EU Bauhaus Paulownia build $50

[downunder]

Heya,

Im in the EU now so I thought why not:)

Sheet is 2200/500/18 for AU $60 is a steal!

Go hard with el. plane and orbit. sander:

130/45cm, weight atm:

Spent about 1 hr to get the rails down. Will be flat board tho, 18mm in mid section is stiff...

Now need to drill some holes and glass it...

Its a bugger to carry the board accross the Planet, and wondering if will be used

[alpaia]

Looks nice and the woodstrip run the full length
Is is going to be a tt or pocket ?
Where in eu can these shelves be bought ?

[Trent hink]

It looks beautiful. I wish paulownia was more readily available in North America.

[evan]

Only lengthwise woodgrain without cross reinforcements? Paulownia is pretty easy to split compared to other wood so maybe do consider some reinforcement.

[merl]

Partly inspired by earlier posts of downunder I just did a travel pocket hf board using a bauhaus 800x400 sheet. The idea was to test a low cost minimally reinforced board. It was going to be simple, but in the end I stuck on a bit of high density foam to make a kick-nose which made the build more complicated. 940x400 final size.

The board was vacuum bagged. I made a mess of the cosmetics by running out of the spray paint.

Here is the cost estimate and construction outline

800 x 400 x 18 Paulownia board
EUR 13 (https://www.bauhaus.info/leimholzplatte ... p/14084242)

0.3x1m 300g/m2 fiberglass for center reinforcement
EUR 2 (cheap hardware store)

1m2 100g/m2 fiberglass for whole board
EUR 5 (easycomposites.eu)

Epoxy resin 200g
EUR 4 (cheap German stuff from Amazon)

Tail pad
EUR 8 (aliexpress/amazon)

Consumables (peelply, breather, release film, bag)
EUR 5

Not counted: scrap of HD foam for nose, rattle-can paint, PU glue

Total: EUR37

Final weight 1.9kg including pad. I.e 100g more than crazyflys 99x44 pure pocket board, but Eur1000 cheaper.

I promise to update the post if it breaks!

[Update after first outing] It didn't break but I did feel like it rode a bit more twitchy than I expected. The only reason for this that I can think of is that it is flexing a bit. If I support the board on its ends and stand my 93kg in one foot in the middle I can feel just a little flex. Not much but a little. Maybe this is enough to make it feel a bit "lively". For comparison my regular boards are 100% carbon on hd foam, with generous uni carbon in the middle, but not so thick (25mm).

If I made it again, I would add an extra staggered layer of reinforcement in the center to stiffen it up a bit more. I might still do this, but it is a pain to take off the tail pad...

[downunder]

I like it, and like Eur1000 less than production boards even more!

Paulownia is also not on offer in Australia, no idea why. It is a surf country and only one company makes Paulownia planks. Quite expensive.

In the EU, Paulownia is cheap and available. Maybe the US and AU is protecting their wood planks production, no idea.

Back to board, it is glassed now on top, and bending it with wetting the bottom to expand a bit and get a bit of rocker. Not a rocket science.

Weight now is 2137 grams, 130/45cm

Hand layup, no vaccum or anything. FG is 150g/m^2 I think.

Might cut the concaved rail as Flyboards does. Simple el. planer operation, 30mins job.
Rails are thin, about 4-5mm on tips, 6-8mm mid section, rounded, wrapped.

Need to decide about fins position and straps. Im selling SS inserts to the World and forgotten to take a few. Ah well...

[merl]

How much rocker did you manage to get? I'm guessing not more than a cm or two?

Thinking about trying to make a tiki, and a bit of nose rocker would be nice...

[downunder]

If u are after a bigger rocker, than the wide plank is not a way. Not possible to bend it heaps. For LW board is ok.
Have a look at my old posts, use narrow loosely glued strips, max 12mm thick. That can bend 4-5cm no probs, if the carbon strip is on top to keep it.

[nixmatters]

How much rocker did you manage to get? I'm guessing not more than a cm or two?

Thinking about trying to make a tiki, and a bit of nose rocker would be nice...

For such nose rocker you glue 2 planks together. Check this very detailed tutorial:

https://youtube.com/channel/UCiERkEoy40bWVRZ7LgdepQA

[merl]

How much rocker did you manage to get? I'm guessing not more than a cm or two?

Thinking about trying to make a tiki, and a bit of nose rocker would be nice...

For such nose rocker you glue 2 planks together. Check this very detailed tutorial:

https://youtube.com/channel/UCiERkEoy40bWVRZ7LgdepQA

Sure, done that many times. [Good link tho - thanks!] The point here is that the only readily available (and cheap) paulownia in EU comes in 18mm sheets. It is cheap enough that if you had access to a thinning machine you could just halve the thickness.