For the love of wood...

So in order to build one of these things you need wood, lots of wood.  Ok, maybe not a lot of wood, but it seems like a lot because it’s frigging thin and in some case more than 12 feet long.  Now I have a wood guy.  And, I am sure some of you have your own special ‘guy’ that is able to hook you up with something or some service, at a great price.  And those of us who have a ‘wood guy’ or a ‘car guy’ or a ‘cable guy’, have a hard time giving that guy’s name to someone else for so many reasons.  The primary reason being the fear of him no longer giving you the smoking deal you have been accustomed to because he is giving all of your friends deals since you were stupid enough to give out ‘your guy’s’ name.  So I will only tell you this about my wood guy, he’s cheap, he has reclaimed wood that’s been sourced locally, and he is located somewhere in the 250 area code.

Now I have been building furniture, among other things, for a long time and I hate planing wood.  But, in order to make these surf and paddleboards the wood has to be no more than ¼ inch thick.  So when you purchase 3/8” thick lumber you inevitably create a lot of shaving and sawdust during the process of milling down those thicker boards.  Now, when I first looked into making a wood surfboard I did so believing that this was a “green” and “eco-friendly” endeavor.  And, I guess technically it is.  Trees can re-grow so it’s sustainable, and since the blank is wood, not foam, there is less reliance on petrochemical by-products (we still can’t get away without using fiberglass and polyurethanes).  But the fact remains that I am left with a ton of wood shavings and scraps no matter how frugal I am with materials.  So what that means is right now I have about 3 garbage bags of shavings , and ½ a chord of cedar kindling, so if you own a hamster or use a wood stove have I got a deal for you.

Sawdust and bundled kindling

The actual build is pretty straightforward.  It’s pretty much like building an airplane wing.  There are a number of ribs and a center spar and on that ‘skeleton’ we attach the top and bottom decks, along with the rails to create the surfboard blank.

Ribs and spar prior to being glued up

Ribs and spar ready for decking

Perhaps the most finicky part was railing the board.  The process is borrowed from ship building and is called the ‘strip and feather’ method.  Ideally each rail strip has a tongue and a groove (we in the biz call it a bead and cove).  These are interlocked around the rib to shape the rails of the board.  The tedium comes with waiting for glue to cure each time you lay up one rail strip.  Some quick math for you…

Ribs glued to bottom deck, starting the railing process

…11 rails strips per rail (left and right), 1 hour to lay up 2 rails (one on each side), 2 hours for glue to cure, that right 33 hours to rail a board…this time commitment comes on the heels of me inadvertently using the ‘slow cure’ adhesive, not the ‘fast cure’ to glue the bottom deck to the ribs and spar.  Slow cure requires 7 days to cure, fast cure requires 24 hours.  Note to self, use only the fast cure from now on…

Railed board and fin block installed

Once the board is railed blocking is added for the vent plug and fin box.  I did this while waiting for glue to dry.  The vent plug is so the board doesn’t blow apart.   Since it’s hollow there will be a difference in pressure inside and outside the board that needs to equalize or else….KABOOM… I am putting in a fin box because a glassed on fin doesn’t seem practical and kind of scares me a little.  Speaking of fins, Christmas came early when I received the call from Scott at Island Longboards that my fins were in.  I found some replica’s of the Velzy style wooden skeg fins that are thick and weigh a ton and look frigging cool so since this board is fairly retro I figured we should keep the fins pretty classic as well.

Sweet wood fins

Chances are if you are reading this and it’s not New Years Eve yet, I am probably still waiting for glue to cure.  The top deck is on and clamped up and the petrochemical by-products are doing their thing.  In addition to adhering the deck to the frame these petrochemicals may also cause impotence with prolonged exposure.  Thank god I have two kids...

Toy guns to Surfboards

I would like to welcome you and thank you for coming to my blog.  I have always wanted a blog and only just now found something I feel was 'blog worthy'.  I have decided to build not one, but several hollow wood surfboards and paddleboards in my garage and it's my hope that this blog will chronicle the process.  But knowing me, it's likely (and also my hope) that it ends up being more than just that.

For the love of wood...

Most of you know that I have a secret, OK not so secret, love affair with wood.  It all began when I was just a boy and my parents wouldn't let me buy or even play with toy guns.  So I stuck it to them and built a M111A sub machine gun out of wood scraps when I was 9.  But it wasn't until I was in my late twenties that I really honed my craft.  I obsessed over tools for quite a while and amassed quite a nice quiver of clamps, planes, chisels and power tools.  It was a great hobby that went completely awry, and out of that hobby 'Splinters' was created.  And, it's this side 'gig' of mine that has provided me an outlet for this obsession I have with all things wood.  It's my own 'dark passenger' only its really not so dark.  In fact a lot of good things have come out of it like this...


"The McDowell Beach Chair" (2010)



"Uncle Chips" Sideboard (2010)

Surfing the Great Lakes...

It was in grade 10, when my interest for toy guns had waned and my interest in grade 11 girls had waxed, that I saw the movie "North Shore".  Kid from the mid-west heads to Hawaii to surf the big waves.  It really spoke to me.  Especially since I grew up in the Toronto suburbs and the idea of surfing in the tropics seemed so cool, so awesome, so totally Rad!  But I think it was the movie "Point Break" that really sparked my interest in the surfing culture, so much so that the year it was released I did my OAC (grade 13 in Ontario) Physics paper on the hydrodynamics of surfing.  The following year when it was released on video, I wrote my first year Social Psych paper on the surfing sub-culture.  But again as a kid in Ontario, surfing just wasn't an option.  So I windsurfed.  And it kicked ass and in 1992 the chicks dug it. 

Here's where it all comes together....

Fast forward to the present and I have tried surfing, I own a surfboard, it's big, it's plastic, it's named Bertha.  I have ridden a wave on it and I have even turned it once or twice.  It's quite a haul to drag the entire family to Tofino to surf selfishly on the west coast.  But this summer hanging out with the Hoars in Kelowna there it was...


1987 Alpha 190 sailboard and 1968 grey owl canoe paddle

Paddleboarding. I know, it's just like me to jump on the bandwagon but it's fun and when Breckin spent 8 hours a day doing it, I knew we had to have one (or several).  So it was right then and there that I decided to build one (OK maybe not right then and there, but whatever).  But to build a 12 foot paddleboard seemed a little scary.  Especially since my buddy Glen (fellow bandwagon jumper, and cottage cowboy), also wanted one.  Now, to build two 12 footers seemed over the top.  I needed to practice on something smaller, less intimidating.  Enter Stu and Lana.  Two local surfers, among other things, that could help me with the process of building a smaller board.  So with the Internet I was able to find software to design a board in 3D and one afternoon we designed a 9' 6"  old school longboard.  The only thing left to do was build the goddamn thing.