My first thread; if it’s been covered before, sorry… but if you have the time please let me know where as I couldn’t find it. So… a friend’s written and asked me if it’d be possible to make up a solid wooden paddle board for him. He paddleboards fairly regularly when there’s no swell and nice skies, paddles out of sight of land, fishes for a bit, turns round and paddles in. I think his current paddleboard has seen better days and the possibility of a solid wooden replacement definitely has positive price and novelty value aspects to it.
But I have no knowledge at all about such things, never even seen one up close in real life let alone used one so naturally i want to do it but also I don’t want to do it badly. So if anyone has undertaken a similar project I’d love to hear about any successes or failures or even just opinions on whether or not this kind of project is a waste of time. Perhaps if I post my rough ideas you can see whether or not I’m going to end up making a mistake so huge that I can’t even lift it.
Cheap wood is not a problem for me to get hold of at any size but it has to be criptomeria. I’ve used this for other boards including alaias and not found any problems; So we’re thinking a huge slab of ent 4 inches thick and 12 and a half foot long, oh, just turning it over is going to be a full on workout. Although I’m thinking the flotation of wood means we could take it down to 3" or less? I’ll have to research widths, he’s 6’2, any ideas?
I have nothing to hand even remotely similar so I’ll have to take a template from his current board. Put some rocker in the nose but it’s not for surfing so I’m not sure if I will in the tail. I’ll have to look at his board but in my own head as I’m thinking about it I reckon as the rails don’t need to bite I’ll keep them circular and put a bit of roll on the bottom just smooth flowing curves throughout. But when I template off his current board to be sure that I’m not just copying someone else’s mistakes, does anyone have advice on dimensional aspects to paddleboards they could share?
Lastly, I’ll fine sand it down to a polished finish so the wood’s nice and hard then wax her, polish, dry her out and oil her, this seems to work pretty well with alaias. Fins? Yep probably need to consider that as well. Fish box?
Sorry to sound so utterly clueless but then I am and if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be here asking for your help.
Any input will be gratefully received.