Tail blocks and finless fun

 Roger Hall in New Zealand is experimenting further with his finless Hot Curl boards. Like he does he puts everything into it. So not just foam and glass. No not Roger he has hundred of pieces of timber as the stringer as he glues up the blank as above.

 All carefully glued up to be sliced with perfection and added to the stringer line for looks and weight I would suspect.

Stringer done, but not Roger.

 The tail block to add weight where you need it to hold the finless tail into the wave.

He is a master craftsman for sure.

This is the 7ft prototype 

Taking the finless drop

Fully tested and a happy man, thinking of the next step.

Nothing wrong with this one

Timber from a time when men were men and trees were bloody big.

Japanese inspired Shoji board

 This very intricate work is by Huck from California who was inspired by Japanese art.

 

"The construction is inspired by Japanese shoji screens, and the art is inspired by Japanese kites.  Made with a grid framework and covered in polyester heat-shrink "Polyspan" tissue. "

" The art was added using colorfast tissue paper and water based polyurethane floor varnish, then glassed with 2+6 top and bottom, epoxy resin sanded finish. "

" This one is a 7'3" egg shape, as a tribute to the art and craftsmanship of Japan. I haven't decided if    this belongs in an art gallery or in the surf, so I haven't ridden it yet."

Wood fish from Shizuoka Japan

 Hi

I'm Kaz from New Zealand born in Shizuoka Japan, loving to surf for long time. Me and my surf mate found this event recently and really keen to join this event next year!
We start handcraft wood surfboard production and we joined "FISH FRY JAPAN 2012" at Shizunami. We would like to see whats crazy surfboard design happening in Australia and my mates are so keen to surf in Australia and New Zealand.
We launch facebook page as well, please check it out "Jun Surfboard Design"

cheers

Kaz

Tony's progress on his latest board

Tony Crimmins just got back from spending the weekend in Michael's shed at Corndale preparing the skins and rails for his latest project.
" Never happy with 'good enough' a little rejig of our usual glue up resulted in quarter sawn grain on the panels for the top and bottom.  The end result looks not dissimilar to the sound board on an acoustic guitar with tight even grain running from nose to tail.  Should look even better once Peter has finished glassing it."

 "Looking forward to displaying the finished board at the wooden board day at Currumbin in August.  See you there."

Tony
www.tonycrimminstimbersurfboards.blogspot.com

The rustic Simmons

 Hello,
" My name is Scotty Cameron I live in Puerto Rico stationed here as an active Duty coast guardsmen. I was inspired by your blog to build. I'm totally a long boarder and love the mini Simmons concept."

" My dimensions are 5'5 x 22 '6 x 3 nice round noise mid pinched rails to a x 70/30 single concave slight bat trail."

"And of course no leash.also I salvaged all the wood from some pallets and what I found in the dumpster at a construction yard. Adios!"

I love the Rustic look and rawness of this board and at the end of the day if Scotty is having fun on it that is all that matters. I hope what he has done will inspire others to have a go with what they can lay their hands on to get started with building a board. You don't need to have exotic timbers to build a board and whatever you do you will learn from the experience.

Bellyboard art in Manly

Board Art Benefit

The aim of the Board Art Benefit is to provide a great venue for the participating artists to showcase their work, to provide the public with a great chance to see collections of amazing hand-crafted board art in one place, and to support SurfAid International.
All of the boards are available to purchase at the prices shown, giving serious collectors all over the world the chance to own one of these boards, before the rarest and finest boards in the collection are selected for a Board Art Benefit Auction event to be held in the summer of 2012.
The first showing of finished boards was held at the Aaron Chang Ocean Art Gallery on Cedros Avenue in Solana Beach on January 21st.  The showing was a huge success and within days following the event six of the fifteen boards on display had sold at pre-auction prices to collectors all over the US.

 What began as an invitation extended to artist Sarah Utter to participate in the Board Art Benefit quickly gathered steam as hollow-board building pioneer Paul Jensen got involved and soon a mutual friend of both, tile artist Mike Cummins joined in the fun on another Paul Jensen board made for the occasion.  The three of them will be driving down from Washington for the show in San Francisco on June 9.  We love the teamwork in their approach as it exemplifies the community building ethos of the Board Art Benefit project.

 Further illustrating their team effort are these photos that Sarah Utter just shared with us, showing the two artists, Sarah and Mike (in blue hoodies) along with Paul, busy glassing the board that Sarah painted.  Total involvement.

 Check out the other board builders and artist teams : http://boardartbenefit.com/

Board Art Benefit – San Francisco

Where:
Driftwood Salon art gallery
39 Isis St.
San Francisco, CA 94103
(near 12th and Folsom Streets.)
click here for map
When:
One Night Only!
Saturday June 9, 2012
6-10 pm

The man to see

Nathan on the left picking up some nice new dressed paulownia for a new project from Geoff Moase

If you live on the Eastern seaboard of Australia and are after machine / dressed Paulownia in panels or strips for rails then Geoff Moase is the man to see. He can do them plain or with Cedar pinlines. Alaia blanks , Paipo blanks or pretty much any sort of Paulownia you may need to build a board. And better still he builds a great board himself. So he understands what you are doing and might need to get the job done.
Give him a call  -  0411 676 854   or check him out : www.paulowniatimbersales.com.au

More skate deck recycling inspiration

From skateboard to surfboard

As a follow up to a post of a week or so ago here is the finished board made from recycled skateboards.

12.5.2012 | First ride
I took out the board today. I never rode a hollow wood surfboard before. The waves were 
pretty small. I introduced the board to the water, and the first thing i noticed, is that it is 
really stable  in the water, and it floats perfect! Then i jumped on it, and started to paddle, it 
held me perfect on the water surface, and it was unbelieveble easy to paddle, and light in 
the water. I was stoked. I paddled out with a smile on my face, i sat down and waited for
 some set waves (they are bigger), and later when i noticed some changes on the horizon, it
 was time to paddle. I actually caught the first wave i paddled on and stood up. It was a
 right hand wave, and that was perfect since it's what i prefer cause then i can follow the 
waves better with my eyes, i can see the wave and the board all lined up. It was a great 
feeling, all this work paid off, it worked, and way above my expectations, im so happy!
Now im waiting for bigger cleaner waves so i can take it out again, cause im really gonna 
surf this thing, its not gonna be a wallhanger, no way! I made it so i could use it!



http://www.boboholm.com/

Costa Norte Surfboards - The Dominican Republic

 Chris Cook is from the North Coast of the Dominican Republic and has started building wooden boards there. He starts with a solid wooden rail construction as above and then adds his frames, below to give the final deck and bottom contours.

 Not an easy process shaping solid rails and foiling them prior to the deck and bottom skins going on.

 Complete frame showing rocker , outline and foiling

 Bottom skin ready to go on

 Working out fin placement prior to positioning blocks inside the board for fin plugs

All starting to come together. I fyou would like to check out what else Chris has been up to :
www.costanortesurfboards.com.

New board on the go.

 Tony Crimmins in Brisbane has another board on the go. He has tweeked his frame design and says it goes together well. All Paulownia frame that splices together and then needs very little to be almost self supporting. Check out what else he has been up to : www.tonycrimminstimbersurfboards.blogspot.com

Yellowfoot surfboards from the Black Forest , Germany

 The fine art of starting a rail band on a Balsa blank

 The guys at Yellow Foot organise these wooden board building classes where they work in Balsa and also build Paulownia Alaias

They are planning another building class in September / October 2012. 10 nights - 11 days . It looks like they are held at Les Aulnettes, Jard-sur-Mer, France

So if you are keen to find out more contact them :  http://www.yellowfoot.de/

 A happy group of guys who have some great looking boards from their efforts.

 Always good to get a surf in before or after class with your new found mates

 Yellowfoot build custom boards from Balsa and a have a team of riders who surf and travel the world giving them feedback. They will custom build any sort of board for you from Balsa .

http://www.yellowfoot.de/

This is their construction method of building the blank prior to laminating the rails.

Handplane Hoedown