If you shape a board out of hardwood and you want it to last rather than sealing it. You glass it. But glassing it makes it too heavy. What if you used soft wood and shaped the board out of the softwood and glassed it? It would be a lot lighter. Has my idea been done before?
Thoughts / Comments Appreciated
Soft != Light
Balsa is technically a hard wood.
There are different opinions on the subject (Roger Hall does use some hardwood in his boards), but most would agree hardwoods are too heavy for surfboards that are going to be ridden. The ideal woods are paulownia, balsa, I use cedar and redwood for frame and plank surfboards. Small amounts of hardwood in key places sometimes.
There is a wood board builders forum, tree-to-sea. There are also a lot of really nice wood boards that have showed up here on swaylocks. Brad Tucker sells kits at woodsurfboardsupply.com, and Paul Jensen does too, I think - I know he teaches classes, and both are swaylocks members who have posted pictures of awesome wood boards. I think Paul Jensen's website is hollowsurfboards.com Both Pauls and Brads websites are worth checking out.
Most wood-board builders glass their boards with 4 oz., but a few guys on the tree-to-sea forum are not glassing their boards, just resin only.
How heavy is too heavy is subjective. Most my wood boards are around 17 lbs. - way heavy for most foam board riders, but perfectly comfortable for me. Some guys have gotten wood boards down to 8 lbs. or so, using balsa and paulownia. Some have gotten way below that, using wood veneer over foam. Surfding who posts here has built a wood board in the hundred pound category - but its a wallhanger (he likes his daily drivers under 6 lbs. 'cuz he surfs with and shapes for pro's) . Tom Wegener would ride that puppy!
Wood board builders like Roger Hall and Tom Wegener have built boards that I consider way heavy, and like 'em that way (both are worth researching a bit on internet, they have some good insights on building with wood). You have to experiment a bit, and see what works for you and your conditions.
I think the whole balsa era (primarily the 1950s) was based on this concept.
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If you shape a board out of hardwood and you want it to last rather than sealing it. You glass it. But glassing it makes it too heavy. What if you used soft wood and shaped the board out of the softwood and glassed it? It would be a lot lighter. Has my idea been done before?
Thoughts / Comments Appreciated
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What a deleima......Ever wonder why all those guys back in the 60's switched to foam?
Yes, wood is heavy.......50 years later..................
...Vac a skin onto foam...awesome....super strong, light ,looks like old school wood................
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I suppose it depends on your perception of "heavy".
This board is recycled outdoor bench seating. New Guinea rosewood I believe. Not easy to use, lots of meditative deep breathing required. Also beer. Just under 5kg raw. So add another kg for glass and you're absolutely flying down the line on a 6kg hardwood single fin. I don't think thats heavy, just exhilaratingly different. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6Sn7RYKzuw
I think there’s some confusion here about what a softwood or hardwood is. Wikipedia has basic descriptions, but in short many ‘softwoods’ are bloody heavy and hard (douglas fir springs to mind) and many of our lightest woods are hardwoods (like balsa).
Wood is a mysterious world when you start looking in to it. I’ve got five or six type of local (java) woods that are all suitable for surfboards. Many of them are in the mahogany family. Definitely hardwoods, but also pretty light.
Good effort with that PNG rosewood dovetail! I’ve got a load of planks of that stuff. Tried to resaw it for a hollow. After about half an hour I’d only cut one strip, produced a lot of smoke and heat, and blunted my table saw. I gave up and made shelves out of it instead! Beautiful shelves though when polished 
As far as I know in america hardwood quite often refers to deciduous trees and softwood to conifers which is technically wrong.
There are hardwoods and softwoods in each family.
Soft =light because light wood is more porous and therefore weaker in its structure.
Actually most really light wood species are deciduous trees.
Balsa is listed as a hardwood because only the young trees lumber is light the older the tree the heavier it gets.
If you wanna get rid of the whole glassing you’ve got to find a species with a high strength to weight ratio ( paulownia got the highest known so far) since the wood has to bear all the forces
woods with long fibers are therefore always better than those with short fibers, conifers tend to have longer fibers.
I could go on like that for ever…