Thursday, October 13, 2016

Jon White and Knocker wooden surfboards

"I have attached photos of a 8.6’ Hybrid Fish, which is my latest build and my go to board for all UK conditions. The design mixes the characteristics and performance features of a thruster with the added width and tail design of a fish. I surf it as a quad, but it would work well as a twin. It has a more progressive rocker than the fish, a flat deck and like all my boards it has a hard rail shape.
The board is made from Paulownia timber that is now grown in Spain http://www.ipaulownia.co.uk. Having a good European supplier is a real plus for the UK and makes it affordable. Previously the only option was to import from China, Australia or the US.

The surfboards are designed on a CAD program before transferring the outline and profile to plywood templates. Each plank is then screwed on to the rocker template and cut on a bandsaw jig, much like you would make chair legs. This means that the rockers are 2mm thicker than I require, but exactly the required shape meaning that they only require an even sand for the final shape.

The individual rocker planks are then screwed together, with the middle two lightly glued to enable the outline and rails to be shaped. The board is then taken apart and chambered (thickness: 10mm top, 13mm or 10mm bottom, depending on the bottom shape). With out chambering, the boards weigh between 27 and 29 Kilos for a 100-litre board. Chambering a SUP brings this down by around 60%, as there is more area per volume of wood than would be the case for a traditional surfboard.



http://www.knockersurfboards.com.

The board is then glued together and given a final shape and sand down to 400 grit. Depending on the customer, I either added 7 coats of Le Tonkinois oil, or 3 coats over a ‘cheater coat’ of bio-epoxy resin. "

I have looked into this Le Tonkinois Oil as a finish and it is very interesting and a very old formula. But so far have not been able to find it here in Australia. Let me know if you find it anywhere.
http://www.letonkinoisvarnish.co.uk/varMain.html

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