Thread: Printed Template Hollow Wooden Surfboard Build

Once the rocker jig is assembled we build our frame, making sure that all the tabs on the ribs fit nice and snugly in to their respective slots..

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Now for the frame assembly..

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..held together with our friend masking tape.

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and a zip-tie to hold the nose together.

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Once that's together it's time to start preparing the hull for laminating.
We mark the template onto the panel (deck and hull panels are 1820 x 580 x 5mm) and cut it out using a box knife. Paulownia is particularly easy to knife and it's much more accurate than using a bandsaw or jigsaw.

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Once it's cut out we lay some 4oz cloth (fibreglass) onto the hull 'skin' and cut it around the shape to fit, followed by a laminating coat of epoxy.

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After this we buttered the bottom of the frame with a thickened epoxy mix making sure to get every bit.

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Next we lay the hull onto to rocker bench and line the tail and the nose of the frame with the center line of the skin and lower it into its place, followed by some clamping where needed.

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Once the frame is stuck down we glue some blocks into the frame for fins, ventilation, a leash plug and the tail.

We started with the tail block so we marked a line from the apex of the swallow to the points of the tail and mitred some paulownia on the angle we marked, taped and fixed it together with epoxy

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While the tail set to dry we marked the area in which our fins will sit, then cut blocks to fit...

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We cut the shape of the tail block out and using some thickened epoxy we glued it in place, along with the fin blocks.

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Once the epoxy was set we carefully shaped the fin blocks down to match the curve of the frame, measured and then recorded their positioning (so we dont miss the block once its all covered up).

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This isn't the printed frame build, but we forgot to take a photo of the ventilation system (although it is the same process). This is to allow the board to 'breathe' when its not in use.

So we installed two blocks about 60 x 20mm and drilled a vertical hole where the vent will sit, and another hole horizontally intersecting the vertical hole which we filled with a thickened epoxy in order to repeat the process with a smaller drill bit.

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Once that's all finished we cut out the deck plan and cut a hole in the deck skin in the position that our vent would sit, taped up the top side of the deck over the hole and glued in the vent.

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End result.

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Once the vent is in the deck skin we can laminate the deck to the rest of the board.

A very interesting read.

From this point it gets exciting. It all starts coming together and looking like a surfboard, so it's time to fix the deck skin to the frame.

After the vent in the skin is cleaned up we laminated a layer of cloth (the same as we did with the hull) to the underside of the deck..

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Whilst repeating the process of buttering up the frame with a thickened epoxy mix..

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Then we buttered the vent itself carefully lined it up with it's respective hole and lowered it into position, ready for clamping.

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We used flexible battens over each rib to cover a larger area with pressure, clamping right at the T-intersection of each rib and rail, although if the frame is cut out and assembled neatly this many clamps isn't imperative.
We just love clamps.

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Now we have a square-railed structure looking somewhat like a surfboard, we're ready to start laminating rail strips to give the rails some meat to shape into.

We used a template to cut each strip to fit to the rails. To make the template we put the board in a shaping stand, cut a strip of thin MDF about 100mm wide by the length of the board (plus 100mm added to nose and tail to make it easier to bend) and taped it to one side of the board. Then roughly marked the profile of the rail (adding about 5mm for more shaping area) and cut it out with the bandsaw.

Once the template was cleaned up we cut out the rails - 2 x Qld Cedar and 8 x Paulownia, all @ 4mm.

To laminate the rails we used a steam iron from Kmart to make the bend easier towards the nose.

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While the iron is steaming away I buttered up the rail with polyurethane glue.

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Next we line up the nose and tail of the board with the nose and tail of the rail, place it down and start taping it up.

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Taping the nose down first works the best as the timber had been steaming at the nose for about 5 minutes and still retains its flexibility. Once that process was repeated for each rail the board is ready for cleaning up and shaping.

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Now that the rails are down we need to clean off the glue to make an easier surface to shape.

We removed the tape holding the rails down during glue drying and set the board up on a couple of padded saw stools. Then we take to the rails with a planer. Keeping the 'roll' of the deck in mind, we plane at the angle of which we estimate that the deck would continue curving. This is mainly to avoid ending up with box-like rails.

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Once the rails ar fairly clean (+/- 1-2mm) we finish it off with the belt sander.

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A hand plane is sufficient to take off the edges we need to take off to roughly round the rails to where we want them and to finish the curve off we used a length of 60 grit sandpaper with a few layers of our best friend masking tape on the underside of it for some strength.

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Great work!
I'm tempted to try it myself. Any chance on providing the plans?
Cheers,
John

Great post! Thanks for that very informative and interesting thread.

Great work. Now all I need is the plans? Oh. And the round tuit.

What a fantastic write up well done.
Could u explain the sand paper masking tape idea is that just to stiffen the sand paper a little bit ?

Thank you all for the positive comments it's very nice to see there are so many people interested in building their own surfcraft. We as a whole rely too much on people pumping out plastic goods when they can be fabricated in the comfort of your own shed by your own hands.

Regarding the plans, go to the link at the bottom of each thread. We supply plans and timber (even hardware), but This post was not for advertising purpose, i just noticed that there was a gap in information here on wooden surfboards.

I just want to spread the stoke! Yew!! If you have any other questions, treetosea and swaylocks are both very active forums with alot of experienced brains to pick.

Ill upload a longboard build when i have all of the WIP photos sorted

Originally Posted by The Graintrain

Ill upload a longboard build when i have all of the WIP photos sorted

Thanks. That would be great.