Paulownia Bonzer 5

I'm going to try and upload some pics. Sorry if they suck.

Hi Silly (and thanks for all the past advice).

I'm cutting off the rails because there is no way to wrap paulownia. I'm going to build them back up with one layer of 3/16" cork and four of 3/16" balsa. I guess it's the "Paul Jensen Method". I've seen Daniel Hess do it that way too (although I suspect he hollows his out???). Benny suggested I lose the cork as it's too heavy and absorbs too much resin. I'm leaving one layer in. Partly aesthetic ( you will see in a minute) and I guess I'm thinking it will serve as a layer that "gives" between the perimeter rail stringer (which will be stiffer) and the body of the board. I've read that cracking can develop there (although none did on my first compsand).

Now comes my big innovation- TAPERED perimeter stringers. I don't think I've seen anyone do that yet (though they probably have). The perimeter stringers I've seen are tapered because of the foil, but I intend to taper my in plan as well. I figure you want the ends to flex and the middle to be stiffer so tapering the stringers will help achieve this end. It may be a moot point with the bonzer having so much fin in the back. But it will be flexier than if the rail stringers didn't taper. They will go from 7/8" at the center of the board to 1/2" at the nose and tail (including the cork, so in reality at the nose and tail there's only 5/16" of balsa). I don't know if this makes any sense and I don't think you can see it in my terrible photos but there it is- TAPERED perimeter stringers.

I'm going to try and weight the board even as I put the first rail band on (thanks for the tip Benny). As it is now the board has only 4" of nose raocker and I'd like 5".

Thanks again everyone. I made about 25 or 30 boards when I was in high school (graduated in '79) because my buddies and I couldn't afford new boards and we wanted customs. Now over 30 years later I'm doing it again, partially for the same reason. Also because my last 3 PUPEs self destructed in less than a year. Out of frustration I started asking about...Surftechs and some guy told me to check Swaylocks for info about epoxy boards. I've been addicted ever since.

Onuela- not sure I'll use the tail pad. I've only had one board with a pad and it was in the wrong place and was worse than useless. Thanks though. I got a present coming for you. Just have to dust it off and put it in the mail.

PeterG1- the wood is 1/8" but that was rough sawn. I sanded it with 60 with a grinder. I plan to sand it to 220 before final glass ( or whatever gets the scratches out. So I'm sure it'll end up somewhere between 1/8" and 1/16". Glass is 2.3 oz under , 2.7 over (bottom), 3.4 over (deck). Unfortunately the deck wood will not be bookmatched because the rest of the wood pieces were random pieces.

Craftee- I planning on doing a rattle can gloss, unless it comes out really light.

Oldy- Thanks mate. Your "Journey of a Quad" thread was an big inspiration. I wish my photography was a good as yours, but mine is just documantation. Anyways, thanks.

By the way, Benny- BennyTech can do funny things. If you see that pic of my effort to try to add rocker... I was actually trying at that moment to add tail rocker. I like a little flip behind the fins. This morning when I pulled the weights I still had less than two inches of tail rocker...and 6 inches of nose rocker! Too much! So now I'm trying some "reverse BennyTech engineering" to take out some nose and move it to the tail. A life of its own...

I figure this will be easy to fix. Just pour a small amount of epoxy into the gap and clamp. Or no?

Rails are on and evertything's shaped. I used Silly's 5 minute method. It took a long time but I didn't have to wait for 6 hours for epoxy to cure before shaping. All the balsa went down fine except one spot, but it's only about 1-1/2" long so I'm not worried. 8 hours of work ( for me) to put the rails on and then shape them.

I'm stoked. Everything foiled nicely. I was worried about it being too thin . The rails are thin but not too thin. 2-1/4" 1 lb. EPS should float like 2-3/8" poly , right?

Okay this is going to sound a little weird...

I've never really studied other people's butt cracks...maybe next time I see a butt carack I'll have to study it more carefully,,,maybe even run my hands over it...

So as far as mine own butt crack...I'm going by intuition and unconsciously stored info.

I'm not sure how I'm going to get the tail block piece in. On my last board I used koa because I wanted a piece of Hawaii in the board, but it was pretty heavy.There's nothing square back there to line the saw blade up with. I think it's going to be , "cut, shape, fit, shape, fit, shape, fit, shape, fit..."

Maybe it was a sign from the great shaper in the sky....

I'm so into this work I had even forgone lunch, something that would not be an option were my wife around (she's Italian and for them food in a sacred ritual...no fast food, no sitting in front of the tv....but everyone at the table as soon as the pasat is al dente, with table cloths, wine and bread...). Anyways, I was preparing my inlay/logo/vent plug suprise combo. At a certain point I dropped the piece of abalone I was cutting. I started looking for it. Couldn't find it. I started moving machinery, lifting carpets, trying to imagine where it could have rolled to? I was going nuts. "Things do not disappear," I kept telling myself. I was literally pulling my hair. Then, after a good ten minutes of frustration I found the piece in the pocket of the apron I was wearing.

OK.

So, everything's good again. Inlayed the abalone. No problems. I'm getting ready to cut the hole for the plug. I need a 1" hole saw but the smallest hole saw I have is 1-1/8" (for fcs install). I know, I'll just use the router. So I carefully set the depth and start slowly dropping it through the wood and....ZIP. Faster than I could say "F#@*!" it ripped into my inlay. I was routing into the high density foam. I didn't think it would grab. Even high density foam should just cut like air with a router, right? Not.

So after a minute of expletive deleteds I calm down. A former boss, master woodworker had a saying, "You can fix anything." So now I got to figure out how to fix this thing.

Ever had a moment of total panic while making a surfbord?

I have to imagine it's pretty common.

Mine came tonight as I lammed the bottom. I used a 2.75 cloth (from Thayercraft). It seemed unusaully white and shiny and a little bit stiff. I measured out a smallish amount of resin and went to it. After a while it became apparent that there were folds in the cloth under the lap that just would not come out and would not stick down to the board. A lot of them. Everywhere. "Oh f&^% me!" Because of the tight weave of the cloth I could not work them out with my finger, nor with a brush or squeegee. That's when I started to panic. I started imagining all sort of extreme fix it scenarios. Finally, thank god, it occured to me to make relief cuts. I had to make a small relief cut about every 3-6 inches. but that seemed to solve the problem. Whew.

Now I can stand back and admire the grain and color (went from light tan to deep golden).

By the way, the pic of the logo is how the logo should have been on the deck, too. The idea was to hide the vent plug. OM is the sound of the universe. M is the first letter in my last name and the boards I made in high school were called "Morninglass." I had toyed with the idea of going back to my high school roots but then I came on this idea to hide the vent plug.