Monday, August 24, 2015

Luis Gasper from Portugal finishes his first paulownia over EPS board.

 "I started with an XPS blank, 2m x600mm x10mm"
 He made his own hot wire cutter
 "Previously, using 6 mm plywood, I’ve made two templates with the rocker (deck and bottom ) curves. Using some screws I attached the two plywood templates to each side of the XPS blank, and hotwired the same, creating the deck and bottom curves."
 "After that I’ve marked the outline and using a regular saw, I've cut the outline, following the line."


 "Using a sand paper (80 grit) I've shaped the surfboard."
"With a homemade jig, I marked a parallel outline, from 2 cm of the rails, and cutted this portion out from the blank creating the space needed for the solid rails." 
" The blank was ready to receive the wood."
 "I've ordered the paulownia wood from a company in Spain. And bought the polyurethane glue here in Portugal."
"Using your method as you do, I start gluing the parabolic stringer, with 5mm pawlonia stripes."
 "For the deck and bottom, I glued 5 mm paulownia with a little help of my homemade vacuum pump (created from an old refrigerator engine).

But the final result was perfect "

A happy man with his best friend 
Top and bottom skins now on and ready for the rails to go on.
 "For the rails, with another homemade “gadget”, my steam pump I bent the paulownia stripes for the rails, and glued all along the outline, at the end, I ‘ve used four x 5mm paaulownia stripes each side, and for the tail too."
 "I bought fcs fin boxes and a leash plug. Using epoxy resin, I glued all of them to the surfboard.

To give the right angle to the fins, another homemade gadget and the fin angle was perfect."

 "To seal the wood, after a long research, my option was to use a Portuguese marine varnish water based, appropriated for extreme water conditions."

 "And the final result is this amazing surfboard."









 It has been great to inspire Luis to experiment and try building a wooden board this way. The result speaks for itself.

No comments: