Template Creation: Designed the dimensions on paper and transferred templates for the spine and ribs onto 1/4” marine-grade plywood.

Structural Cutting: Rough-cut pieces on a bandsaw and refined them with a belt sander; the spine was doubled for extra rigidity.

Pressure Management: Cut airflow holes in the ribs and spine to connect to a tail vent, allowing the board to "breathe" during temperature-induced pressure changes.

Skeleton Assembly: Aligned and glued the ribs and spine, adding paulownia support strips and nose/tail blocking for structural integrity.

Wood Selection: Purchased paulownia lumber to use as the material for most of the board. Paulownia was chosen for its strength-to-weight ratio, given it’s twice as strong as balsa wood and almost as light in weight by comparison. This SUP board needed to be as light as possible considering its size.

Laminating Planks: Created top and bottom planks by planing paulownia wood to 5/16” and gluing them end to end to create the skinning sheets.

Skinning the Frame: Glued and clamped the planks to the rib structure, using a router to trim excess wood along the rail guides.

Custom Hardware: Machined a manual vent, two leash plugs, and six 1/4”-20 threaded inserts (for deck rigging). Cut a block if paulownia wood and carved out a grip handle to mount in the center of the board, then installed them into the deck using epoxy.

Rail Construction: Built up the side rails using interlocking paulownia wood strips, gluing them together one at a time with polyurethane foaming glue while following the rounded side contours of the frame ribs and added paulownia wood blocks to the nose and tail.

Hand Carving: Used a spoke shave and hand planer to carve the rails, nose, and tail into their final hydrodynamic shapes.

Surface Prep: Hand-sanded the entire board until smooth before the initial lamination.

Fin Boxes: Purchased plastic fin box inserts so the fins are removable and/or replaceable. Also to be able to try different combinations to see what would work best in different situations.

Fin Attachment: Routed slots into the bottom of the board and used a custom template and epoxy to glue the fin box inserts at the precise position.

Glassing: Applied multiple layers of thin fiberglass cloth and epoxy resin over the entire board.

Final Coat: Applied a sealing top coat of epoxy resin.

Polishing: Sanded and polished the final coat to a high-gloss, smooth finish.

Paddle Design: Designed the paddle by researching the most versatile size, shape, and angle of the paddle blade along with the proper length of the entire paddle based on my height.

Construction: Aspen and walnut woods were stacked and glued together to create the continuous support the full length of the paddle. Cedar wood was used for the sides of the blade and handle.

Shaping: Formed the shape of the paddle, handle, and shaft using various hand planes and finished by sanding.

Finishing: Applied multiple layers of thin fiberglass cloth leaving extra overlapping the blade to protect an strengthen the thin wood edges. Followed by a thick sealing coat of epoxy resin over the entire paddle.

Polishing: Sanded and polished the final coat to a high-gloss, smooth finish.