Thank you gentlemen for the kind words.
The boards that I built from lumber are from two sources: the first was a stock of aviation balsa left over from the 50’s and stocked out by Lourdes. The best of that lot was insane - clear, light, just enough natural rocker. Those boards I either did solid glue-ups on, or did the traditional glue-up, break, chamber (I was very tool-poor so I used a hole-saw set, sharp chisels, and prayer to get through that process!), re-glue and shape.
The second batch came in with a shipment from Shark Bay. A mixed batch with some twists, some heavy wood, etc., along with nice pieces. That one heavily grained close-up is an example. Beautiful but hard to work with. A carpenter friend had to show me how to use a broken band saw blade to make a scraper, since sanding wasn’t an option for fine finishing and the grain changed constantly!
I’ve also used blanks from Skip, from Shark Bay, and maybe one or two other Ecuador suppliers over the years. That is a mixed bag as well, with some great blanks and some very poor glue-ups/rockers that were way off from what I ordered!
Sometimes I’d restringer with balsa or poplar, mahogany… whatever I had on hand and felt like using for contrast.
First boards were all poly glassed, and then I went to epoxy laminations and hotcoats with poly gloss, and finally, once I learned how to polish epoxy, I went all epoxy. Some were glassed by my friend and longtime glasser, Jérôme Barbe, and some by my own hand.
I built a semi-pig last summer with balsa from Bali - great wood and light weight. If you’d like I can dig out some more shots, and if you’d like to know any specifics just let me know!
McDing - I have other shots of Juan’s fins - he does beautiful work and provided a lot of fins for Dale Velzy and others. He has always been very cool to work with.
Kayu, nothing I do is in your class, but thanks.
And Huck, you’re the man with the project you have going!