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It All Comes Together
Enough balsa planks must be placed side to side to achieve the 24” width for the blank. Each board that makes up the finished blank must be carefully planed smooth with matching opposite parallel faces. Redwood has been a traditional wood used in the making of surfboards since the beginning of the century, primarily because of its weight to strength ratio. Long thin lengths of redwood which run from nose to tail, are known as stringers. These wood “beams”, which traditionally were designed to add rigidity and strength to the surfboard, have become the hallmark classic look of the older style surfboards.
I use “clear all heart” kiln dried furniture grade redwood for my stringers, which I get from a fellow surfer and wood craftsman who cuts his own lumber from forest managed old-growth redwood trees near his home in northern California. It is far superior to the customary lumber yard variety redwood and very expensive, but the clear straight grain and the absence of sap and knots is quite important in the shaping, glassing, and overall quality of the finished product. I rip-cut the individual stringers (10’ long x 6”wide x various thickness) from large boards, so most often a surfboard will have all the stringers cut from the same piece of large thick lumber in order to ensure uniform quality and consistent matched grain.
Once all the stringers and various balsa boards have been surface milled, planed, and rocker shape cut, they are ready to be glued into one big sandwich by squeezing them together with many clamps. Only a few boards can be glued at one time because the glue acts like a lubricant and all the boards want to wander and slide away from where they should fit. Gluing up the blanks is a tedious and often stressful endeavor because the quality of the entire board depends on the success of this process. Perfection here is critical. A gap or crack between boards will show forever and greatly diminish the integrity of the finished product.
Often, over a dozen individual balsa boards and stringers, each ten feet in length, must be prepared and glued, a process that requires nearly a half-gallon of glue. Each glued section of boards remains clamped for a minimum of 24 hours. Therefore, to complete the process of constructing the blank with this many individually glued boards can take up to a full week.
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