Just had a call from Gary Bennett from Western Australia who is coming over with a few boards for the Wooden Board Day. He is a furniture maker and keen surfer. He has worked on a few projects with surfboard shaper Jim Banks from Byron. Check out some of his boards and boards inspired furniture.
“Always offshore” is Jahroc’s latest collaborative project where Gary Bennett, David Paris and Australian surfing and shaping legend Jim Banks have decided to pool their extensive skills to create a collection of fine wooden surfboards. By combining Jim’s 30+ years of surfboard design and shaping skills with Gary and Dave’s 30+ years of designing and creating furniture masterpieces crafted from fine Australian timbers, the trio believe they can create some of the finest wooden surfboards the world has seen. Some will be artistic wall pieces made from solid timber and others will be artistic wall pieces that can also be surfed on using the age old torsion box construction techniques that have been used in aircraft, surfboards, boats and furniture for centuries.
Wooden surfboards are really where it all began and there are certainly lots of replica’s being made these days. Jim and Gary wanted to do things a little differently and apply the contemporary lines of Jim’s surfboard designs to create some collectable art pieces made from some of our beautiful locally grown timbers in Australia.
Jim still takes a very hands on approach to his shaping and is constantly testing and improving his designs in waves all over the world. From Indo perfection to the raw power of Margaret River Jim is constantly putting his designs to the test. Gary and Dave are excited by the opportunity to use their skills and contemporary techniques of fine timber construction and apply to making surfboards.
Surf boards are such beautiful objects. All three artists are passionate surfers so the idea of sculpting a masterpiece that can be taken down from the wall, waxed up, then taken down to the beach for a surf and still be durable enough to be hung back up on the wall is immensely appealing.
Why “Always Offshore”? Well when it’s offshore at the beach the boys can go for a surf and get that buzz that surfers get. When the surf’s not on they can go to their workshop and get that buzz that woodworkers get when creating, so you see for these 3 it really is "always offshore"!!
The collection, when complete, will feature some hollow torsion box versions that will be surfable. All going well the boys should have a collection ready to exhibit in March 2010. Keep an eye on this page to check the progress on this upcoming exhibition."
Check out these great boards and other projects :
www.jahroc.com.au/Surfboards.htm
Paul Joske with the first known Paulownia surfboard in Australia. Chambered , unglassed with Ebony finboxes and Ebony fins. Only West System Resin used to glue up the blank. The rest is as green as you can go.Paul also had a beautiful Agave board there. They were both for the same customer , who had traveled up with the boards from Victoria.
Young Mike Grobelny from Auckland New Zealand had 4 of the 6 only surfboards he had ever made with him. All CNC routed from one piece of wood and an inlay of .6mm x 3 ply Bamboo for the deck and bottom skins.Amazing technology at work and a very impressive result. He was quite a contrast to the to other two speakers who had a combined hand shaping experience of about 80 years.
We had a good roll up of about 100 very interested people tonight.
Mitchell Rae and his chambered Balsa guns. A very experienced wooden board builder with a great deal of knowledge to share. A talented artist and shaper with a wealth of experience and stories to share. From the jungles of West Java hand shaping balsa boards and surfing uncharted reefs to high end boards for the who's who of Australian surfing.
Mike , Mitchell ,Paul and myself at the end of the night.
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