Make Your Own Sandboard - Attempt One

This attempt at making a Sandboard didn't go so well. So DO NOT try this, I am only documenting it so you know what doesn't work.

First Attempt

I did a bit of reading on the net before I tried to make my first proper sandboard, and a few of the sites I visited said that you could bend the nose and tail of the board up after soaking it in water for a while, so this is what I tried;

Ingredients;
  • 6 ply piece of plywood, about 70cm wide x 130cm long
  • Lots of bricks and other stuff that weighs a lot
  • Jigsaw
  • "Bender"
Instructions;
  1. After buying the plywood, I sketched up a design of how I wanted the sandboard to look. A pretty standard design with a straight body and rounded ends, which would be curved upwards so that they don't get dig into the sand.
  2. I copied the design onto the plywood and then cut it out with a jigsaw.
  3. I then placed the cut out sandboard in the pool for a week to let it soak
  4. While the board was soaking I began work on the "Bender" - The "Bender" was actually pretty good and I also used it while I was making the other boards.
  5. After a week of soaking in the pool I took the board out and placed it in the "Bender", so that the board was jammed in pretty tight and when weight was added the middle part would sink down leaving the two ends sticking up.
  6. I then placed a sheet on top of the wet sandboard and began placing bricks on top of that, it took a lot of bricks, and I mean A LOT (It took about as many bricks as you see in the picture), the middle of the board went down and the two ends stayed up, it was looking pretty good at the stage, so I left it with bricks on top for a week.
  7. 1 Week later I took all the bricks off only to find that one of the ends of the board had snapped not in half, but one of the layers of the plywood had snapped through, and the board didn't stay bent at all which made it completely useless.

What I Learnt From This

  • Soaking the board in water was not the way to go, or maybe the wood I used was too thick, either way I had to come up with/find a better idea.
  • The "Bender" worked great though.
All of the boards