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.

Frank has finished his board

Frank Kaczmarek snapped his favourite foam board so he set about building his first wooden board by slicing up his foam one to get the templates to build the wooden one.You can see his project in a couple of earlier posts. Frank also brought his unfinished board to the wooden board day. It created a lot of interest as people were very interested in the frames and what was happening inside.
" Well, The board is finished (at last) . I ended up doing all the glassing and final polishing myself, and while not as good as a professional job I'm glad that I did everything myself.
I've had a couple of surfs on it at the sandpumping jetty on The Spit on Sunday and Monday mornings. It takes a bit of getting used to and is of course heavier than my former fibreglass board it was modelled on.
I'm pleased with the result and will be surfing it regularly. I'm getting a lot of interest and questions from other surfers who want to know about the construction and what sort of timber was used. Now comes the task of tidying up the garage so my wife can put her car in there again.
Thank you for your help and advice and I look forward to seeing you at the next wooden board gathering if not sooner somewhere in the surf. "

Herold builds himself an Alaia as well

Herold , a Dutchman living in Japan , teaching English to the Japanese, still with me. Anyway he came out to the Gold Coast to do Paul Jensen's wooden board building classes at The Eco Village. Built a great board to take home with him and then decided he needed an Alaia. So off he went and spent the day with Richard Harvey to shape an 8ft Alaia.

If you would like to do the same or buy a blank , get hold of Richard.

info@harveysurf.com or 0414 557 624

Bob Babcock builds his first Alaia for his best friend Mike..

"This is the 1st I’ve built, poplar and pine, 7′-6″, 17″ tapering to 16″, 3/4″ thick. The pieces are doweled together with dowels spaced at 4″ on center…overkill I think….but the boards will break before the joints do.

A little pyrography on the deck, both as artwork and to provide grip. Most of it with a Hawaiian tattoo influence."

"This is with just two coats of oil on her. 4 more to go and a buffing. I had fun building this and am going to start another shortly.

Much thanks to Tom Wegener for sharing his stoke and wisdom."

Mike must be a great friend as you have done a nice job on this board. Bob is from the Cape Cod area USA.

Great little Vid

Chad Waldron's Momentary Film Regarding a Wooden Board from Waldron Bros Production on Vimeo.

Hand made in Brooklyn New York

A nice clean example of a hollow wooden board / Paul Jensen method for sure.By Malwitz Custom Surfboards. Rick builds custom boards and is also a freelance designer / animator.
Also check him out here : http://driftsurfing.com/blog/?p=886 www.malwitzsurfboards.com

Mark Nunan's new knee board

" Thought you might be interested in my latest creation. Hollow wood kneeboard slab, 6'8 by 24 by 3. I sliced up an old baltic pine table and vj boards for the deck , paulownia rails and bottom. The fin boxes are jarrah(surprisingly easy to make). It's a big boy cruiser with wave catching ability and speed the main objectives(as an experiment). Had one surf so far and it is obvious it needs the side fins. "

Greg Wheeldon's board ready to get wet.

Greg is an architect from Brisbane who took the week off to do the Paul Jensen Hollow Wooden board building class I organised at The Eco Village Currumbin. Greg took his time and put in a lot off extra effort to create a very nice board. A great first effort and he is keen to build one for his son now. And that is what this is all about. It was a great experience for Greg and now to build a board at home with his son and share in something that they will enjoy and remember for a long time to come.

Greg chose some nice timbers here, Paulownia and Western Red Cedar.
Designed and shaped his own fin from off cuts
Nice touch with the leggie attachment.
Great glass job by Miami Longboards on the Gold Coast
Rails cork and 4mm bending ply

Wooden Surfboard Day video clip by Geoff Charters

Some nice Alaia sliding