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Matt, try to call guitar makers asthey make guitars out of paulownia... Il y en a à Montréal

merci mec, bobdill m'a deja rencardé ( french word from france ) sur une boite qui vend du bois, je vais aller en chercher bientot !

thanks, a cool board maker from montreal told me where to ga buy some. they got 1/8 russian birch and 1/8 okoume aswell as wood on wood veener.

i'm goign to experiment wood betweem glass, wood carbon, foam between wood and foam carbon veener glass.

lot's of fun ahead

Regarding my earlier reply; I know this is not plywood- but this is my paulonia wood board. I bought some planks, cut into strips and planked them together with epoxy. sanded flat, cut a 6mm ABS sheet to fit around the board blank. Used same ABS for the fin holes, stainless steel inserts for the handle and pads. Then fibre glass top and bottom on a rocker table with vacuum bag, and finally trimmed it all back with a router to the correct shape.

It is a little heavy compared to some, but works amazingly well- really good upwind and quite flexible so comfy when landing.

Going to try to make another this summer. But I have a question....how have you guys put a concave in the board as well as rockker? I cant work out a way of doing this without shaping a mould and pulling down onto this with the vacuum bag...and that sounds like a long job!

Ross77 wrote:
Going to try to make another this summer. But I have a question....how have you guys put a concave in the board as well as rockker? I cant work out a way of doing this without shaping a mould and pulling down onto this with the vacuum bag...and that sounds like a long job!

I thought I explained it in my previous post.

You just staple a strip of wood to the centerline of your rocker table.
Then put the layup in the vacuum bag on top of the table
Then clamp the rail edges of the bag/layup to the edges of the vacuum table.

To do this I usually used 3-4 bar clamps on each rail, along with a batten (another strip of wood) to even out the clamping pressure along the whole edge of the board.

The table has to be somewhat strong to do this. Also the width of the table has to be close to the width of the board.

Try it with out glue first to see where you need to put the clamps and how tight to make them. If the clamps are too tight it can distort the shape.

This method is also what I used to build the moulds for my foam-core boards.

It works better if you laminate the rocker and concave before you cut the outline of the board. If you want to cut the outline first, then you can always just make mould first and then put the mould in the bag with the final laminate.

Trent

rocker and concave !

cheap : one old table.
few pieces of wood cut outs from construction ( any pieces of wood )
2 pieces ( 6 feet x 3 feet ) from flexible wood ( i used this conpressed shit whit white cover on it : masonite ??) 1/8 thick, any plywood would do, masonite is better cause one face is slick it will be airtight and receive the wax ( mold release ) better.

put the wood pieces on the table and then the first sheet and work around till you have a rocker you like : nothinkg in the center and few pieces front and back and less between ( sound bad but, worck) then screw everything on the table.

rocker done : price 7 dollars wood sheet 2 dollars screws

concave : get one 6 feet long wood strip ( finishing wood OR better white plastic strip
e/strip thing, from homedepot or any ) and stick it in the midle ( exact ) of your rocker table : i used 2 stripes put on it eliptical way so, concave is wider ( more agressive ) under foot and softer tips.
i held them down with duck tape.

put on top the second masonite sheet and screw it all the way down to the talble un the center and partialy on the tips ( helps if the second sheet is sligltly bigger then the first ).

use long wood screws to ajust the shape and a ruler to controle it, the second sheet is going to take rocker form AND concave form and, because it's a sheet, shapes are going to be nice, smooth, perfect.

here you go

15-20 dollar table. one hour work.

i did laminate 15mm of baltic birch on it, holds..

OF course, if i want to change one thing ( rocker or concave, i need to rebuild it, but, i'm no professionla board buider so, no issue here.)

no need to be held in the middle ( just screw it tight all around ) cause vacuum is going to try to lift the shape from the table and, is going to try to kill the rocker and do more concave, if that's making any sense ?

@ross77 : look perfect, one really cool board, pure, simple, i like it !