Building a 12’ x 30" x 5" SUP of southern red cedar. Much thanks to Mike Lavecchia of Grain Surfboards for all his advice. This is my 2nd hollow wooden board.
I selected lumber carefully at the local lumber yard to find pieces clear enoug for the job. Then spent a weekend milling it into planks 1/4" thick by 12’ x 3.5"
Then cut the framing and assembled it. Laid up the deck and bottom skins by gluing planks together. If I can conquer the picture insertion thing which does not seem to comply with the instruction on help, then you will see pictures below.
This is the stringer and cross members without the rails or nose/tail blocks.
This is the frame with rails and nose/tail blocks.
Next the rails will be shaped and the deck sanded to a smooth surface. Then epoxy lamination, hot coat, Pinstripes with pigmented resin, finish coat and then Marine spar varnish to get that deep shine that wood should have (but epoxy won’t give).
I am shrinking large pictures…I need to figure a different way that allows for a small viewing size without spreading pixels too much. This site only allows 34K pictures.
last pic is better by far!!! Try photobucket.com, you can upload your full size pics and it automatically resizes them. Then just copy the IMG tag photobucket provides for each picture and paste it into your thread, easy peasy!
The deck is domed compared to most LBs. I needed 5" thick center for floatation, but I hate rails that are too boxy. So after about 14 inch center deck with only slight concave, the deck tapers more rapidly to avoid a super thick rail. This will allow a center flat standing spot, and when you step towards the rail you can actually feel the angle difference and thus feel the ‘off center’ position of your stance. The thinner, less boxy rail allows for much more manueverability. The rail doesn’t try to ‘float’ out of the face of the wave as much. I have used this theory in my perfomance 9’4" epoxy board and it works great! Most reponsive longboard I ever had.
Hope the decks not to domed to give you ankle/knee/hip problems
??? can you elaborate or point me to some information on this?
Well, no one way is right, as I seldom am. But I find that I agree more with a flatter deck than anything with dome to it. Little better stability (for me), and my knees/ankles/feet dont get as tired as quick.With your outside arches pointed down, you tend to cut off some circulation on the inside of your ankles. A flat deck provides a better platform to camp on forever, you can relax into it more. The drawback being you have 4-5 inches of bulk to deal with at the rails. Its just whatever works best for you. Anything that big, I plan on spending ALOT of time on.
But enough of my thread de-railing banter… that thing is ill!
I bet it paddles sick when you get it floating, and 30 lbs isnt bad. Infinity is going back to PU/PE construction and will most likely be around that.
This is the rough shaped board ready for final sanding. I was determined not to make a SUP with no rocker. I won’t be long distance paddling with it. I will be riding waves myself, tandem with wife, tandem with dog, and even fishing off of it.
This is souther red cedar. Lots of nice variation in color and that will really increase when the resin hits it.
With performance rocker and the nose concave this may nose ride great…I hope. Nose concave and rocker no easy task over the length of a 12 foot board in wood.
Unfortunately it ended up around 50 lbs. I also made the rails too thin. the center is 5" thick but it thins out near the rails. This makes it good for wave riding, but very difficult to balance when stand up paddling. As a little chop tries to tilt you, and you try to push back of the rail, the rail doesn’t habe enough float and just sinks. Unless in very calm water it is very difficult to stand up on an balance it.
I would recommend going for stability over wave performance on an SUP. If you can't stand up on it due to instability you don't have a usable SUP. If you are big, the board will manuever for you on a wave with skill.
To get that stability, go wide,...but more importantly, keep volume in the rails. 30" is wide but if you are 230lbs or more, even 32". 5" thick deck, but keep the volume all the way out to the rails. That was my mistake.....rails thinned out too quickly.
Also, if I had it to do over again I would not have done the wood board. Too heavy even with all the tricks to try to lighten it up. I would recommend epoxy resin on either EPS or polyuerathane foam....depending on what blank you can get of that size. You can go thin on the fiberglass on the bottom. Only consider doubling up on the deck where you will stand....and of course the rails get 2 layers as the laps overlap from top and bottom. At the SUP paddle race I was in (and embarassed in) the guys having the most success and performance....and thus the most fun....had the biggest, lightest, epoxy boards there.
For wave performance put some rocker in the nose, and I recommend a rounded pin tail for release on the wave. The wide squash tail type has too much drag when trying to drop in, and seems to keep the board from getting on a rail in a turn. The thicker rails for stability will hinder rail to rail speed as well…but a necessary tradeoff on an SUP I believe.
Ride report on my board? To unstable to SUP accept on the smotthest days. Even paddling in to a wave prone, the board is so heavy it is difficult to assess wave riding performance. A good Waikiki board.
I’m not surprised it was 50 lbs. You made no attempt to reduce weight in the spar or ribs. Your planking must have been too thick as well. I’ve built several 10’ HW longboards that came in at 20-23 lbs. The concept of a HW SUP is good, but you have to work at cutting the excess.
Try 
