https://www.facebook.com/groups/paipobe ... 727620080/
Experiments in making Cornish-style bellyboards with solid timbers rather than plywood. My theory was that boiling water could be used to bend the wood, and that it would be safer than playing around with steam. I wanted something easy for others to replicate. I wasn't trying to mass produce the boards myself. I already had a shaping table made out of a couple of 2x12 glued and screwed together. I just needed to add a couple of curved forms that would be used in the clamping process, one made from a 4x4 piece of redwood (the pillow block) and the other from a 2x6 piece of redwood (the pressing block.) I played around with different soaking and boiling times, and had the best luck with soaking the nose of the board for three days in a pot, remove the board from the pot, so you can bring the water to a boil, and then cook the nose in the pot for 15 minutes while the flame on the stove was still going. Then you quickly position the plank on the bending table, and clamp it down with the two C-clamps and the pressing block. Then let it sit for a few days. Leave the clamps as the board dries. I also included some photos of a three piece timber board made of a couple of 1x6 pine and a 1x2 stringer. The three pieces were not glued together before boil bending, but were glued together about a week after bending. So yes it is possible to get some nose kick on a timber bellyboard before you get to sanding and shaping it.
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How did it ride
Larry O'Brien
It was fun. It takes some getting used to, because it's narrow. I've never ridden an actual vintage Welsh board, and I assume they have better flex, at least the ones that are thin marine plywood. Off on a tangent...my friend Mike once made some timber paipos out of walnut recycled from a stairway. It had excellent flex when taken down to 3/8" or about 10mm. So I think walnut is a wood worthy of more testing.
Bob Green
Is it for wave riding or the more traditional whitewater ride? I Mike still making boards?
Larry O'Brien
I've used it more often without swim fins, so just jumping into the wave as it breaks. Usually if I'm riding party wave style with some elderly body boarders. More recently, Mike likes kayaking in the surf. I guess that makes him a buttboarder.
Bill Wurts
Did you consider vacuum pressing layers of 1/16” maple or 1/8” (baltic birch) plywood over foam form — like they do for mountainboards and longboard skateboards? Standard MB is 1/2” thick.
Larry O'Brien
Yes, I did consider that, because I wanted to do compound bends. I almost bought a vacuum press, but then I got sidetracked by bellyboards made with plywood and cork. That only required weights, like sand bags and rocks. That kept me busy for a while.
5 July 2023
https://www.facebook.com/groups/paipobe ... 096225080/
Good friend and employer when I joined him at his Carlsbad factory. Even had my personal vehicle 66 VW Bug painted in a boogie mural to visit the surf shops who were the original distributors before selling them to the big box stores. Went and lived in Kona as he sold his company where he and Marchia were raising at that time their 3 young sons. Last talked to him on speaker phone with his wife in the summer on the phone before he passed later that year. We shared our common interests in waves, philosophy, religion and engineering/physics. After this prototype you photographed, he started the kits using left over blue "skins" from Dow Chemical from a left over corporate customer and they were throwing out these "crusts" anyway so Tom bought them cheap with their ruff moonscape surface. As boogie boards moved past the kits that you had to glue together Dow started making the colored rainbow skin rolls that were then heat fused on to the closed cell white polyethylene foam cores. These are the boards that have the branded BE number indicating when it was manufactured using the Baha'i calendar. I was there later when Tom and Mike Doyle shaped their first foam longboard at the Carlsbad factory and was made one of the judges of the first Boogieboard surf competition. Fun time in my life and I learned a lot from him.
31 July, 2023
https://www.facebook.com/groups/paipobe ... 921805080/
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https://www.facebook.com/groups/paipobe ... 968495080/
Very interesting. Plywood but with some foam? Or is the plywood shaped or bent? Could you say more about your process?
Larry O'Brien
It wasn't something I built. As I recall Roger made it mostly out of plywood, building up the rails, and then sanding the shape. Maybe some Bondo, and then spray paint. It might have been a thin neoprene deck. Here's a link to his plywood version of a Newport Concave Vector: https://mypaipoboards.org/.../PaipoNewp ... aveReplica...
20 August 2023
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https://www.facebook.com/groups/paipobe ... 469905080/
Dave used an aerospace grade of cork that he got from Portugal, not the kind used for underlayment or bulletin boards. I've done a few with underlayment cork on top of plywood, and I varnished the cork rails with an oil based polyurethane, but once I did the whole deck on a squid tail bellyboard (photo below). Dave made a nice mini paipo, two-handed handboard out of cork with internal fiberglass and a bamboo veneer on the bottom, lightly sealed with a water-base polyurethane. An awesome and safe way to ride in shore break.
another thing you might try is to vary the deck sealer on the cork, by sanding the varnish after two or three coats, and only sanding where you want traction, like for your belly, chest, and hands. I've done this with water-base polyurethane, and that makes it quick and easy to redo it when needed. So you're able to seal most of the cork, but still have some bare cork for traction.
ort of inspired by a board that Rich Pavel made for me twenty years earlier, except that one was traditional foam and fiberglass.
28 May, 2024
Stokefest 2012
https://www.facebook.com/groups/paipobe ... 690505080/
Stokefest 2012 in La Jolla, California. I wish these sort of gatherings happened more often, or maybe they do, and I just missed out. There was about forty people at this event, and even some notable old folks like Linda Benson and Steve Scatolini. There was a good selection of Brink asymmetric boards, but I can only find one photo, the board that can be ridden four different ways. I think some of these photos were taken by Ken Samuels, maybe most of them.
It was the first public reveal of my Goddess board, a board that was sort of inspired by the tiny figurines sometimes found in archaeological sites around the world. Plus I was already into peanut shapes and parabolic rail templates. I had a hard time getting people to ride it. Some people just wanted to be photographed with it, and others didn't want to be seen carrying it into the water. I still see it as one of my favorite boards. It has no sharp corners, a cork deck, very maneuverable, flat rocker, and the waistline rails make it very stable to sit on while bobbing in the water between waves.
My doctor has had me out of the water for nearly a year. Well I can go in the water, I just can't do anything dangerous until August. So I'd like to know if there are any board-sharing events or beach campground gatherings in California or Oregon this Summer and Fall. Cheers.