Well after a month in Hawaii I decided that I could make a Surfboard... I didn't however want to make one that was a "typical" surfboard so I did a little looking around and found out a building process known as hollow core surfboards... I'm a carpenter (sort of) so I figured that wood would be easier for me to work with than foam and it would be a very unique wakesurfer... Well I started it on the 2nd of November and I put the finishing touches on it tonight... the only problem is all of the lakes are frozen and I can't test ride the dang thing till spring... Let me know what you think of the board...
Nevermind about the resizing I did a little downloading and got a program that actually works. Well here it is I based my board off of a Phase 5 that we have... its about 2.5 inches longer and 2 inches wider than the phase 5...
(Message edited by christopher on November 14, 2006)
Well the board starts off as, well a board. A couple pieces of 1/8" plywood. but before you can start you have to make the jig... the akward thing under the skeleton in the 1st picture. that is the phase 5 traced onto 2 3/4" pieces of plywood and cut out then nailed to some 5" pieces of wood to separate and then drilled with a 2" holesaw(very important). well once you've got your jig built you can start on the stringer... you need to trace the rocker from your existing board or make up your own on a strip of 1/8" plywood... that is your center stringer... you sand and shape that, then fiberglass both sides for strength... then you make the rib looking pieces out of 1/8" plywood... once you've got that you can start on the side rails... what ever your rocker, say 3" you need a piece of 1/8" plywood bigger than that... so 2 pieces of plywood are then wood glued together and then flexed over the side of the jig... this is where the holes come in handy... the 3rd picture is this step... this makes your side rail have the same curve of your board... you do this step for each side... then when they are dry you have to trace your rocker from your stringer onto the sides and cut them out with a jigsaw... then you can glue them all together... you can use wood glue on them but i used some 5 min. epoxy cause i wanted to do the next step... while your doing that you can also do the deck or bottom.. for this I took a piece of 1/8" plywood and stained it with some Cherry wood stain... then this is the tricky part because you need to have a Table Saw and if any of you get hurt doing it it's not my fault... You need to rip down the plywood into strips.. you can do whatever... some of my strips were and 1/8" and that gets pretty tricky so you need to have some time on a table saw before attempting this build... once that is all cut to your various widths. you lay them out on a table and put it in the pattern you want... and start taping with masking tape... you have to cover every square inch of that or it will be permanant part of your table.. next flip it over and fiberglass that side... you do this step 2 times deck and bottom... that's picture 2... once that is done you can use your jig and trace a close profile of your board on to it but not too close... then cut it out and your ready to glue it to the skeleton... for this i used construction adhesive and a lot of clamps.. that is pictures 6 & 7... do both top and bottom... once they have dried you can router the edges even with the rail... then you rip down 1/8" strips a touch bigger than the thickness of your board and also some corkboard strips the same thickness... then you use contact cement and glue each piece onto the rail... alternating between plywood and cork... this gives you a rail to shape into your edge... once this is dried you can start shaping your rails and this is a long process with a belt sander and messy... once your all done with that you can start glassing the top or bottom... i did the bottom first... I did 1 layer of glass and about 4 with resin... then its off to the races with the sand paper... lots of sanding... and then you polish that bad boy up with wet sanding up to 1500 grit then some marine scratch remover and then some marine wax.. oh my fin I hand shaped it out of some Hardwood we had lying around... then I glassed it and attached it to the bottom deck before it was glued on... so it's permanant... and you also need to put in a vent... well a plug, because it is a hollow-core... the air inside with expand and contract... so unless you want a warped board you need a vent.. so when it's in the water its sealed and when its out of the water its open air... well I hope this makes sence cause it's hard to describe some of the steps...
Nice board Christopher! I love the wood and the stripe design. I noticed you are from Blackfoot. I live in Caldwell. I surf year around on Lucky Peak. It doesn't freeze over but you have to like surfing a whole lot to go out in the winter in Idaho. Let me know if you ever come this direction and need a pull. Sue
Yeah that looks like they have the process down a lot better... It's a wierd process but as you do more boards you figure out better ways of doing things...
Linear Mode
