Paulownia Surfboards

Some pics of wooden surfboard builds using our clean Australian paulownia.

 James Kale has done a great job with this chambered paulownia fish.

Nice clean lines and neat joinery.

Burleigh veteran Glenn Clark with his foamcore balsa and cedar tracker. Super-nice glass job by Maddo at MSD surfboards Gold Coast and thanks to Grant Newby for the board design.

 Another Clark, Tim has shaped his first Alaia with one of our premium Australian paulownia blanks

And a bit of nice pyrography to finish.

This board was built by Bruce Porter and his mate from scratch. No computer generated file and minimal tool kit.

Mark Gibbs and his son from Brizzy used one of our build packages to build this nice little shortboard. I remember they first came in a bit doubtful as to whether they had the skills to take on this challenge. I reckon they've really nailed it. That is NOT an ornament! That is a high quality, lightweight wooden surfboard and the best thing about it is....it's going to work!

 Dee Why surfer Mark Charters has gone for some complex detail with his build.

There's probably 100 or more pieces of timber that make up his board. Well worth the effort I reckon.

For everything you need to build your own wooden board

www.paulowniatimbersales.com.au 

Offcuts Board 4

Continuing on with the marathon chambered build.. up to about 6 months now I suppose.

I've never built a board like this and I must say it was a refreshing change to be shaping freely without fear of shaping into fresh air - a different experience altogether from hollow or foam-core construction.

Ive used sacrificial MDF spacers in this build. These will be replaced by a 3mm cedar stringer glued to the face of each chambered section.

The transverse grain makes these sections kinda fragile, especially those tapered ends so all movements are in slo-mo.

This cedar is also a bit fragile so I laminated with epoxy and some 4oz fabric..

..and traced my sections with a bit of overhang.

Then I cut them out and epoxied each one to its mate.

All the bits

Bit by bit

One each arvo.

Nearly finished.

For everything you need to build your own wooden board

www.paulowniatimbersales.com.au 

Chambered Longboard - Traditional "Pig" by Kim Staples

Gold Coast Firie Kim needs an outlet to help him unwind.

And outlets don't get much more enjoyable than creating a classic wooden surfboard with your own hands.

He's started by sourcing some beautiful clean Australian-grown Paulownia Fortunei

The traditional, flat "log" rocker fits nicely on 100mm wide timber minimising waste and expense.

Faces of the Paulownia timber are dressed for glueing. At this point the timber is only temporarily glued or discreetly screwed together. 

Outline is cut and the board is shaped in the same way you would shape a foam board.

The shaped board is then taken apart so the inside can be "chambered" to reduce weight.

The idea is to remove the maximum amount of material from the innards while leaving enough to maintain shape and strength.

Individual profiles are permanently glued back together.

Kim's done a great job shaping. No flats or bumps. Everything nice and fair.

The beautiful piece of camphor-laurel he has selected for the fin and tail block blend beautifully with the grain of the Paulownia.

And a really professional glass job to finish the work of art that it is.

Beautiful and...

 ...Beautiful.

For everything you need to build wooden surfboards of any method

www.paulowniatimbersales.com.au

 Like our facebook page to see more stuff HERE.

Paulownia Offcuts Board 3

Finally got a couple of spare hours to continue shaping this Paulownia fish which I have designed to use up all my short pieces which would normally go in the skip bin.

I mark some bands around the rails to give me a guide.

I dont strictly adhere to them. They just let me know if things are getting out of control. I don't mind too much if my life gets out of control, but like to keep my rails in order.

 New planer knives are a must when carving across the grain like this

 and being mindful of the "angle of attack" when traversing those acute little ends.

Take the second band off and the deckroll starts to develop.

It's at about this point where all technicality and intricate calculation goes out the window for me and I start to..........wing it!

Fortunately, 35 years of coaxing wood to do things it doesn't necessarily want to do has made the belt sander, planer and other tools feel almost like the palm of my hand is shaping the material away.

 I don't go too nuts shaping the nose as I still have to pull this blank apart to chamber it out and I don't want to have very fine ends to deal with. I'll shape the nose last thing.

 I keep taking "bands" off the deck until I'm satisfied with the deckroll.

I just use my eye and a straightedge to keep everything symmetrical.

For everything you need to build wooden surfboards of any method call me at:

www.paulowniatimbersales.com.au

 Like our facebook page to see more stuff HERE.

Paulownia offcuts board 2

I'm really enjoying this build but am being disciplined and am doing it as an after hours project so it's a bit of a drawn-out story.

So I draw the outline

Then I'll slice it into 45mm thingamees.

'Saw didn't quite make the depth which kinda made things easier.

I flipped the blank and cut from the other side with a jigsaw which, when given its head, just followed the cut.

Then draw the profile on each thingamee. 

Don't forget to number the thingamees.

Den scwoo tugevva wiv scwoos.

Mdf spacers will be replaced with some nice cedar stwingers between thingamees.

Bwank.

Cut outline

All ready for shaping.

www.paulowniatimbersales.com.au

www.dovetailsurfboards.com

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