It is finally time to begin assembling the pieces.
The “location holes” now have dowel pins inserted in them (see red arrow) to align each section as it is stacked on.
Feeling out the pins and holes.
Glue is spread onto the second section of balsa.
Equal pressure must be delivered to top and bottom clamps. This keeps the platens aligned.
This section is complete, with 2 more balsa, T-bands, and finally the curly redwood rails yet to come. Stay tuned.
Remember on December 4th when I drilled the location holes?
Rolling on the glue
I inserted 2 sections of brass tubing into one half of the gluing platens in the exact same locations. This assures that the wood will always line up.
Now to put on some pressure
Dear Rich,
Check out this nice sequence of underground phenom Julio Castillo styling on his new 9-8 Harbour noserider at Northside Seal Beach 12-5-08. Apparently the noserider model works pretty well in the barrel too! Many thanks to Jim ‘JB’ Boswell for his generousity in allowing me to post his pics.
keep it moist
MdJ
Photos: Jim ‘JB’ Boswell
A recently received e-mail.
I am cutting chambers into all of the wood except the outside curly redwood. The balsa I bought had to be at least 3 1/2 x 5 x 9-6. I ended up getting some very heavy wood. These are wall hangers, so that doesn’t matter on the wall. However, super heavy boards are a hassle to shape.
I weighed one of the heavier pieces at 19.6 lbs. After chambering, it weighed 12.6 lbs.
Here owner of the board Todd, helps drill holes in all of the corners. I don’t own a Forstner bit that is 3 1/2″ long, so the holes must be drilled from both sides.
After the holes are drilled, I Skil Saw between the holes, but again from both sides.
The final cut is done with a sabre saw. I located a blade that is just long enough. This method is faster than trying to use only the sabre saw. Also, it tends to wander on the other side. I know, as I messed up one piece already.
I’m working 7 days a week to get these first two ready for glassing. Yesterday and today I cut the last of the 8 balsa sticks - that’s 4 per board.
Saturday
Sunday
Then it’s off to my brother’s garage to use his Hitachi Re-saw to split the curly redwood.
Back to the shop to cut it to templated curves
Today I spent some time on the balsa wood. Copied the template with channel markings
and then I drilled the location holes. More about that later.
I spent about 3 hours cutting one 7 x 12 x 99 inch log in half. My first cut was with a Skil saw which doesn’t quite get halfway. Then came the Sawzall. Because the moisture content was over 40%, the kerf left by the blade kept filling up with wet saw dust. This jammed it up.
This is with the Sawzall
After I had cut from each end where the two templated pieces came close, there was about 12″ left that I chose to hand saw.
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The redwood arrived from Northern California and I have finally got the templates ready for cutting out the wood and chambers.
The balsa has been here for a couple of months
It’s time to lay out the stringer templates on the old growth redwood. These huge blocks measure over 22″ wide by 3 1/2″ thick by 11′-0″ long and are nearly flawless. Redwoods live 500-700 years and some are documented to over 2,000 years old!
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Now I’m getting to the curly redwood. This is what violin makers refer as “fiddle-back”. The grain runs through it in (and fittingly so) waves.
Here is my pride and joy that hangs on my living room wall. It is surfboard #20,000 and is an example of what the 5 boards that I am making will look like. The only difference is that they will not have that T-Band dividing the curly redwood rail. I have included larger (and more expensive) curly redwood for these five.
