George Leslie turns his chippie skills to building a Grain kit.

George with the bottom skin all laid up on the rocker table and the frame ready to go.
Rails built up bead and cove method
Ready to blend the rails into the frames and deck roll for the top to go on.
Deck ready to go on and then final shaping and blending of rails
Ready to rock and roll. Nice job.
George lives at Lennox Head and missed the Wood Board Day but saw the article in Pacific Long boarder magazine.
"I bought the kit from Grain and had a ball making it, as a chippie working with the cedar was awesome, loved it. I've included a few shots of the during and then the finished product. Next time you organise another day I'd love to know about it. I'm doing a standard 9'2" polyester at the moment and am looking at doing a balsa (most probs solid) early next year."

Grain Kits can be bought from their agent in Australia - Cape Boat Works check them out in the web links for a range of boards.

Marymount students shape Alaia surfboard in woodwork class

" Nearly 30 enthusiastic students and a few teachers joined the wooden surfboard experience by shaping timber Alaia's as a part of their wood working class.

Girls and guys all had a go at shaping the design, with some great results.

With the plan shapes cut out, cleaned up and the rails starting to take shape, the end of the next class will see quite a few finished Alaia's hitting the water soon after.

Interest is coming from more schools, so I will keep you posted."

Richard has been shaping a number of Alaia's for summer and has blanks for you to have a go yourself or you can buy a blank and he will show you how to shape it in his shaping bay.

" I have limited times when I will help those interested to shape their own under my guidance, all for the same price as buying one off the rack.

Time from start to finish including oiling and logos about 4 hours. All my contact details are below."

Harvey Surf Gallery
63 Lower West Burleigh Road
Burleigh Heads
Queensland 4220
Australia
www.harveysurf.com
www.harveysurf.blogspot.com
info@harveysurf.com
mob: 0414 557624
skype: richardharveyburleighheads

Great to see Richard sharing his skills and experience with the kids. There will be more than a few woody sliders in the lineup this summer. Thanks Richard.

Old timber to beautiful board

David Westendorf was at the Sacred Craft Show last weekend and someone mentioned my blog. So he took a look at it and decided he had a project to share. So here it is.He lives at Half Moon Bay and found this 100 year old redwood in an old barn up in the hills and decided to turn it into a beautiful board.
All clamped up and ready to take shape
Plane off the years of weathering and reveal it's true beauty.
Get some rocker into it
Outline and deal with the glue dags
Now we are talking...

" The fin is koa and shaped like a great white shark pectoral fin I photographed in 2001 off our coast. The logo is of course a 1968 VW van, which I beat around in the 1980's. "

A thing of beauty is brought to life for all to share. Thanks David.

Richie Berto, building some fine boards in Sydney

Richie sent me these pics and not much detail, but by the looks of things he has done a fine job. He describes himself as a " very amature backyard timber surfboard builder" , well mate you are doing mighty fine.

Ben Smith has built another beautiful chambered board.

I met Ben at the Wooden Surfboard Day in August , he is a young guy who came up for the weekend from Goolwa in South Australia.He brought along his first ever board , a very nice chambered Paulownia fish. Great job for a first board. But he has stepped it up with this second one.

" Gday Grant, it was great to meet you at the WSB Day in August, and I've gotta say I appreciate the trouble you went to to put on the day. I learned a lot, met some top blokes and all round had a great time! It was also a pleasant surprise to see my photo up on your blog so thanks for that too!

Finished my second board the other day, thought i might send you some pics if your interested to see."

" Chambered paulownia fish with some modern contours on the under and rails. Again (like my first) i used no glass and this time used an ultra hard wearing polyurethane/polyester product to build up a super gloss finish rather than epoxy.

5'11'' x 20.75'' x 2.5'' 50/50 and slight concave in nose leading into deep single concave and 70/30 rails in the front foot region to moderate spiral vee and hard rails out the tail..
I put in plugs for a thruster setup and some for a set of "D's" that can double as a quad option so the possible fin setups are infinate.
In the end the total weight including fins was 5kg, .4 of a kilo heavier than my 7S Super Fish.
Surfed it at the Middleton Point down here on the SA South Coast in some 1-1.5' glass at dusk the day of completion and had a blast! Speed + Manuverability = Red Fish."


" I've started work on my third, I'm in the process of copying a friends 9'0'' 'Stephen Slater' Donald Takayama all-rounder, this time in the Hollow Wood style of construction. I like the chamber method a lot for the strength, the look and for the fact that i can actually shape the board by hand but the waste is unbelievable so its time to give another method a go."

" Great work on the blog Grant, its a real source of inspiration to me and I'm sure many others."

Ben Smith

Ben, thanks for the kind words and for sharing you thoughts and great board with us.

Wooden Surfboard Raffle for Samoan Tsunami Appeal

Bobby Crisp from Wellington New Zealand has just started a raffle to raise funds for the Samoan Tsunami Appeal. $5 per ticket or 5 tickets for $20 to win a wooden surfboard to the value of $2,000. Raffle closes 22nd October, winner drawn 23rd October.

So get hold of Bobby:

Bob Crisp

Deluxe Industries Board Co.
Web: www.deluxeindustries.co.nz
Blog: deluxeindustries.blogspot.com
Email : bobcrisp@deluxeindustries.co.nz
Postal : 164 Derwent Street, Island Bay, 6023, Wellington, New Zealand
Mobile : ++64 21 267 4695

Good on you mate. Good to see the boys looking after our island cousins.