hey Jeff, where do you get balsa that long?
either BalsaUSA or National Balsa. 4 foot lengths. I stagger pieces so one layer is made from two 4’ foot lengths and the other is one 4’ and two 2’.
Skins have been bagged. I’ll post pics soon. Right now we’re going over the river and through the woods to grandmas house for Christmas dinner.
Merry Christmas everyone!
merry christmas to you and your family jeff !
with that double concave bottom hump I’d give a try with Robin Mair’s new quad fin design.
I think you might find it more versatile than a bonzer.
take care.
-bernie
Hey Bernie. Thanks for the advice but this one is replacing a magic 7-1 bonzer that I’m riding to death. I love the bonzer ride. It smooths out my style.
Here’s some progress-
I was trying to figure out how to cut the veneer. I made a little viewing port to “see” the outline.
I had to add pieces because the veneer isn’t wide enough. I originally bought some ash but the color was way off. Then I realized that my cypress pieces were long enough, and when I cut the outline I would have enought length to flip the cuts and add them to the edge. Cutting veneer was a pain. The exacto blade would catche the grain. It would even pull it out from under the straight edge. I was going to invest in a veneer saw but there were none available locally. Then I tried using masking tape and that helped a lot.
Here’s the veneer pulling out from under the straight edge. I think you can see it-
Gaps! Needs fixing.
Taping it up.
All taped up-
Poplar deck patches, cross grain so as not to lock up flex (Thanks CJ). You can see I’ve already glassed the deck with 2oz.(Thanks John)-
Bagged on-
Cleaning the edge. With my method you shape the outline like ten times!
The seams came out right in the flutes which I think is a good thing so the holes I make while sanding the joints will be acceptable-
Cool Jeff!
What are the benefits of glassing with 2oz first?
I like the hand outlines in the pic of the 2 boards on the floor. =)
I put on the 1/16" balsa rail strips and glass the deck with 2oz before bagging the skins to hold rocker. And still, this time when I pulled the board out of the bag and cleaned up the bottom skin I found I lost a 1/4" out of both nose and tail. I count on rocker more than flex to give me the desired ride characteristics, so losing 1/4" of tail rocker especially is a bummer. If I didn’t have that 2oz glass I would have lost more rocker, maybe 3/8" - 1/2"? I’m not sure why the rocker flattens. The veneer, this time, actually had a tendency to curl in a way that you’d think would ADD rocker, but it didn’t work out that way.
Work continues-
Laying out balsa for rails-
Gluing up balsa-
Balsa taped up-
A while back I bought a big load of balsa. It seemed I used up the lighter pieces and the pieces I have now are quite a bit stiffer and I had difficulty getting them to lay flat , so for a change I put this in the bag. I cranked down the vacuum until I heard cracking sounds and I backed off in a hurry! -
Adding solid balsa where the strips wouldn’t curve-
adding koa nose and tail blocks, very minimal, just to prevent dings. These are my little pieces of Hawaii that I’ve embedded in all my most recent boards as a nod of respect to our sport’s origins-
Hi Jeff -
Really really nice! I think you nailed it with that elliptical grain pattern. Nice idea - that peephole template.
An idea on the rocker... maybe try outer glassing the deck side first? The sandwich skin may already be too stiff to allow it but I've had many boards tweak themselves a bit as the first side lamination goes off and tightens up. That would add rocker if doing the deck side first.
Another option might be to set your stands close together, outer glass the bottom first but insert a tiny picture hanging eyehook in each end block and hang weights. That would leave a little 'ding repair' at each end but you might be able to get back that missing 1/4" rocker.
Best of luck on the rest of it.
Hi John. Thanks for the tip. Someone else mentioned to me that epoxy shrinks as it sets. I had no idea. It would make sense that if I did the deck first and it shrunk I would add rocker.
I did get back the tail rocker, but not the nose rocker by weighting it when I did the top skin-
Now, after all the work, I’m a the stage a “regular” surfboard maker would be after an hour or two (or less) of mowing foam-
Finished shaped blank-
ps can you see the shadow of the deck patches and a bubble? I had to go back and fix the bubble, so even after all that work I wasn’t finished!
Foiling some bamboo fins-
Very nice!
Double post....
May as well add: Looking forward to the finished product.
Laminating. At last you can see the color of the wood.
I think it was either Thraikill or Jim the Genius that posted this tip about double masking cut laps. I put down a line of blue, then a line of normal masking tape. When I sand the lap I know to stop when I hit the blue.
Here’s a problem I alluded to in a separate thread. I think by the time I’m tucking the laps I’ve pushed around the epoxy enough that it is a bit frothy and so it’s cloudy and when I sanded the laps it had pin holes which filled with dust that I couldn’t get out.
Putting on the runners-
Wow, really good work man!
nice work
did you have the same issue on the deck side also ?
Thanks Jeff , you inspired me to buy an EPS blank and make a board using the Zebra wood that Ken donated to the Lab.
The glassing / shadowing on the rails is a tuff one. I have the same issues with darker painted boards. I try to use a little more resin and a little less moving it around...but I'm not doing wood rails.......
Ray
the cloudy laps most likely have what i call 'the froth'. not much you can do about that now except grind off the lap.
did you use addF in your lam? taking that out can help. also as stingray says use more resin than you need to avoid the froth.
any pinholes that are open and have sanding dust in them should be able to be cleared out with compressed air and unless they are packed really tight with dust will go clear from the next fill coat anyways.
your board looks amazing. too bad about the cloudy laps.
I sanded most of the froth out but there is still some white pinhole stuff. My wife looked and didn’t even notice, but you know how you get to involved in a project and see every tiny imperfection? I’m at that stage where I can’t see properly.
The board feels heavy (although I have to sand it). Is it the 1.7 lb US Blanks eps instead of the 1.5 Segway I’ve been using? Is it the heavier balsa (after having used all the light pieces of the batch on previous boards)? Did this particular species of wood drink more resin? I’m thinking of sanding the fark out of it and then doing a light rattle can gloss to seal sand throughs. It is intended as a semi gun / step up so I guess weight is not too bad (it weighs around 8 lbs before sanding)…maybe I can get it in the water by Friday…surf’s supposed to be up.
OK now I’m going to get all dusty…
Board is looking great! Can’t wait to see the final product. You’ll have to post some shots of it in the water as well!
did you try acetone on the pinholes? i’ve never had any that wiping acetone all over couldn’t solve! apply liberally 