Paul has a new quiver

Paul Van nimwegen has a just collected a couple of handcrafted boards.

A rounded square tail small wave board and a larger rounded pintail gun for those bigger days.

Paul is off to Indo shortly, lucky bugger.

Gold Coast Surfing Museum Opening

Headed down to Currumbin last Sat June 27th for the opening of the Southern Gold Coast surfing museum.

Ran into some identities, Carl Tanner, who has one of the largest surfboard collections in the world, and is a major contributor to the project

Joe Larkin, who started shaping in 1948 and has been a part of the surfboard industry for the last 60 years.

Richard Hadley, who is over from Western Australia to gather ideas and inspiration for establishing his own museum down Yallingup way.

They stand infront of part of the extensive exhibition of surfing poster memorabilia which forms only a section of the museums collection.

Latest creation "The Handsurfer"

Winter is a great time for me to get through some of the projects that roll around in my head for months.

The "Handsurfer" has a single concave bottom with bevelled edges and small flyers.

Lots of buoyancy and an easy adjustable padded hand strap for comfort and control.

I think this would be a great one to get moulded for production in high density wood grain foam.

I'll keep you posted on the further developments.

Marc's cruising

Marc Avery surfing with five on the nose.

His daughter snapped this great shot from a waterproof Olympus camera in the shorebreak on a small day at the beach front.

Alaia Surfboard

The dark stained Alaia surfboard is 7' x 18" x 3/4" swallow tail, and the light one is a 7'4"and is oiled.

Shaped from locally grown Paulownia with a concave bottom.

A Couple of Fish

A picture says a thousand words so here it is, the picture I mean.

5'9" x 20" quad (brown/ green rails)

5'10" x 20 1/2" quad (blue malt rails)

Both are stringerless with hollow glass parabolic hardbond rails, and check the new grey blended logos.

Pretty happy with both these two puppies and they are available only at the gallery.

Double click on the image to larger version.

Mark Avery's new Traditional Longboard

I have been doing other things than fiddling with timber projects.

This is a traditional soft roll bottom, similar to what I had shaped for Ray Gleave (name dropping) many years ago.

9'6" x 23" x 3" and a flow through nose concave, plus a candy apple red tint glass job with metallic gold.

A laminated multi coloured timber tail block which comes standard on all longboards.

Click on any of the pics to get a larger version.

A couple of new parabolic hollow glass hardbond rail stringerless quad fish (that's a mouth full) will be finished by the end of the week, plus more.

See I have been busy.

1970's Single Fin Channel Bottom Half Surfboard Model

Been having a timber moment (lasted a few weeks) so I finished this half model that has been sitting in the gallery for a while.

This half model is made out of pine with cedar stringers and has a lower rocker with foiled thickness common in the mid seventies boards.

3 Channels (6 over a full board) and a wide base single fin (Brewer style template).

This model is about 16" long.

Will be on show at the Wooden Surfboard Day at Currumbin coming up soon.

The Alaia Sandal

The Hawaiian Alaia Surfboard along with the Japanese Geta Sandal combine to inspire this creation of The Alaia Sandal. 

Made from laminated cedar and pine along with jute rope straps.

Designed and handcrafted by Richard Harvey.

See them along with other timber boards and surfing related timber paraphernalia at the Wooden Surfboards Day Sunday 9th August.

North Shore Cutback - Floral Series

Hawaiian shirt fabrics and Kelly's stylish cutback inspired the latest piece of work in the Floral Series.

This "North Shore Cutback" in classic Hawaiian shirt florals joins several other already completed Batik florals pieces.

They are only the beginning of a number of floral fabric artworks, with lots of ideas in Hawaiian, Polynesian and Batik fabrics still in the sketch book.

I am planning to complete more pieces in this style to be shown at an upcoming exhibition, date yet to be confirmed. 

Will post exhibition details on the blog and send invites out when finalized.

1930's Replica Timber Surfboard

Started with some sketches done on my computer to give me an idea of the construction and steps.

Cut the side panels of the frame with a slight amount of bottom rocker in the nose and tail and cut the cross pieces to fit.

Glued the lightweight frame together then glued 3mm ply to the bottom and deck.

Trimmed the overhanging ply along the rails then glued the cedar strips onto the outside.

The cedar was trimmed then the balsa strips that I had left over from a previous board were glued onto the rails. 

I will be rough shaping the rails today and then once I have found the timber for the nose and tail blocks they will be glued on and the board will be finish shaped.

The measurements of the board are 9'0" x 22" x 2 1/4"

The weight made the board sit deeper in the water and the squarer rails stopped it from sliding sideways. There are many comments about sliding ass, referring to the sideways movement of this type of boards while riding a wave.

Not sure whether to add a fin as this style of board didn't have one.

I have braced the inside of the bottom incase I decide to add a fin later. 

More posts as progress continues.