My First Paipo
Posted: Wed Jul 05, 2017 5:27 pm
My 12 yo son and I spend quite a bit of time surfing and bodyboarding. For me, bodyboarding is much easier on bad knees. I also spend a great deal of time working with wood, tables, benches, swings, wall hangings, etc... I stumbled onto this site and after the last four or five days, I may have an addiction problem.
This is my first paipo. I wanted to keep it simple to start with. I still made mistakes, mainly choosing Luan that was way too thick (.7"). Even my belt sander with 34 grit couldn't make a dent. I ended up going back and buying 5mm Luan that I glued together with Titebond 2 added clamps and about 300 lbs of weight. I attempted a small amount of rocker in the nose, roughly .5" , during the glue process. It settled into about .25" after all was said and done. She's got 6 coats of SPAR urethane on the deck and bottom. The design is just a copy of a foam sponge we have at the house. The dimensions are 43" x 20".
I'm already planning on starting another very soon.
One question for the experienced builders out there. I'm used to using water based urethane for indoor furniture. It's fairly thin and easy to control with a bristle or foam brush. The 220 grit between coats usually results in pretty good finish. The SPAR urethane is like syrup. I'm assuming those that use it for sealing their paipo thin it? If so, at what ratio and how many extra coats?
Second question, wax works well but cork on the deck would be visually pleasing. Is it worth the hassle of sealing, etc?
This is my first paipo. I wanted to keep it simple to start with. I still made mistakes, mainly choosing Luan that was way too thick (.7"). Even my belt sander with 34 grit couldn't make a dent. I ended up going back and buying 5mm Luan that I glued together with Titebond 2 added clamps and about 300 lbs of weight. I attempted a small amount of rocker in the nose, roughly .5" , during the glue process. It settled into about .25" after all was said and done. She's got 6 coats of SPAR urethane on the deck and bottom. The design is just a copy of a foam sponge we have at the house. The dimensions are 43" x 20".
I'm already planning on starting another very soon.
One question for the experienced builders out there. I'm used to using water based urethane for indoor furniture. It's fairly thin and easy to control with a bristle or foam brush. The 220 grit between coats usually results in pretty good finish. The SPAR urethane is like syrup. I'm assuming those that use it for sealing their paipo thin it? If so, at what ratio and how many extra coats?
Second question, wax works well but cork on the deck would be visually pleasing. Is it worth the hassle of sealing, etc?