Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Wooden Surfboard night at the Gold Coast Surf Museum the night before the Wooden Board Day


Surf World Gold Coast

Wooden Surfboard Night

Saturday 7th August 6.30pm for a 7pm start

$15 per head includes a sausage sizzle and drink

A great opportunity to mix and meet with other people interested in wooden boards and hear from some very talented individuals who build them.

Wooden boards come in many shapes and styles of construction. Tom Wegener, Roger Hall and Mike Connor will give a brief overview of their various methods of board construction and experiences. This will be followed by an open question and answer forum with the guys. A sample of what will be on display at the Wooden Board Day in the park at Currumbin Alley the next day.


Tom Wegener

An expatriate Californian lawyer turned surfboard shaper transplanted into the hills behind Noosa at Cooroy. He has spent the last 10 plus years building wooden boards and researching and finessing his love affair with the ancient Hawaiian Alaia

finless boards.” I hope the eyes of other shapers will be opened to the possibilities of applying the oldest methods in the world to today's cutting edge technologies.

"Historically in surfing, people have looked for lighter, faster technologies, thinking the holy grail is somewhere in carbon fibre and lighter, stronger materials.

"But my approach is to look as far back as we possibly can at the few surviving boards from the ancient Hawaiians and study what Captain Cook and his crew watched when they saw surfing for the first time, and draw inspiration from that."

Last year Surfing Magazine voted Tom “Shaper of the Year”. A great honour and recognition of his exploration into the heritage and roots of surfing that has inspired a new wave of innovation into this sport. " Wood is Good".

Roger Hall

A Kiwi with over 30 years of shaping boards in every shape and style, who has a well know reputation for innovation and quality. Roger has incorporated wood in to the handmade boards he builds for many years. Whether it is multiple stringers, nose and tail blocks, or beautiful inlays, Roger is a master of it all. He has always had a healthy supply of various timbers on hand and loves to combine them wherever possible.

A recent quote from Slide magazine sums up Roger very well. "Roger's enthusiasm and passion for finely crafting something more akin to a work of art is strongly evident. It would be a safe bet to say the prospect of bettering his craft is admirably motivating him much more so than the almighty dollar."

Mike Connor

A passionate woodworker who hails from Corndale, located west of Byron Bay. Mike’s interest in working with wood began some 25 years ago when he began experimenting and building various items as a hobby. He is largely self-taught although the opportunity to attend classes with local world-renowned cabinetmaker, Geoff Hannah, added inspiration and refinement to his creations. His love of wood has resulted in him exploring and collecting local and exotic timbers to the point of filling a large shed.

For the past 10 years Mike has pursued a full time career as a craftsman making various customised pieces ranging from furniture to woodwork benches, wooden tools and workshop jigs to make outcomes more accurate. Some teaching has followed and his desire is to share knowledge rather than keep it secret.

Today he specialises in crafting ukuleles and guitars as well as surfboards. This interest in surfboards has seen Mike link up with Bob McTavish to help recreate some of Bob’s well-known designs in wood.

To book a spot or buy some tickets for the night please contact the Surf Museum :

Tomewin Street , Currumbin , Opposite the entrance to the wild life santuary
PH: 07- 5525 6380
Surf World Gold Coast is a not-for-profit museum dedicated to celebrating the history and culture of surfing.

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Tony's board finished and road tested.





Ride report - " Surfed for about 2 hours off the shops at Lennox in 1 - 2ft clean beachbreaks. didn't leak (very important), paddles pretty well, good volume, caught heaps of waves, took a while to get used the nose riding rocker, not as loose as I expected after riding the pintail yesterday however moving the fin up may fix that, trims nice and gets good momentum. Suspect that it will be at home in small point waves, would like it to be a bit more agile so will keep playing with fins until I get it feeling like I can change direction when I want. 10" greenough fin looks at home"

www.tonycrimminstimbersurfboards.blogspot.com

Getting the two boards ready to final shape

That looks better, just need to blend it all together in the final shaping.

Fine tuning the curves

Looks a bit better when you see all those laminates show up.

Clean her all up and knock a bit of wood off with the plane.

Gluing all the bits together

Planning the angles and mapping out the cut.

Cedar and Paulownia tail block

10 footer all ready for sorting the rails.

Saturday, June 26, 2010

Dave's first board


Dave's first board is 6'4" x 21" x 2 5/8" with EPS core, Paulownia rails and bottom with Tasmanian Blackwood veneer deck.


Single concave to double concave V bottom with glass on Paulownia fins.


A very nice first effort. Dave will be bringing this up with him from Victoria for the Wooden Board Day so you will be able to check it out.

http://davedsurfs.blogspot.com

Friday, June 25, 2010

Troy builds another SUP

Getting near the end of a big building project is always exciting

Nose block ready to knock into shape.

Tail block and rails ready for finishing.

10ft 8" Paulownia and Redwood SUP with bamboo paddle.

Now the fun part . Troy builds a number of craft a year and you can check him out at :
www.talkingfishsurfboards.com

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Slowly getting there.


Tail block going on Cedar , Paulownia and Cedar again.

Build out the nose as I can't bend the 6mm rail band build outs right around the nose.

The Fish is all but there as well. The Butt Crack needs work.

Nose blocks on and shaped.

Looking good and ready. I have trimmed the rail bands and faired them to the flow of the deck roll and bottom shape ready to start shaping the rails.

Looks good all trimmed and rough shaped.

Awaiting the next step , but close now.

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Two boards at once means busy mornings and nights.

Yes it has been busy laminating railbands on the fish and the log each morning and then again at night.

6mm Paulownia cut to the rocker of the board and lots of tape to pull it into line.

It looks a bit of a mess with all the extra glue, but she will be right.

The fish nearly done...


The 10 footer was a bit easier as I could glue a strip on each side at once as they don't meet.
Last set on .
Now into it with the hand plane to knock off the extra timber.
The cheap electric is all you need to buzz this lot off.

Coming together and starting to clean up. All good.

Trimmed the extra length off ready for a tail block. At this stage you get a good feel for the final look of things. Still plenty to do but this is the exciting part.
More soon.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Nathan Grey builds a nice board.

Just got these great shots of Nathans latest project. A twin keel fish for Jasper in Victoria. All Paulownia and Western Red Cedar , 5ft 10" x 20" 7/8 x 2" 3/4 , flat bottom to a deep single concave out through the fins.

He has another little hybrid on the go as well. " A 5ft 6" Bob Simmons crossed with a Daniel Thomson jet Tail." He hopes to have that ready for August the 8th. It is great to see such a nice board built in beautiful timbers.

Nathan is down in Sydney , if you want to check him out :
www.nathanielgrey.com.au/boards

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Wooden Board Day in Europe 2010

Great to see the boys in Europe are getting organised and having their own wooden board builders get together in Holland. I wish them all the best and look forward to reports.

Friday, June 11, 2010

Plenty of surfboards in this stick

Paulownia is a fast growing tree that is idea for surfboards.It's light , strong and waterproof in salt water. Ideal for surfboards.

Nice little lump there to start with.

This is the setup of a portable saw mill.

You just set up over the log and whittle away at the log in slices.

The centre of a Paulownia tree is interesting as it has a hollow core just like a piece of bamboo. It even has segments even though they have no effect in the grain pattern of the timber.



Not a bad outcome.