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Chambered Balsa Core Surfboard UK
Posted: Tue Sep 29, 2009 12:25 pm
by barelhunta
Am interested in building a SURFboard with a chambered Balsa core but cannot identify a suitable balsa supplier.
Ideally looking for section sizes 100x 100mm x 1000mm or larger.
Any adcice greatly appreciated.
Cheers
Re: Chambered Balsa Core Surfboard UK
Posted: Thu Nov 19, 2009 7:52 pm
by zimboflyman
dude - that's a hard one,
spent some time looking myself, but the UK sucks for balsa or Pawlonia.
Only suggestion is to try small aircraft building companies as some of them use balsa for wing struts and they need large sections....
Re: Chambered Balsa Core Surfboard UK
Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2009 5:35 pm
by Brian_CaB
If by chambered you mean a hollow core surfboard with balsa vertical sections sandwiched between outer skins akin to model airplane wing construction, then why not score modeling balsa?
Large scale sections of end-grain balsa core prepared for layup in yacht building applications can be expensive and hard to come by however any close-by RC airplane hobby supply shop will have 3 mm X 10 cm X 100 cm balsa for a fair price.
Prepare your own balsa stringer material in advance of the layup by sectioning the balsa, flip the sections on end grain, butt-joint the sections on edge and use a light glass over the surface to form an end grain strip of balsa the length of your board.
While that is curing, prepare your board skins against a mold face.
When the balsa/glass stringer material is cured, use a utility knife to cut your end grain stringers, arrange atop a skin and epoxy in place.
Close the construction with the other skin, clean it up then ride it.
You don't want to build solid balsa cores this way but for hollow core/chambered construction of any kind, this works beautifully at a reasonable cost.
This same method is the basis for the Trashmanian Devil skate decks built for years with corrugated paper (cardboard shipping boxes) .
By the way, when building garbage core surf boards, pre epoxy prior to finishing to keep your paper from mushing after the inevitable leaks show up.
Re: Chambered Balsa Core Surfboard UK
Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2009 5:23 pm
by zob
WoW, this looks sick!
Re: Chambered Balsa Core Surfboard UK
Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2009 6:29 pm
by zfennell
http://www2.swaylocks.com/node/1011511
a Swaylock's thread that has been around for a few years.
so you can see that others have had similar difficulty.
perhaps one of the links will be helpful.
but since you're thinking about a chambered board, check out some of the other threads for fun.
http://www2.swaylocks.com/forums/wood_o ... h-attitude
good luck,
-bill