Wooden board building course in full swing in Brisbane this weekend

Stuart Bywater has a group of guys fully emerced in building their first wooden boards.

 All the ribs have been laser cut and ready for each board. Saves heaps of time.

All the deck and bottom skins, rail bands machined and ready, lots of work to get this lot done.

Laying out all the pieces of the puzzle

Ribs in and rail bands added, low tech light weight clamps that do the job and that is all you need.

Now it looks like a board coming together.

Loose all the clamps and check out your efforts

Time to select your timber and any thin bits for pin lines.

He looks pretty happy with progress

These guys are pretty happy with the deck skin glue up and all those pin lines.

This looks like the tail block for a fish tail to be shaped from solid paulownia.
This was the end of Day One.

 Day two was about getting the frames sorted and boys look pretty pleased.

So now it is about blending all those curves for a smooth transition from the frames out over the rail bands so that the top and botton skins sit nice and snug with no lumps.

Frame all trued up and the bottom skin cleaned up, outline cut and ready to get glueing before sliding her in the bag.

Skins on, packing tape holding it all in place and then in the bag to pull it all together.
The vacuum bagging is the best clamp you can ever use for this as it is an even pressure on all surfaces and no heavy clamps pulling at it.

All lined up ready for a sleep over by the look of things.
 End of Day Three.

Brad from Armidale is keeping a nice 50/50 rail on his board

Jay from the Goldie is making sure he has a good nose rocker for those late ones at Burleigh

Shane is doing his final shaping of the nose, yep he hasn't stopped smiling for the last 4 days

 

Rod Sanding is always dusty , but still smiling

 

G is on the final stretch and warming up fast 

Brad sanding out his rails

Jeff at X years told me that this was one of the best weekends he has ever had,
Jeff came and did the class with his son Brad

The May class of 2016
Tim, Brad, Jeff, Ray, G man, Jed, Dale, Shane, Ron 
Special thanks to David and Michael for their expertise  this weekend

PS our next class is August 25

Stuart Bywater
0414283818
www.bywaterdesign.com.au

JB from France experiments with wooden boards

He has just finished one hollow framed wooden board and 2 with an EPS core and vacuum bagged timber over.
"The last hollow I made. It's a 6.4' x 20" x 2.3/4". I used the Paul Jensen construction :
-  Paulownia structure and skin with walnut tree veneer
-  The rails are made of paulownia, red cedar and cork.
-  Fins, nose and tail block in walnut
-  the leash plug is in rosewood
I made the epoxy glassjob by myself... That's why it's not really clean."

" Longboard 1 and longboard 2 are both paulownia wood bagged over EPS 9'x21''x2 3/4 blank.
I made it with a 25kg/m3 blank (no stringer). Skins are 3mm thick and the rail thickness is 20mm (the first 4mm 'inner strip' + 4x4mm strip to shape the rails). I use gorilla PU glue.
On longboard 1, I made the tail and nose with scrap wood (paulownia and I don't remember what is the other).
On longboard 2, I put different veneers (ebony, oak, mahogany,wallnut, cherry tree... and other I don't remember); the foot inlay at the front are in red cedar.
I have now to install fins and leash plug. As there is no stringer, I want to glass it with 4oz on top and 2.8oz on the bottom to reinforce it (and also to protect the veneer)."

It is always great to see people experimenting and trying different things.Thanks for sharing JB.

Thought for the day