From Tom Wegeners latest newsletter:
Tom decided to make a hollow wood, egg style and a fish style board, sealed only with linseed oil. This would be competitive with regular custom boards on a cost basis, lighter and perhaps the most environmentally friendly board since redwood planks.
I’ve read about the Paulownia boards not absorbing water when dinged, but sealing only with Linseed oil? Is this how the elders did it with the redwood planks??
I have a balsa that is encapsulated with epoxy, but no glass. It has some dings, but far fewer than I expected. Balsa is a tough wood! It will, however, absorb water. Paulownia, I understand, is much denser than balsa so the linseed should work well. The oil would probably have to be renewed regularily. This would probably not be much of a difficulty. Some furniture builders wax over the oil for more durability. Mr Wegener probably would supply maintenance directions with the board. Not sure about what oil the ancients used on their boards. Perhaps someone such as Ambrose, who is more familiar with Island history will know. In any case, the Wegener board I have examined was both beautiful and functional.
Kukui Nut oil, so I hear.
Thanks Bill. By the way, does Thrailkill Surfboards have a web site? Would like to see more pictures of your work. Google has a number of references to surf auctions, but I can’t find a site. Have a good day.
kukui nut oil yes I have heard.
lest we forget the oil of the coconut
and the ground shells of the kukui shell,were they charcoal?
canoes an elegant black
with yellow wood detail manus
all this from incomplete information and a sketchy memory.
a job for an achedemic.
the lost information
the overlooked -not PC ingredients
like pork fat renderings
and verietal waste products
and the formulas involved
were surely wide ranging and
regional.
All of which were eclipsed simply
because of durability and longevity.
even varnish was regularly refreshed
weekly if not monthly.
beez wax is uninditeable
…ambrose…
when the saw red lead
all the boards were red in a week
when you choose maintenance over
abusive practices the enviro meter
goes way over to the plus side…
I’ve got dings that are older than some kids
I’ll get arround to em one o’ these days
in the meantime the quick durable job
has my head.
Really, any oil will work, if that oil can be polymerised ( as is boiled linseed oil) , thinned so it’ll penetrate and then will ( perhaps with an addative like Japan Drier) harden to a tough surface. Lots of possibilities…
My own recipe for outdoor use:
5 parts boiled* linseed oil,
3 parts gum turpentine or mineral spirits ( the turps frequently adds a nice reddish tinge)
1 to 1/2 part japan drier
1 to 1/2 part pine tar -
Mix, apply with a rag and some pressure. You may want to use more thinner in the first coat, taper it down for succeeding coats, so you get a really good penetration the first time. You can leave out the pine tar for a more furniture-like look ( as I do for a furniture finish) , though I myself like the look and the smell it has. This is, basicly, linseed oil paint without pigment.
Watch out for your finish rags, they can spontaneously combust: I like to leave 'em outside to dry, on asphalt, flat and no folds, well away from anything that’ll burn.
The color of boiled linseed oil can vary from lot to lot, can to can. If you think you’ll need a lot of it, have a big container to mix all your linseed together in, for an even color throughout.
*I am harping on boiled linseed oil somewhat - don’t mistakenly use raw linseed oil, as it never hardens. Lovely stuff to use on hemp rigging or when you want to store oakum caulking or make a good putty with it and some whiting, but as a wood finish it’s the wrong stuff.
hope that’s of use
doc…
I wonder what Tom is using to build his boards these days. One of the surfers at my local, (Daryn McBride) who is a good friend of Tom’s was competing at Noosa a couple of years ago, and had the opportunity to ride one of Tom’s boards. Anyway Daryn lost the board and it hit some rocks, getting a nose ding. He retreived the board and was about to go back out because it was only a small ding but apparently Tom told him not to, just to keep watching the nose of the board, which delaminated before his eyes, because Tom was using a water soluble glue, and it was dissolving !
By the way we use coconut oil as a speed oil, it reduces the thickness of the boundary layer.
so . . . is there a waterproof, environmentally compatiable, but somewhat user friendly glue? I know polyurethane glue is good but its not really user friendly.
Playing Devil’s Advocate - I think that the “environmental friendliness” of a substance is a formula that varies with the application: how damaging its production and use is, factored by how much of it will be used in a given process. It seems to me that the amount of glue used in this particular process (and board building generally) is such a small fraction of the total materials that efforts to “green it up” should probably be focused on those other items. YMMV.
-Samiam
Exactly. And then there’s all the things you don’t see -
Take balsa:
You have this great big tree growing in the Ecuadorian jungle.
Somebody cut it down, hauled it out of the jungle, sawed it into chunks, hit it with a fungicide, kiln dried it to get out the tremendous amount of water in green balsawood, wrapped it, put it in a container, trucked it to a harbor, loaded it on a freighter, shipped it, unloaded it, trucked it someplace else, and then someplace else, then someplace else. Then sawed it up further, power tools and more power tools…
Now, none of these are exactly what I’d call environmentally positive. From the chainsaw gas and oil that was used to cut it down to the heavy fuel oil (or high sulfur coal, for instance) that ran the plant that generated the electricity to run the power tools that finally whittled that piece of balsa into shape, you got lots of fuels, emissions, byproducts, waste products, what have you. How the scraps and dust and shavings are dealt with: if there’s balsa bits and such discarded in Ecuador it rots and returns to the soil, but sealed in a trash bag in a landfill in the US it’s another story.
So, how much petrochemicals and emissions went into the ‘green’ balsa board versus, say, a polyurethane or polystyrene foam board with fiberglass and resin of some sort on it? How much waste and how was it dealt with? And any other resources…
There are quite a few parts of the balsa story that I am sure I’m missing. It’s a helluva complex set of steps. As are all ways of making a board. But the materials used themselves are just a small part. The whole thing needs to be considered before you can really call something ‘green’.
doc…
hey doc,
once again, you really put this topic in perspective…
makes me wonder if buying foam blown locally is perhaps not a better solution. it keeps jobs in the community as well.
From what I know, he’s using paulownia wood.
Paulownia wood has proven to be successful in Formula 1 and Formula 2 boat racing where weight and strength are critical. The wood is used as a lightweight alternative to Birch and other woods. It creates a strong hull and can be used in other applications where Balsa is used. Unlike Balsa, Paulownia does not hold the added weight from soaking up excessive amounts of epoxy. Paulownia also resists splitting and warping in the drying process and can hold nails and screws without splitting.
that was taken from here:
http://www.paulowniasupply.com/paulownia_uses.htm
Cheers to Weg for using water soluble glue, I think it’s great.