It’s fun to make things. Most of us stick to the little things like bread, a handmade card, or maybe a piece of pottery if we’re really feeling crafty. Then there are those of us who go all the way on something mind-blowing, making things that not many have dared to try. Carl Davis is an example of the latter.
When I heard Davis was making a wooden stand-up paddleboard, I called him right up. Davis is what I call a jack-of-all Tahoe trades — he’s worked as a firefighter, ski patroller, professional photographer, and kayak and wilderness guide — but admits he’s by no means a master carpenter. So what prompted such an ambitious, time-consuming endeavor? Well, the guy likes to paddleboard. It’s just a hobby, for now. ‘I’d like to do races, but I don’t own a paddleboard,’ Davis said during our interview at his Tahoe Donner workshop/garage.
So upon weighing his options — buying a new paddleboard, which costs well over $1,000, or making one, which he estimated to cost under $500 — Davis chose to put in the time and chalk it up to a learning experience.
His laid-back attitude about the whole ordeal is quite inspiring, especially when you learn that he tried, and failed, to build his legacy wooden paddleboard last year. His first board made it out his workshop, and into Donner Lake waters for only three days of paddling when faulty fin sealing led to a premature demise.
But did Davis run out and buy a fiberglass model in mourning? Nope, he set out to build it better this summer, and as of press time the board was on its way into the finishing stages.
Davis’ paddleboard-making idea was set into motion after some extensive Internet research led him to a set of plans supplied in a simple black binder by Woody Logic Surfboards of Inverness, Florida. The plans make a basic rockered paddleboard, supported by a plywood skeleton. Clamps, clamps, and more clamps are needed to make it all come together, and Davis improvised by devising PVC piping into the additional clamps he needed.
For this summer’s second try, Davis chose to plank the board in red cedar, and changed the plans’ pin tail and rounded nose to a dove tail and pointed nose made of solid wood, purely for aesthetics. When I asked what these design changes would do to the ride, Davis pulled out his now-trademark nonchalance: ‘I’m always hoping for the best.’
He hopes his final board will weigh 35 pounds, that’s counting 20 to 25 pounds of red cedar, all the epoxy, and varnish, and guesses it will measure 12 foot 6 inches in length once he adds the nose. Davis wasn’t clocking his hours but estimates it takes 150 hours to get the job done, down to the shaping and sanding via block plane, belt sander, palm sander, and hand.
Due to some work that’s leading him out of town for a month, he’s penciled in an October or November maiden voyage.
Yet what, you may ask, will he use to paddle? Would he dare purchase a paddle that could very well cost more than his homemade board? Surely not. Davis built an outrigger paddle from the scraps of his first paddleboard attempt, and extra wood from this summer’s board will make a matching red cedar stand-up paddle.
Now that’s some impressive stuff in the making!
