The first balsa board I made I tried to wrap the balsa all the way around the rails. Some spots it worked great and others I had to patch up. This time I’d like to do solid 1/2"-3/4" balsa rails… but I’m at a loss for a good technique to do so. My blank is ready (skinned and templated) and the balsa is waiting in the garage (1.5 ft long pieces of 1/4" and 3/16"). I remember reading a post where Bert said one of his workers was able to lay up 3/4" rails in under an hour. None of the processes I can think of would even come close to allowing me to do it that quickly.
What techniques have you developed that work well for you?
I would guess that if you had a blank with square rails, and 1/8 pieces of balsa as long as the board, it becomes a simple matter to lay strip after glued strip, and tie, clamp or weight the whole shebang together.
I’m a little bugged about “Bert said” stuff… he teasing this community too much with almost-information. I’ll stop now.
I trace paper template off the squared rail I then cut this paper to the rail profile shape I have just drawn.
I lay this paper template over 5mm balsa peices(5mm x100mm x1200mm) and trace it onto the balsa
I then cut these balsa pieces.
I then repeat the same to another layer of balsa making sure that the joins between the balsa sheets are staggered.
I repeat the process until I have enough balsa for both rails.
I only tape together the outside layer of the balsa.
I lay plastic on a table, place the first outside balsa layer down with the tape side against the plastic.
I mix up resin, q cell and some balsa dust (to add balsa colour) and use this to glue the bits together on the table.
while its all wet and loosly holding together I then flip this all over onto the rail of the board and lightly tape into place.
I do the same to the other rail.
I then lay the board flat and wrap the whole board tightly with that brown packaging tape that stretches a bit when you apply it, I use a whole roll($3)
I cant be bothered to put it in the bag and vacuum the rails on the tape does a good enough job.
any balsa thicker that 5 or 6mm seemed to not bend well.
Thanks bluejuice – that’s roughly the approach I was leaning towards, with the one exception being that I intend to use plain old wood glue rather than a resin mix to glue the pieces together. The hurdle I was having trouble getting over was the amount of tape it seemed like it was going to require. But then again, tape is cheap so I shouldn’t let that bother me.
Do you soak the balsa in water first or are you doing this all dry?
I want them because I’m sick of fixing rail dings. Seems like the only place my boards are ever injured is on the rails, and the 3 or 4 times that I’ve snapped a board in two have been in places where there was already a weak spot in the rail. In addition to strength reasons, having a half inch of balsa already on the rails will make putting the top and bottom skins on that much easier. No more trying to bend balsa around tight rail corners.
Anyone have a method that’s much different from bluejuice’s? I’m sure that someone out there insists that you are doing it wrong if you’re not using the vac bag to clamp the rails on.
I have not done my first yet, but the metod I plan to use based on following all the threads is…
hot wire either the deck or bottom (depending on which is going to require more rough shaping before skining), rough shape, hotwire the other side, router template, use cutoff or template to guide the cutting of the first layer of balsa rail, attach a layer of balse rail, put initial rail band in, attach the skins, plane back to the 1 layer rail (clean eadge), attach the rest of the rail layers (planning for 4 in all ~1" thick longboard rail), shape rails.
I’m thinking this will give the cleanest finish for the rail/skin joint.
Someone on the site used this method and it sounded good to me. Well thats the plan for balsa sandwich 1 & 2 starting in a couple weeks.
My method is just slightly different. I don’t really cut the wood first, I tape 1m (3 ft) long balsa sheets (3 mm = 1/8th inch) together end to end with brown paper tape (that will stay there forever after gluing, but it doesn’t show afterwards). I use 4 thickenesses at the end, glued altogether with white wood glue (vinylic glue). I tape one rail sheet to the oposite one so I have a double length plank with tape making a hinge at the nose of my board. On a pointed noise board, it is easier to get the full nose covered with that method. I prepare 4 of these for the 4 thicknesses. I put glue on the squared rail of the blank and apply the first balsa thickness. I then spread glue with a brush on each thickeness and put that around the board, all the “tape hinges” aligned at the nose. I then press the blank forward and pull the plancks towards the back so the nose of the blank really pushes against the “hinge” and I apply the side offcuts against the rails, and press them with a long sheet of wood on each side and clamp. That way, pressure is even and that doesn’t need vacuum bagging for gluing. In addition, I put pegs all around to be sure the balsa thicknesses are well glued together. After that, I use the jig saw to roughly cut the rails to the board thickness, and get there by using the planer, it’s very easy and fast, that’s why I don’t take time to cut the wood perfectly before gluing.This method works well for me.
I did my first set of rails today, its actually in the bag right now.
What a royal pain in the ass! And still two more boards to do.
I was going to use the ply method mentioned above, but when I layed up my sheet of balsa, I discovered that two layers of 1/8" balsa glued together isn’t flexible enough. so, my method involved laying the balsa pieces up on the rails, marking them up, cutting them out, then making a full set for both sides from that first “template”. of course, two templates had to be made, so the joints would be staggered. Then I had to figure out how to apply epoxy to the sticks, apply the sticks to the rails, get them all aligned properly, tape them, flip to the other rail, repeat, retape first side, bag, swear profusely.
It was quite the job. Probably 1.5 hours from measuring first board to getting it in bag.
My only concern with ply is what happens IF the outer epoxy and glass crack and seep into the ply. I’ve seen some sad messes when ply gets wet. Your thoughts?
Planning on steaming my segments to shape and bagging on at this stage. Just cos it’s something I am comfortable with.
The board is pretty tough, I dropped it from waist height and the ply. rail hit the concrete. The glass shattered and turned white but it is still water tight.
The main thing to worry about is water getting into the eps foam and spreading into the blank becaude the foam is open cell, I worry about that more than the ply. getting wet.
I found that the bending ply. was easy to apply oversized with yellow glue and masking tape. It was time consuming but leisurely. I planed each strip
down as I went along with a sharp plane. I needed five strips around the blank to give me enough meat to create the rail I wanted. The 9 ft board weighed 15lbs when glassed.
I don’t know much about steaming balsa but I would think that it would be the only way to get 1/8" strips to bend around the nose.
uumm… The sandwich layers should prevent that (water getting to the foam). At least, that’s the deisgn principle.
Epoxy, glass, wood, epoxy, glass, foam. That’s a lot to get through.
But the first two layers aren’t so much to get through. So if your “wood” layer is moisture sensitive and the top two crack I thought it may absorb water and start to come apart. This would then make the next two layers (epxoy and glass) vulnerable. Ultimately water could get into the foam then (bad!).
And I could also be about 2,000kms off base too. I was just wondering.
The bottom of my board is not that tough, 4oz under 1/16" veneer and 4oz over. I ran over a pilling and put a 1"x 2" hole in the bottom. I dried it out right a away and sealed it back up again. That was three weeks ago and the repair has held up fine. I think if you scrape the wax off regularly and check for dings you won’t have any trouble. I don’t have any pressure dents in the deck after surfing the board for six months. Eps foam seems to have more spring back than pu foam.
i think that it is very easy to overbuild these types of boards. I like Meecraftys idea of hey if it dies just make another one > ive decided you can overdo the stringers as well cause u can get a similar flex return from using denser springier balsa on the deck sandwhich.
my stringers on my current board (shorty) are only about 9 mm wide and they taper at the tail to about 5mm wide .this board has real nice flex caracteristics
so that proves it for me anyway.
Once the outer glass is on it will tie it all together anyway so it doesnt matter too much how you glue the rails on >>Keep it simple
I love the finish u guys are doing(marke your board is looking awesome) .im just making to surf em and dont really care too much what they look like.
what im aiming for is a board i can flaten out upside down from pressure that exceeds my body weight .and then SNAPS back to its original shape agressively.
so itll flex like a poly but have a much more direct return…
are you guys selecting your wood carefully ?
also im doing the bottom skin with a thinner sandwhich.
I do two layers of 6mm for the rail band ,just stick em together with a little pva ,as you say the glass holdes it all together .The top and bottom sandwich go over the top of the rail bands so they are smaller and no glass between the rail band and the eps
And the decksandwich thicker than the bottom
This latest has a secret ingredient under the deck sandwich thats to do with putting flex recovery just where it needed
Have just spent the day at Rags with the latest 6’8" x 19 7/8" x 2" 1.85 kgs yesss another magic board Im so surfed out I hurt every where!!
