells (and I’m not talking about you & me).
That raised spot, it depends. If you can easily flex it down to where you want it with a couple of thumbs, then yes, drip some epoxy in & clamp. If it feels held up or supported by cured epoxy underneath, I’d go for some scraping. Don’t try & scrape the epoxy off the underside of the skin, just scrape out some of the foam core until you’ve made a gap big enough to squeeze down to where you want it. And then use foaming PU glue dripped into the split & clamp the whole rail where you want it. Your rail pieces will hide it anyway & the foaming PU will fill any pore spaces that would otherwise trap air (bad).
Rails are on and evertything’s shaped. I used Silly’s 5 minute method. It took a long time but I didn’t have to wait for 6 hours for epoxy to cure before shaping. All the balsa went down fine except one spot, but it’s only about 1-1/2" long so I’m not worried. 8 hours of work ( for me) to put the rails on and then shape them.
I’m stoked. Everything foiled nicely. I was worried about it being too thin . The rails are thin but not too thin. 2-1/4" 1 lb. EPS should float like 2-3/8" poly , right?
Nice work so far… lovin’ this thread.
-Cam
mmm nice sleek template. great progress. it’s really looking gorgeous.
