The soul and craftsmanship of hollow wooden surfboards totally grabs me. A board that can last a lifetime, is kind to the enviornment, and is far more beautiful then any foam board could dream. The allure was too much and ive finally given into this project.
It seems wrong for a wood board not to be a longboard. My initial thoughts for dims are 9’6" long, 23" wide, and 3-1/4" thick.
As for materials, a balsa deck and bottom, hollow rails also made of balsa, and a framing grade plywood frame under it all.
As for fins maybe a glass on, as a box i really dont know how to make that happen without routing into the stringer.
glass- epoxy 6oz 2x deck 6oz 1x bottom
Ill try to update this thread when i can with some pictures and logs.
If you can swing it, it is worth buying marine grade okume plywood…no voids, good glue, water resistant…<1/4" is better, you can get by with 1/8" if you add support to your ribs/stringer ibeam style. I usually put foam blocks in areas where I’m going to glass on or router in fins–it is easy and robust. You can glass on without it, but there’s a good chance you’ll pop your deck off the frame the first time you kick a big pivot turn.
I’m a big fan of internal glass to the extent possible. much better chance you’ll survive a leak if the inside is sealed. You can get by with 2x 4oz rather than 2x 6 oz.
I wish you the best with your project. HWS are a different animal altogether. Here’s my latest, an artistic tribute to the great old wood boards of yesteryear - I call it “the relic”! It’s 7’ 4". I’m planning for my next HWS to be a longboard.
Have fun on your build! And glass ons are a-ok. The board’s lighter to!
Anyway, I’d like to make a solid balsa board one day. But what I’m wondering is, would it be heavy? And what would costs be for a six ten egg shape? I don’t have the fundage now, but cost wise for a solid block three inch thick with a flattish rocker. but the thought of build n a balsa fish like im build n would be insane!
Hi florian thanks - I built it with old nasty cedar fence boards, and added some white to give the resin a milky look. May try to get some pics up later.
Downloaded AKUshaper today, spent a while messing with the program only to find out you need to pay to save your work! Went back through the site and found that past the programs version two, you have no choice but too pay. I dug around the net and found the original free version! Score! Took a little time to get my Java runtime-environment to accept an archived version of Java that the program was originally coded in, but well worth the work!
I also found a cool open source Java program that takes an AKU .brd file and makes a template out of it, either an outline or a full internal frame for a hollow board. With a little tweaking in SketchUp-2014 Im satisfied!
The dims of my board 9’ long, 23" wide, 3" thick. Nose rocker: 5 1/4", tail rocker: 3 1/2"
Ribs are going to be 1/4" thick marine grade plywood, spaced 200mm from eachother with a rib 100mm from either end of the bord for tail and nose support. Deck and rails will be both made of balsa.
How thick the balsa? Be sure to allow for that when sizing ribs - and don’t go too thin on the planking, I’m thinking minimum 1/4", maybe as thick as 1/2"? Have never used balsa for planking, so can’t say for sure.
been searching around for balsa, called a few local lumber yeards about balsa. The very first call went something like this
“Hi, ive been looking around your catalog and noticed you have balsa.”
“yes we have some balsa in stock”
“great! i need lengths about 8 feet long and 3 inches wide, do you happen to have any of that size or close to it in stock?”
“HA! Let me give you the number to Ecuador and maybe youll find something”
The next few calls went about the same way. Ive checked out woodensurfbooardsupply.com and they do have what im looking for, but shipping it all is the same way as shipping just one surfboard blank, not a very economical thing to do. I live in Massachusetts and i would like to use a lumber thats a bit closer to home. Ive found that people have used pine, cedar, and oak in the past. Im trying to keep this as light as i can so im hoping to shy away from the oak.
Does anybody have any experience with pine or cedar?
I’m in calif. and the pine we have here is too heavy, for the most part the cedar is too. Redwood is available here at low cost and pretty light, but not as light as balsa. One east coast builder uses birch (or maybe it was basswood? as per cycloxslug’s post above) from Home Depot.
In a previous post cycloxslug mentioned adding top and bottom flanges to your ribs, I-beam style. IMO if you do this, you can use shorter pieces of balsa , wouldn’t néed full 8 footers.
Living in MA, I think basswood is your ticket. Call lumbermills or look for people clearing yard trees who have access to a lumber mill, it is generally available for cheap (I bought most of a 3’ diameter tree, rough slabbed, for $200). It is easy to work with, finishes well, and locally grown…
old redwood siding can be another good inexpensive source, but you’ll have to work to get it looking good. Here are a couple boards, the majority of the wood is basswood, a bit of mahogany for accent.
