New 5' 9" Jelly Bean from Grown

 Starting with CNC cut paulownia frame

 It is all paulownia with cedar feature strips. The cedar came out of some old skirting boards that a mate of Andrew's rescued from a rubbish bin from a house renovation down on the northern beaches of Sydney.

Andrew Wells at Grown Surfboards

Japanese belly board surfing history

Little has been known of the history of surfing in Japan until now when good friend Nobihito Ohkawa started collecting pictures and information from many sources to compile their history.

The oldest written document is a diary of one haiku poet who lived in Sakata. He visited Yunohama beach, north eastern Japan in 1821 and saw children riding on the waves with 'Itago' The Itago is a wooden plank from a fishing boat. But it was not as popular as in Hawaii where kings enjoyed surfing. That’s because the sea was the place fisherman worked and was not considered a place for amusement.
In the 1880's, bathing beaches were opened for medical purposes. However this changed as public beaches soon came to be used for pleasure. Then, common people came to beaches for leisure. From this period, the 'Itako' wave riding tool began to be widely made.

For more information and some great pictures of early surfing visit Nobby's site.

Fish scales wooden rails

 Mike Grobelny from New Zealand has built this 4ft 10” x 22” x 2 3/4” foam core simmons as a summer project. I hope he gets to bring it to this years wooden board day on the first weekend of August.

 Bamboo top and bottom , Paulownia rails, Cedar and Rimu tail detail finished with varnish only.

       Port hole to check out inside as you surf.

Biofoam core routed out to lessen the weight.

The French twist

french wooden and alaia surfboards.

 5'11 Single chambered paulownia wood paint by Nils Inne.

 These guys do nice work, check them out...

http://hiddenwoodalaia.blogspot.fr/

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.