Oneula - you lose a lot more wood ripping with a table saw than with a bandsaw. A tablesaw blade - even a good one like a Freud - needs thickness to fight wobble. Expect to lose a fat eighth on every cut. You can get a ripping bandsaw blade with big teeth but little set (how the teeth are skewed first one way & then the other - its called thin kerf) and lose less than a 16th per cut. And I put a long straight piece of fir on my bandsaw fence to help keep everything straight when I’m ripping.
But there is plenty of upside, too. The tablesaw is waist high so its easier on the shoulders to feed. You’re probably more used to it. And you already have it :). You need a fairly sizeable bandsaw to rip any wood that’s 4" tall. Mine’s got 18" wheels and an 8’ blade. Not small.
Your pre-rockered stringer idea works for me. Thats’ how I did the plywood & the redwood on my first 2 EPS boards. And how I did the d-cell stringers on this one. I only planned to do 1 layer of balsa along each side, but I ended up doing 2 (cutting 2.5" off each side of the EPS blank) so I could pinch the rail more without exposing foam where the rail curve meets the deck.
I made a hotwire cutter for my last EPS board. But on this one, since I was ripping the EPS to 5.5" wide x 5" thick sticks, I laid out the rocker with a piece of masonite and even cut the EPS on the bandsaw. Cut the d-cell with a knife. Once it was all glued together (with gorilla glue) I had a very clean, close-tolerance blank.
Festool is definitely the Mercedes of power tools. The Japan Woodworker in Alameda has them. I’ve checked them out, but my Master Card balance never has room
I think Oaktown, another guy near me and an infrequent poster on this board bought one a few months ago. I remember him asking about them in a post…and then I saw an add for a bosch planer & a milwaukee sander - or things to that effect - from Oaktown Boards on the bulletin board for sale at Japan Woodworker. You could look him up, try a PM or check his website, and find out what he thinks. I’d be interested in the review.
Yes, I’m a woodworker. My grandfather was a furniture maker and supported himself out of his basement workshop for 40 years. I grew up in that shop. I worked as a finish carpenter for about 10 years and have been building my own furniture and pieces for family & friends for 15.
I get more uses out of the bandsaw than almost any other power tool. Of course, part of that is it was my grandfather’s, so every time I fire it up I think of him.
yea sorry guys , i didnt word that one to well , i was refering to over a decade or more back , where even the concept of bagging was new to a guy who built aircraft for a living …
i often had model makers come in for supplies , fine glass , balsa , and resins , no one i ever came across had any knowledge of bagging before …
suppose its a bit like surfboards … how many board builders are familiar with vacumn bagging ???
so its probably the same in many other industries …
not all in a particular industry would be up to date with the latest techniques,
i probably jumped in to quick with that statement , its a big world …
I learned a lot of my stuff off an engineer who was a big fan of vac bagging, and very experienced, both in models and real aircraft. He pointed out that a lot of techniques used in full size planes were developed in the model industry, albeit a small, forward thinking part of the industry.
You are very correct in saying most people don’t know, and I’ve realised a lot are still mystified by it.
As you have found out, there is no mystery when you do it over and over, several thousand times, an advantage you will always have up your sleeve.
Thanks for sharing and pushing people forward. Critics should open their minds, or go home.
Hey Bert, a quick question, on this thread i think you said the EPS, PVC, Epoxy boards are 30-50% lighter then conventional boards, then you said you can get your wood ones lighter, however on your website it says your woods are 20% lighter than a poly/poly board…I know a standard shortboard, say 6’8" is about 6 lbs…just curious just how light are your wood boards, and are they heavier then the board made in this thread? I was also wondering if you ever did a wood perimeter stringer, rails, and PVC deck and bottom.
never seen many p/u boards at 6 lb and the ones that were that light were 6’ x 18 x 2 1/4 4oz disposables …
talking in kilos now …
the lightest board i could make out of p/u was 3.2 kg for my size , in timber they weigh 2.4 kg and last me 20 times longer …2.4 is 75% of 3.2 , 25% difference …
add .8 to 2.4 and is a 30% increase in weight … so depending on which way you measure its 25 to 30% lighter …
the lightest longboard i could make myself out of p/u was 7.5 kg my woodies weigh in at 4.5 … using the same type of calculations that can be 40 to 66% lighter depending on which way you measure …
yes my wood boards are lighter than the one made in this thread , and yes i do make boards with pvc decks and bottoms and wood rails …
there are some advantages and disadvantages …
im on the other side of the country at the moment , but when i get home i can take a picture of a board that just needs a polish that has pvc skins and wooden rails …
i wouldnt ride one myself , but some customers would rather have that …
The 6’8 shortboard (by standard I meant shape) I was talking about was the one made in the thread, sorry I guess i worded it wrong…The website I guess is a retailer of yours http://members.jcom.home.ne.jp/4065574901/edetail.html
the quality of the wood used to be an issue for me in the past , when i was using the same technique as surfgear …but with a pretreatment system i use now , you can get the lightest balsa to the point where you struggle to get a jigsaw blade through it …
Hi Bert, could you give us a little clue to what pretreatment you’re doing on the balsa? Chemical treatment or high pressure impregnation or a combination? It would be nice if you could kind of polymerize the wood a little WO adding weight. I see a few companies doing research on something similar, but mainly to replace the old toxic chemicals used to impregnate wood in the past for longevity, not thinking too much about strength/weight. regards, Håvard
right, but isn’t the flex of timber much more consistent time-to-time than PVC foam? I would think that by using wooden rails with wooden skins, you could get the desired flex easier by toying with the thicknesses of each.
If not wooden skin and wooden rails, or PVC skin and wooden rails, what’s left? PVC skin and PVC rails? Sorry to come off sounding ignorant (as I am in composites), but wooden rails with PVC skin sounded like a good combination to me. I was surprised when Bert said he wouldn’t surf one.
Try www.veneersupplies.com for their supersoft veneer softener. I don’t know if this is what Bert uses, but it must be worth a try. It is water based and allowed to dry before lam, so epoxy compatible. Only problem for us Haavard is that they have a $100 min order and this stuff only costs $36 per gallon! Cant imagine the shipping on 3 gallons of the stuff!!! Let us know if you can find anything similar in Europe.
what about PVC rails and wood composite on the deck and bottom? (wood perimeter stringer included) I guess teh best combo is wood on wood just bc your using more of the timbers flex properties, Im sure wood on rails or lams would be better than just pvc and epoxy. how about when the waves are a little larger and you dont need that much flex, make the wood thicker or toy around with the different materials…
right, but isn’t the flex of timber much more consistent time-to-time than PVC foam? I would think that by using wooden rails with wooden skins, you could get the desired flex easier by toying with the thicknesses of each.
I would think that you’d get a more consistent flex from PVC foam. Meaning that the product would be more consistent to deal with from batch to batch. Whereas Blasa is a living thing that is different from tree to tree or harvest to harvest. That it would take a longer time to get to know it. That someone who dealt with it on a regular basis would know if it might be more dense than another batch. How does Balsa take to a typical shop thickness planer?
same thickness and density every time , way easier to streamline production …
timber like you say , has variations , i have to select every piece , check for density , width and thickness , then make sure i place the pieces with the right characteristics in the right place …
there are certain inconsistencies , that take extra effort to overcome …
a few of my systems allieviate most of them , and a little effort deals with the rest …
