Hollow wooden kneeboard

tomway · Post by **tomway** » Sun May 21, 2006 7:13 am

Ok, this is the culmination of a weekends work.
First off, the newly glued up rail stock following the planshape of the board:

Next off, as Jon suggested, I used the little trimmer router to follow the template of the rail rocker, taking tiny little cuts. The template was cut out of 1/4" ply and I took a additional 1/8" off the outline all round to compensate for the sleeve on the router guide. My javanese mate Eko is holding the router. This is the closest I've ever come to getting a photo of him. He usually runs a mile if he sees the camera :

... and voila! Two starboard rail blanks cut out of the stock. I could probably have got 3 out of it but was a bit worried about supporting the router if cutting near the edge of a plank so I opted for safety and only did 2. The rails you see in the photo have got about 4" of additional waste each end which needs to be cut off... the board won't actually be this long.

Profile view of a rail blank:

Looks kind of skinny, but don't forget this is only the rail. The deck will be quite rolled so the profile along where the stringer would traditionally lie will retail some volume.

Close up of the rail:

And that's it. Now got to cut the port rail blank. Thanks again for the support and ideas everyone!

Jon Manss · Post by **Jon Manss** » Sun May 21, 2006 11:41 am

You Know what your doing. Excellent profile and execution Tom.

Man O' War · Post by **Man O' War** » Sun May 21, 2006 4:04 pm

I don't know what language you guys are speaking but it's looking good.

surfhorn · Post by **surfhorn** » Sun May 21, 2006 5:23 pm

Jon - you going to make us a little barrel KB for Sewer's/26/stockton.......

Jon Manss · Post by **Jon Manss** » Sun May 21, 2006 8:04 pm

JackG · Post by **JackG** » Sun May 21, 2006 8:53 pm

If this isn't the internet at its best then I don't know what we're all doing with these computers.

surfhorn · Post by **surfhorn** » Mon May 22, 2006 7:45 am

Jon - LOL You do man!

NO -wait - You ain't the man.

What about cutting out a plywood paipo...........

tomway · Post by **tomway** » Wed May 24, 2006 8:47 am

Done a bit more over the last few days. Got the opposite rails cut out wihtout to much hassle, getting a bit speedier with the router now:

Then set to work making a pair of tail blocks. Was thinking of trying to do a fancy layup of contrasting wood grains and colours but in too much of a hurrry to get the first board in the water so decided to use a single piece of mahogony I found. It was a rough hewn bit of wood so I took it too a joiner down the road from where I live...

The owner, Pak Joko ran it across his planer to make it nice and flat:

Inside a Javanese woodshop (this one is well equipped and well organised by most standards)

Do you think it would pass health and safety laws in the west ?

Anyway, in the end I got the tail blocks roughly cut out. After a couple of sketches I decided to go for a 1950's postcard girl's legs kind of shape. That kind of tapering curved shape. If you know what I mean.

It looks a bit different and I thought it would help to save weight by reducing the material in the centre. I'll route it out to lighten it, but the mahogany's the heaviest part so far.

Next step is to chamber the rails and then I can start putting everything together.

That's it for now. Thanks for the kind words everyone.

Tom

tomway · Post by **tomway** » Sun May 28, 2006 5:48 am

Work on the board has been a bit slow but I've done a little more.

It's a bit difficult to see in the picture due to the lack of contrast, but I've chambered out the rail blanks with the router. I stepped the cuts so more is taken out neat the bottom of the rail and less near the deck side of the rail where more material will be lost when the rails are turned. Chambering took a long time but the weight of a pair of rails went down from 1.8kg to about 1.4kg. This still seems quite heavy, but I guess the rails aren't turned yet and a lot more material will come off then. Also, the board is hollow and the rails represent most of the total weight.

Also routed the roughed out tail block and got about half the weight out of that.

A rough idea of the outline of the board:

You can see there's a couple of twists starting to appear in the rail and I'm worried the wood is starting to move. We've got some uncharacteristic extremely humid weather at the moment. Need to get the ribs glued in and the frame clamped up quickly.

Also mitred the nose and as expected my fine sawing skills were lacking and the join's far from perfect, but I'm still stoked to see the colours in the rails lining up.

That's it for now on the board front.

I'm sure everyone's heard by now that yogjakarta province was hit by an earthquake yesterday morning. The death toll is rising as reports from the villages are coming in, around 4000 people now. Please, if the aid organisations are asking for donations in the west, try and give a little. I'm going to give blood tomorrow morning as the hospitals have run out and are begging for contributions.

Selemat,
Tom

finger · Post by **finger** » Mon May 29, 2006 2:18 am

looling good tom
i like the way the way you have used the tile lines to
sat up the frame on

tomway · Post by **tomway** » Mon May 29, 2006 6:25 am

looling good tom
i like the way the way you have used the tile lines to
sat up the frame on

Actually I did at one point check how straight the tiles were laid in my garage and found they were way out of true. If you could follow them for about a mile you would probably do a full circle

BillL · Post by **BillL** » Mon May 29, 2006 7:59 am

Amazing work Tom. I never knew how complicated and involved the process was making these hollow boards. Thanks for showing us the development, it gives me a lot of appreciation of what craftsman you, Man of War, Flexman and John Manss are. Not to mention all the foam kneeboard shapers like Buddy, Hart , Eric and every body else. Good work! Bill

tomway · Post by **tomway** » Thu Jun 01, 2006 7:12 pm

Hi Bill, thanks for the encouragement

but I'm sure those real craftsman of foam, wood and fibreglass you mentioned would be the first to see that my effort is less skill than enthusiasm

A few more pics. Most work has been done in short intense bursts before and after work so not much time to document them but here are the latest pics.

The new board's frame with cross pieces alongside the smaller 5'5" foam board (my everyday board).

You can see how the cross pieces work. They're 1" eps strips sandwiched between thin wooden skins and drilled to reduce the weight. You can see the two centre cross pieces are close together to provide a bit more support around the knee area and keep the eventual deck skin nice and taut.

I've also router a 1/8" groove around the inside perimeter of the rail blanks for the deck skin to fit into.

Now I've got a couple of decisions to make. I've got to find some nice wood for the skins, either a ply (lighter and less work) or glue up the skins using strips of wood (nice to look at, but heavier and lots of work).

The other decision is whether to include any kind of central support where the stringer would normally lie. I said in an earlier post I don't want a rigid stringer as I'd like to retain the flex that would be lost if the frame were boxed out like that. But on the other hand I'm still a little worried about deck strength. A poster on a related topic on swaylocks pointed out that the stringer forms an I-beam between the skins - a very strong mechanical shape. There's a fair amount of roll in the deck which should help keep the skin rigid.... but is it enough? I don't know. Perhaps some longitudinal support in key pressure areas (under knees and feet) using eps which won't stiffen the board too much...

Have to sleep on it.

Headwax. · Post by **Headwax.** » Thu Jun 01, 2006 7:23 pm

BillL

wroted:

Amazing work Tom. I never knew how complicated and involved the process was making these hollow boards. Thanks for showing us the development....

seconded

wolruss · Post by **wolruss** » Thu Jun 01, 2006 8:58 pm

I am thoroughly enjoying (rapt) following this process, spelled and stepped out for the uninitiated ( dumbf%#ks) like myself. Very interested to see the outcome, I have an ever increasing respect, as mentioned previously in BillL's post, for the craftsmen in the industry, but even more so for someone that hasn't had the benefit of years in the trade experience, having what I see is a very credible attempt - here's hoping it all works as you expect it to.

Cheers Wolruss