Tom Scott agave surfboards

Agave Surfboards // English Subtitles from Capim Filmes on Vimeo.

ARBO Surfboards building classes

 If you are interested in owning a handcrafted wooden surfboard but don't want to build it yourself you can get a custom built by Paul. He will build only one ordered board per month this year. So you should get in touch to discuss a design.

"The next three day sessions in Germany will be the weekend 28/29/30 June in Cologne and another date in July or August in Berlin."



The deal is as usual:
price for the workshop is £300+ £40/ft board length.
that includes tuition and all the materials to complete the shape of your choice (internal plywood structure, paulownia/cedar deck and bottom skins, bead and cove rail strips, glues,...) and the tools you need to work. if you have tools (hand planes, saws etc.) bring them with you too!

For more info contact Paul - paulitspaul@gmx.net  or check out his great range of boards he designs and builds in his classes arbosurfboards.blogspot.com

Stavros's Simmons

This great looking simmons is designed and built by Stavros Xan. Here is what he had to say ...
 "This is my latest wooden board, I call it mini monster because of the board dimensions and shape,  5'7"x20"x2". For this wooden board I utilized samba wood ( deck, bottom, frame, rails), the weight of the board after shaping is 9 pounds."

Zinny's projects

Good mate Zinny Sinclair in Western Australia has had a few projects on the go and decided to share them with us.

" Have been a keen bodysurfer for many years and always made my own creations for it, now with the renewed interest in it i seem to be banging out a few handplanes for the crew. "

" I have a few projects on the go at this time... 2 x  6'0 single fin tributes to MP (1 hollow/1 foam core), a 5'10 double stinger, And i have pulled the glass off my alltime favourite 6'4 and am turning it into a woody! I couldnt bear to send it to the tip, so am Up-cycling it and immortalising it in timber!"

Making the nose block stick

 Gene Cooper getting the fit just right to make it stick

Nice result the blue tint Agave
cooperfishcalendar.com/blog

The Flounder ride report

James from Kiri Surf Craft in Warrnambool - Victoria has just finished an interesting board he calls the Flounder. He sent some shots and I asked him to send a ride report when could.

"Disclaimer: It had been over a week since my last surf ? so I was stoked just to be in the water. It was a perfect day for alaias ? head high, glassy, hollow and fast peeling waves. I have been dreaming about this board and how it would work for months and I had visualised every line I could ever hope to draw on a wave long before I ever paddled it out.

But seriously it was SUPER fun! I didn?t really have too many opportunities to test it on my backhand (I struggle on my backhand with alaias, in fact I normally choose to ride rights on my knees), but for the couple of rights that I did get, I was happy to be able to take off and hold a line and even pull a little floater.

On my forehand it was crazy good. The Flounder held its line so well, had heaps of speed and glide and doing the LaLa (a kinda vertical climb and slide in the pocket of the wave) was a lot easier to control.

Freshly oiled boards tend to feel fast at first and this was no exception, but this board also felt different, the hold and control through the bottom turn as I set my line was not something I had felt before.

On my third wave despite my best efforts to paddle wide, when I took off I was still about 12 ft behind the peak, but it was a small day with long waits between sets so I thought I?d have a go. I took off fairly early and immediately pulled the Flounder into trim setting a fairly high line angling down just a touch. The lip hadn?t quite folded over as I approached the peak. Just as the Flounder reached the bottom of the wave and I straightened up, the lip folder over my head and for the next few moments I was locked into a perfect little barrel travelling really fast and really smooth across the glassy wave. These moments are rare in my surfing life, and tragically I often slip out at this point on the traditional alaias, but not with the Flounder, this time the Flounder held its line perfectly and even seemed to accelerate as I tried to pull up the wave a little. It was all over in another second or two as the close out section approached I tried to squeeze out at the last minute as the wave crunched shut. I lost it at the last moment getting clipped, but I had all that I needed. This strange looking board worked even better than I had expected.

More photos and vids check out kirisurfcraft.blogspot.com.au

Thanks to all the other wooden board and finless builders who have posted their stuff. Its a real inspiration to see so many other guys doing their own shapes and designs. Keep it up! I'm super keen to make it to the next wooden board day!"

Vince Wooden Surfboards Bali

 

Rick van Halsema from Vince Surfboards in Bali sent me these pics of some of the boards that they build. 

 They plant and grow their own Balsa to create a very sustainable board building process.

As you can see they build a wide range of designs
Vince Surfboards

The pull of vacuum

 It is  quite amazing how much curve you can pull with the vacuum bagging process. This is a 3mm skin of Paulownia on the bottom of a board I worked on over the weekend.

 This is the tail of a 4ft 8" x 17" Slimmons on the way.

4ft 4" x 22" Simmons in the bag. 3 in a day gives me plenty to work on in the coming weeks laminating rails.

Finless fun...

Good Woodz from Bryce Young on Vimeo.

The modern Hot Curl by Roger Hall

Build it from scrap

Experiment No. 3 - Scrap Surf from Shwood Eyewear on Vimeo.

Foam and wood

 New Zealand shaper Roger Hall is a master at whatever he puts his hand to. His current passion is revisiting the Hot Curl model and ramping it up with more than a modern twist.

 These boards are finless and the wood adds the weight to help hold the tail into the power of the wave.

 As you can see it is a pretty solid lump of wood , but not just one piece. Roger loves to laminate and mix up the timbers he uses.

 Not only is it very hard to work with wood and foam together due to the differences in densities but he has so many different timbers that vary as well to make it even harder. And this is all hanging off the end of the foam. A true test of anyones skills. But as you can see not only is it a great design with the flowing lines of the board enhanced by the beautiful timber.

 Hands of the master.

 Form and function

 Who do you know that would cut and glue up 7 stringers and foam like this. I have seen him do 13.

Great shots from Mike C. Lets hope Roger can make it to the Wooden board day this year.