GOING WITH THE GRAIN
Franks is not the first to succumb to the lure of veneer. As far back as the mid-1940s the ever-innovative and all-around eccentric surfboard designer Bob Simmons experimented with plywood veneer over polystyrene foam, effectively cutting the weight of contemporary boards in half. In 1977 a Northern California company called Woodenboards attempted to market a veneer model, beautifully grained, light, strong and widely ignored by a surfing demographic increasingly moving toward DayGlo airbrush, not polished birch.
Two modern wooden applications have met with more acceptance. Bamboo Surfboards Australia (bamboosurfboards.com.au) have perfected an outer skin combination of bamboo and epoxy resin to provide a lightweight, super-strong lamination over polystyrene, while Santa Cruz's Surftech (surftech.com) wood-veneer series longboards have been the first to make a dent in the traditional foam-and fiberglass market.
Dave Franks was originally making balsa boards and glassing them, but they were too expensive for a general market and most ended up as showpieces hanging on peoples' walls. "I thought if I'm having to use fiberglass because balsa's not strong enough, what if I used a stronger timber?"
Now, Franks and Garrett are using lightweight cedar and, after working through a few problems with deck indentations, the boards are holding up better than conventionally laminated boards.
"It's just glued down. We use a little bit of epoxy resin around the nose and tail, and a bit of polyester resin around fins systems," says Garrett. "They're rather labor-intensive, not suited for mass production. The only disadvantage is every time I make one for myself, someone borrows it and I don't get it back."
Dave recently rode a 6' 2" at King Island shaped to his usual dimensions and loved the thing. "I don't think I'm sacrificing anything at all by going this way," says Dave. "When you're sitting out in the water and the sun is on the grain, they're so beautiful. Even down to the smell, you can rub a bit of citrus oil on them and they smell so nice. Everyone who sees them wants one, especially older guys."
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