I’m looking for a little help from the wood working gurus out there to help me with my next project. I’ve just acquired 3 pieces of balsa wood measuring 4" x 4" x 4’ for an upcoming 10’8" longboard. I really love the look of the Dewey Weber “Legend” with the 2" balsa stringer, and want that look on my upcoming board. Strength is not a huge issue as I glass my boards extremely heavy, probably 6 x 6 x 6 top and 6 x 6 bottom. Id love to here some suggestions on how to cut and assemble these 4 x 4’s to give me the ability to get a board 3" thick with 3" of nose rocker and 4" to 4.25" of tail rocker. I have a 10’ 8" walker blank with 4 " of nose rocker and 3" of tail rocker to work with.
also…I’m considering swirling the bottom and routering in a 2" x 2" strip on the top to get “the look” of a soild balsa stringer. Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
you basically have two options. You can just to a butt joint, angling the joint slightly to accommodate the rocker of the board. Option two would be to do a splice on the joints. This is what I would probably do. A splice is accomplished by cutting the planks at a pretty extreme angle and then gluing up that angle. The disadvantage to this method is that it causes waste and effectively shortens the length of the planks. The advantages are huge in terms of strength, especially with respect to something that will flex like a surfboard or a airplane wing. I learned this technique from my grandfather. He used it to fix old airplane wings in the war.
Maybe if you have a full shop you could bandsaw the pieces you have into some thinner stringer sized sheets. From there you could splice them together. Just a thought. I would make the splice so that it goes the thick way of your stringer. To explain that better if you were viewing the rocker of the surfboard the splice would go diagonally through the stringer. Hope that helps some. Good luck…
Yep, scarf joint is the way to go from what I know. Never tried it before though, so if anyone has any pics on how to go about doing a scarf joint on 3mm thick wood that would be nice. Also just found this link.
Lots of info on joining thin panels of wood and the different joints you can use and their characteristics. You can make a jig for a circular saw, router, planer, whatever. The circular saw jig is quick and works well if you have a nice solid baseplate on your saw.
Thanks for the helpful information!!! Looks like I can slightly angle the scarf joint upwards towards the tail to accommodate the tail rocker. Im a kindergartner in the wood working world…Thanks for the help. Alot on good sites to research this and get prepared before I tackle this project. Im on it.
Thanks for the tip 4est. I’ve got to start putting together a scarf jig when i get home so i can get a good start on this project. I need to source some type on 1/8" stringer material with a dark grain to butt on each side of the balsa stringer to give it some contrast and tie it all together. If I can find something easily, I may put one down the center as well to increase the eye candy… Any suggestions for a dark grained wood?
On the east coast its seems that redwood is a tough cookie to aquire. Called alot of suppliers today on the east coast who dont carry it. It looks like im going to have to do the cedar thing instead. My next trip home im hopeful to get the process started with the limited amount of tools I have. I will post some pics if all goes well.
Ambrose,
Ill throw down the zap a gap …colored green
Im sure I can do this without cutting my fingers off or gettin my fingers glued together…
T-band balsa stringer…no color…crisp white foam…blood red fin…best board ever…im feelin it.
Thanks again,
Bob
“Feed a man fish, and you’ve fed him for a day…Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime…”