I'm thinking of building a kite specific 5'6" surfboard using "paulownia" wood. There are a few surfboard companies using this light hardwood, so I'm not completely mad. Good thing is, it's waterproof raw and doesn't need fibreglass to finish it. A coat of epoxy resin will do. The forums say it's nearly as light as foam/fibreglass boards as well.
Does anyone have any experience with this material or am I thinking too far outside the square?
go for it, although something more uv-stable than epoxy may be the go as there's no need for adhesion to glass fibres. (varnish/lacquer?)
does it come in laminated beams/blocks or something that may have some more stability than a solid (and therefore more warp-prone) chunk?
pictures when it happens please.
I would be interested on were you get the wood from, I bought a piece for a twin tip and it cost be $80. It is a quite a bit harder than balsa wood.
The other option is balsa wood, there is a crowd over east that sells the wood and kits but felt they weren't that reasonable - Riley Balsawood Surfboards.
Cheers
Rich
I got my information from www.surfinggreen.com.au
A surfboard kit (6 lengths per kit) with 6' x 4" x 4" lengths of paulowina cost about $350 plus freight. It's all on the web site. Only issue I see is rocker. The timber lengths are 4" thick only and I think we need 5" nose lift. I'd have to build up the nose with an off cut section but that's no big problem.
They suggest hollow sections inside to cut weight but for kiting I think I would just thin out the deck, a bit like the Underground surfboards
Riley's are just down the road from me (2 km) but I agree very expensive.
There's apparently a plantation North of Perth. Haven't got round to getting up there to see if I can get hold of some for a twinnie.
Anyhoo, here are some links to some hollow wood surfboard builing sites that I was looking at while doing some boardbuilding research, I mean working 
http://www.surfrider.org/connecticut/blog.html
karmasurfboards.com/how_its_done
And then thereis the surfboard building forum to end all surfboard building forums, Swaylocks:
www2.swaylocks.com/
Heaps of good advice there.
There was also an article in one of the kite magazines about 18 months ago, with a shaper (the guy who works for North? whose name I can't remember) went strep by step through the process for making a balsa board. not the same as paulownia, but can give some insight into the process.
Hope you find this useful and be sure to post lots of pics so we can see how you get along.
Cheeers,
Gorilla 
The new Underground Kipuna Freewaves are Paulownia.
You could ask if Adrian will share any wisdom.
Ive made a couple of paulownia boards.
I bought my timber at high point timber and they can provide most dimensions you could want.
My latest is a kite specific wave board, .
It would be really really heavy if left solid and must be chambered to reduce the weight.
As i have put my heels through a couple of foam surfboards already I left it solid underneath the footsraps and around the fin boxes (used futures as they are strong as).
With a kite board the planing area (Template ) is more important than the volume for "flotation" therefore they can be made a bit thinner than a standard foam surfboard. The wood is strong enough that the board does not become too flexy and the reduced thickness helps keep the weight down.
The finished weight is more than a foam board.
I will post a picture when i figure out how to
wow that board looks awesome! is that hollow at all, what do you guys mean chambered out? do you chizel sections out then put a thin layer of sheet over the top... im pretty good at wood work and wouldnt mind giving a crack at a surfboard!
hey guys if you got a wooden surfboard can you post some pics of them..
cheers
matt
ok i just did some research haha i now see how it is done... do you guys shape the board first then cut it into strips then chamber it then glue it back together then final sand?
has anyone got pics with a step by step on how they went around doing it?
Has any one tried surfinggreens pre made boards the Alaia. Being flat and finless I thought it might ride well behind a Kite and be a fun mix between a skiim and surf board. Also the combination between ancient style board and modern kite appeals to me Does any one have any opinions on whether the Traditioinal or preformance model will be better with a kite. I was think if the board is to lose I could add the Quadfire Quad fins at a later date
p.s. Can someone tell me why everyone puts their back strap so far forward? (including nearly all kitebrands) to the point that its no where near where you put it when you surf. Anytime I have had a go on someone's strapped surfboard I find it so stiff and unresponsive for this very reason.
The times I have towed in or kited my own boards with straps I have set it right where I surf and found no problems.
Enlighten me.
I have made a couple of hollow timber surfboards and one vac bagged composite using 2.5mm Paulownia skins over polystyrene. I have also made a heap of solid paulownia cored twin tips. Easy to do and they dont take a lot of time or expense, Surfboard building forum swayloks is a wealth of information.
For the hollows I used 6mm skins on the 6'6" fish and 8-10mm skins on the 12'6" section connector and framework of 6mm timber spaced at 12". If I build again I would reduce internal framing to 6" around the area of our feet. The vac bag epoxy board is a combination of Paulownia, balsa and western red cedar and didnt take very long to make. I just used 2 sheets of 25mm foam and contact adhesive them together on a rocker table to get the shape I wanted.
heres a few photos of the boards
I am no expert by any means and just enjoy stuffing around in the shed building stuff to play in the water with and some of these are pretty rough but all work.
Cheers
It's great to see you guys making stuff from scratch. You tend to value something you've made by hand. Not enough of it in this throwaway society.
beautiful boards shunter. how much did you need to overcompensate with the rocker? ie how much does the timber spring back?
Stamp,
no need to compensate for rocker on the hollow timbers or the composite as both of those were built on rocker tables and once the timber is glassed it holds the shape. For solid cored twin tips we use to thin out the tips to 5mm thick from a 12mm thick sheet and then bend up to 125-150mm and wet out the timber with water, these would spring back to 40 to 50mm of rocker we would then just hand lay up a single 4oz with epoxy and these would hold shape.
SR
I stuck two sheets of 25mm foam together then vac bagged on the bottom sheet with glass on the inside only, cut the outline 20mm short then shaped up deck and profile and then built up the last 20mm of the rails using balsa wood, final shape then vac bag on the deck and trim to rail bands, then hand glass with epoxy the top and bottom conventionally with full rail laps, I think its one layer of 4oz top and bottom with reinforcing patches under the timber skin on the deck. So no centre stringers in these just the solid timber rail bands, same principle as firelines and Bert Burgers sunovas, it was a post on the swaylocks forum by Burt that got me into building composite boards, he did a tutorial on building a composite board using PVC foam as the skins super light and supper strong.
if you are into building your own boards there is a heap of info amongst the **** on swayloks http://www2.swaylocks.com/forum/
cheers
I ripped it down to ~4-6mm sheets out of 6" by 3" then run it thru the thicknesser, bit fo wastage but I had some left overs from building an outrigger canoe.
Timber was sourced from rockingham in Perth, cant remember the name of the company.
Cheers
I've just order the paulaownia timber from Paulownia Paradise in Victoria 1800 19 12 13
paulowniatimber.com.au
David, the owner, was extremely helpful with placing my order. They have length of paulownia (10 lengths of 6" x 2" x whatever length you need). The 6" should allow me to shape in the required rocker.
Mate,
I would love to surf a piss heasy right hand point break like this with no major crowd!!!!
Yet to find one of those
