Hi! Wood_Ogre here

OK- One Hallow wood fish is under construction. Thanks to Paul Jensen. Made the building form then bent 2 layers of ply around them for the inner rails. Didn't care much for using the 1/8 ply as it was to stiff and I can see the possibility of this braking so I will change this next time. Because I didn't like the ply I didn't use it for the frames (ribs) instead I laminated two 1/8 " strips of poplar with 4 oz glass cloth between. Turned out very strong and I discovered that after the glass was dry and for a couple days this laminate was very bendable. The epoxy resin changed the PH of the wood enough to make it more flexable. When it dried a few days it became very stiff. So this is what I will do on the inner rails next time. Allso I can sandwich the glass between two 1/8" strips and after drying over night run it through my thickness sander and by taking more off one side then the other I can increase the bend considerably.( thin side in, thick side out) Next time I will make my frames and inner rails thinner by laminating and then thickness sanding. Instead of glueing my inside rail to the frames I cut 3/16" x1/4" notches in the frames and glued in poplar strips to make chines. Then I clamped the inner rails on and marked the rib location and scribed the chines then took it off and drilled and sawed off all the extra wood. Was very easy to do this way. Then glued the inside rails to the chines and frames and trimmed to exact fit with a router and spoke shave. These chine strips are about the same thing as Pauls router strips. There may be the possibility of elliminating the inner rail if I make the chines 3/16" X 3/8". Will try that next time. The bones are now finished and it is time to make some skins. You can see my bones standing in front of the balsa log that will be made into skins.

Well here is some more.In the morning cut the skins 1/2 inch oversized. Laid them on plastic put glass cloth on and wet out with West systems epoxy 206 slow. I have used West systems in my shop for about 25 years for boat glassing Glue lams and glueing, so I have it on hand all the time. I have never used their 207 special which is the UV hardener so I will try it as I have a unit on hand from a job that fell through last year. While the resin was drying I mounted the frame back on the building jig so it will not twist or warp when I glue on the skin. The mounting brackets are bolted to the jig so I can get this assembly off without cutting up the jig. In the after noon I put the glue on the forms put the skin on with glass cloth inside and clamped it down . Started clamping in the middle and worked toward the front and then the back so the skin would bend to shape. With the glass still fresh it took the curves with no problem. About the board, It is Paul Jensens #7 fish template. Thanks again Paul ! The end use of this board is to be converted to a kite SURF board and is the test platform for my anti-cavitation fins and experimental rail fins. I want to push this to the limits and see how much it can take before I can brake it so I can adjust the building on the next board. Also need to experiment with fin placement keel placement and my rail fins.And of coarse foot strap placement. If this works I expect to do at least 2 more to adjust width, thickness and flotation.

Pictures!

and more pics! Off the frame. Trim the top skin. Put in the backing for foot strap inserts, leash inserts,vent. Also backing for fins and keel.

Please Robbo, go back and read all the threads in this post and you will know what this board is about! It is a Kite SURF (SURF) board. It is intended to be a test platform for my off the wall ideas. I don't care much about it's clean lines or beauty. I am expermenting with different materials, different fins,rails, keels . And of coarse with Kite SURFing (SURFING) There is a difference between Kite boarding and what I am doing. First I will experiment with fins, then keels, then rails and when I have done that I will take it out and get as much air as I can and go for hard landings to see how much it will take to brake this board. Aftere that I will know what dirrection to go With board number two. I have been around a long time and know from my experiences that Surfing can be progressive or stagnent depending on your definition. Body surfing, boogy boarding, matt surfing, big boards, Windsurfing, Kite Surfing, Kite boards, It's all about waves,water, wind ect. pick what you want and go with what you want and never think that what you are doing is the best way or the purest way to do something! Aloha Wood_Ogre

Pat. the wood that I used for all of my backing inside the board is balsa. I picked the lightest 1/4 sawn that I had. About the balsa, my friend Charley grew the wood here on Kauai and the trees are almost 6 years old. We harvested the trees in July and I milled them with my mill , Some of it is air dry but before we use it I put it in my solar passive wood kilne to make sure its dry. Because these trees are young the wood is very light. On this board weight is only a small issue as I wanted to over build the board, take it out and punish it (brake it) and then reverse engineer it on the next board to get the weight down and build the strenghth where it needs to be. Right now I do not have enough experience to determine any of this. Need to experiment!! The third board should be a keeper. By the way Pat I really admire how you struggled through your fish project with a lot of problems and still pulled it off. Your the kind of guy I would have liked working in my shop in past years!! Don't ever do anything the way somebody tells you to do it! Listen to what they say (learn from them) and then take their ideas, improve on them if you can then do it your own way!! Aloha, Wood_Ogre.

Wood_Ogre again, One more day and more progress. I scribed the the skin 1/2 inch oversize off the master template just like I did with the first skin. Then laid up the cloth with West systems 206 for 2/3 of the skin and did 1/3 with 207 and a sample logo. As I have not worked with 207 I wanted to get a feel for it and how it works with the rice paper logo. Every thing went fine except the 207 is real thick and some work to get an even wet out. May be tough to do large areas with.Yes it is kind of yellow but will work fine with wood. Bet it would realy screw up the looks of a foam board. When the resin had set I trimmed the cloth. A couple hours laiter I was able to put the glue on the frames and flip the skin over and clamp it down. About the skins. When I resawed my wood for the skin I cut them about 3/16 inch . I wanted to make sure I was on the safe side as it is easy for me to run the glued up skins through my thickness sander to bring them down to 1/8 inch. But it is impossible to make them thicker. They glued up fine so I learned from this that I just need them a strong 1/8 inch and one pass in the thickness sander on the ouside of the skin. No need on the inside. The finish side of the skin is so good that only a little hand sanding will be needed to finish it. About the red strips of wood in the skins. I used redwood(sequoia) which was salvaged from a house that blew apart in Huricane Iniki. Picked the lightest peaces. The reason for the balsa and redwood is that this is the way My friend Charley wants his big board to look so I thought I would try it out to see how it looks . He also wants a pin line along the rails so I will try that on this board too. Good night everybody hope to do more tomorrow. Aloha- Wood_Ogre

Second pin line strip ready to glue up

Second pin line glued and clamped

First butt crack pin line glued up and clamped

So! How am I doing?

This is the other side rail. I just put glue on to glue the balsa rail strips. The assembly is then put on the work bench for clamping.


By the end of the day I have balsa strips on two rails and one side of butt crack. Iam bending two strips of balsa at a time so I will end up with a heiring bone pattern on the rail overlaps.

After two strips are glued up I trim them. First I used the router but the dust was bothersome. So I descided to use a spoke shave. A little slower but very pleasant work.