Paulownia Wood Sheets
Lightweight, durable and sustainably sourced, Paulownia wood sheets are ideal for shaping surfboards of all kinds. They’re strong, easy to work with, and resist salt water, making them perfect for beginners and pros alike.
Build a Surfie, an Alaia or your own design.
My journey with wood started in the 1980s when I fell in love with the feeling of the old balsa boards I was riding from the 1950s. I have been inspired by the feel of those surfboards for my entire shaping career.
In 1999, I started using paulownia in my foam boards as stringers and fins. I found paulownia to be light, a pleasure to shape, and it did not absorb salt water. In 2002 I started making hollow wood surfboards from paulownia and in 2005 I started making alaias and bellyboards. I was using many cubic meters of Australian-grown paulownia every year.
In 2014, I found my surfboard evolution had hit an impasse. I was needing thinner sheets of paulownia and they were enormously wasteful and expensive for me to mill. I had to look outside Australia. I found a company in China which could produce the 2mm sheets I wanted, and I have been very happy with these sheets since 2016.
In September, 2025, Margie and I went to China and visited our supplier. We were very impressed with the company, employees, plantations, and the mill. Sawdust from making the sheets is a valuable resource used for ancillary products like particle boards.
The Empress Tree (paulownia tomentosa) is a fast growing, deciduous tree, native to western China and revered by Chinese people for the role paulownia plantations played in re-establishing degraded farming lands from the 1960s to the present day. Tom Wegener 2025
Paulownia Wood Sheets
Frequently Asked Questions
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They’re used for building surfboards, bellyboards, handplanes, and other wooden watercraft. The thin 2mm sheets are especially good for shaping curved boards using moulds or vacuum methods.
It’s light, strong, and doesn’t absorb salt water, making it ideal for surfboards. It’s also easy to shape and finish, even for first-time builders.
The 2mm thickness is the sweet spot, thin enough to bend easily over complex curves, but strong enough to hold its shape. It also saves time and waste by removing the need to sand down thicker timber.
Two standard sizes:
- 4-foot sheet (1370 × 420 × 2mm)
- 8-foot sheet (2440 × 610 × 2mm)
Our sheets are sustainably grown and milled in China by a trusted partner we’ve worked with since 2016. The trees are plantation-grown, and sawdust from production is reused for other wood products.
Yes, but only for pick-up from Cooroy, which is free. It’s not economically viable to ship smaller quantities, so we recommend bulk orders for delivery.
Yes. The Empress Tree (Paulownia tomentosa) is fast-growing and helps restore degraded farmland. Our supplier’s practices ensure minimal waste and full use of by-products.
Paulownia Wood Sheets