Saturday 25 February 2012



The rails are all now glued up and have been planned flat to the top of the ribs, the rails are planned in such a way as they follow the contour of the ribs, continuing the dome of the deck if that is thier shape, as in this build. The stance supports are being finished and some packing will be added to the rear of the board to glue the tail block on to, these will be in Balsa. Started work on the deck today, Paulonia strips have been laid out and sash cramps used to squeeze them up, gaffer tape works well at holding them in place after the cramps are off. They can be 'hinged apart' to add the glue or resin and then when flattened out the excess can be removed, allow the deck to dry, sand it up and then get it on the board...cool.

Tuesday 21 February 2012


The rail build continues, the strips are added and follow the rib contour, this may need to be adjusted due to the square (ish) section of the strips, if the strip looks like it is sitting proud of the preceeding rail then adjust the concerned ribs ( usually the ribs in the centre of the board ) with a craft knife, dry fit the rail for fit then glue and clamp. In this build there are seven rail strips per side, the last two are Cedar, for no particular reason, I just happened to have them handy, these rail strips are almost completely sunk into the ribs, again this can be achieved with the craft knife, the fifth rail strip will be planed so as to form a platform with the two Cedar strips for the deck to sit on, so when planning or sanding these it is important that they follow the top profile of the ribs, if the ribs have no dome and are flat then the rail strips will be planed flat to take the deck,but who wants a flat deck eh!

Sunday 19 February 2012


With the Chines in place the rail strips can be added, the strip edge profile can be adjusted with a block plane, fit the strips in place dry and check them for fit and adjust as in the photo. The first two strips are Western red Cedar, they are just over a 1/4 inch think and 3/8 tall, then three or four more in Paulonia then a couple more Cedar to seat the deck, the reason for the Cedar is aesthetic, I plan to add some Meranti strips to the deck so wanted a little red in the rails. The photos show a rail strip that has planed to seat on the Chine. A bead of glue on the rail strip and a dab on each rib is all thats required then clamp it up. I tend to use large crocodile style clamps, these I found at Wickes and have detachable feet, I found they have an ability to clamp at many angles due to thier design. They are about a fiver a pair but work well, better than the split pvc pipe option allbeit more expensive, a rail containing seven strips can be done in a few hours...drink plenty of tea in between fitting, I am sure it makes the glue set faster!

Saturday 18 February 2012



The spar and ribs are now glued and the rocker is now stable. The next step is to glue in the chine strip, see photo. This will be glued touching the end of ribs and as far around the nose shape as possible, see pencil outline, this is easier to do in Cedar as it steam bends really well, a damp rag and the Iron set at melting point and off you go! The only downside is using this with moisture cure glue is it might get a bit messy! The chine strip can be quite thick where you might need it, for example, if you would like 50/50 rails the strip can be tall in the centre and thin at the nose and tail. (The chine strip is 3/4 inch Paulonia with a 45 degree angle cut in for the next strip to rest in)  a couple of passes with the hand plane can get the job done. The strips in the nose finish short as a retro style nose block are going to be fitted. Glue it up and get the kettle on, in a couple of hours the rail strips will be done, seven per side.....tomorrow for some more pics and chat...

Friday 17 February 2012



The build starts to come together now, a simple rocker table is formed by securing the assembled spar and rib unit to the cross bracing above the table, this is done in three places, normally nose, centre and tail but add more if you need to or if the rocker is unnatural . The spar and rib assembly is just hot glued to these leveled braces so that it 'hangs there'. The bottom lamination can then be brought up to meet it and supported by shims and spacers underneath it, then 'eye it in', and check for level then pecil mark all the positions of the ribs and down the length of the spar for glue. The glue used in this build is Semperoc v, a D4 class marine glue, very happy with some tests on this product so I decided to give it a go here. The rib and spar area likely to take the greater stance weight and loading are given extra Balsa pads under the ribs, see photo, also an extra balsa spar will be added between the spar and rails later on.
     Ok, glue is on and the bottom panel is lifted and supported in place with shims and spacers so time to step back and check down the line for twist and any wobbles! If all is good clamp up and wait for the glue to cure, for Semperoc rapid this will be about an hour, time for a cup of tea to celebrate!!!!

Tuesday 14 February 2012

The next two pics shows the bottom lamination, the strips are selected, gaffer taped at there edges, then the glue is added into the taped joins, the tape is on the underside of the lam, you can just open them like a hinge and run it in! The assembly is then cramped up and allowed to set up, after the glue has hardened then a sharp plane plane blade will remove the excess very easily, the second pic shows the Simmons kit wood parts, these are the main parts of the hollow kit, just glue it all together and sand off anything that's not a surfboard!!!
Ok, here it is, this is the start of the 7 ft Simmons build, it will be hollow construction in Paulonia, I liked the previous Simmons so much i decided to build the same again only a little lighter, I love the speed of these boards, fab fun... The outline was drawn up on the computer using AKU shaper with the Jedail plugin, it can be found on the Tree to sea forum. I tend to transfer the dims to heavy duty lining paper to get a good visual on the outline, if it good enough for George Grenough!!!!!  The photo shows the outline faintly but you get the idea right? If not send me a message...

Hi all, its been a busy couple of months working on the development of hollow wooden surfboard kits. The Simmons is completed which does not make for a very good blog roll, but I have started work on another hollow Paulonia Simmons which will be described in detail with pics, I promise. Meanwhile here are a couple of the 6 footer hybrid. The rails are mainly Paulonia, with Paulonoa, Cedar and Balsa in the retro nose block and tail block, all we need now is a rise in temp so I can glass it