alaia demo

jon is in the blue hat kneeling that rectangle is a 6'8" blank ...if you look real close you can see two handplanes, and a bellyboard...the bellyboard is so cool, very native..really feels ancient

...just recently I was lucky enough to meet a design hero Jon Wegener, maker of the finless ancient wooden plank ...the ALAIA. He was allowing surfers to demo his watercrafts, which were lined-up at the beach ... swell was a bit angry for an alaia but it was a fun morning and it was interesting to talk to Jon... his boards are beautiful...

one last note;

the wood they use is paulowonia (due to my career path I have many textbooks on wood, right at my fingertips and I can't find the correct spelling for that type of wood...its rather rare for north america ) which is an Australian wood that is dense and light and doesn't absorb water, ... amazing...., but the really miraculous part is that its so buoyant, it made my cedar board seem like a waterlogged piece of driftwood. And the great news is that Jon will sell blanks of this wood... at a significant cheaper price then a shaped one.. interesting... so if you have interest skip cedar and go with paulowonia... also I am going to try and get veneers of this stuff and experiment using it for snowskates....very exciting...thank you Jon

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GLASSING yesterday

finally, recieved some fiberglass cloth to begin glassing a foam bodyboard I shaped for my friend's shop... Usually glassing and me dont get along but I'm having alot of fun glassing this one ...more pics to follow...its about 4' 5" long by 21 plus..(with a cream resin tint).... could be fun...

hope everyone is experience nice weather and even better riding conditions... can't complain here lately...

boogieboard nose, and rails thru front third of the board..

...boogie rails up front look funny,

fingers are crossed that it'll work..

if this board works, I would like to make a foam and wood laminated skimboard next....

6:29 pm 8-28-09

recieved this email from my brother at 6:29 pm tonight....Steve Pendarvis of Pendoflex surfboards made Surfers Journal...

So awesome...Congrats Steve...thats great stuff can't wait to read the article...

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6:29 am 8-28-09

received this email picture at 6:29 am from Jason, quite possible the nicest cellphone picture I've ever seen...he said the wave surfed better then it looked ("not a drop out of place") ...he rode a twin keel fish ...nice way to start the day, he ended the day riding a alaia bellyboard in close-out beachbreak, he seemed just as content....lot to be said for proper equipment for the conditions... something to think about when snowskating...

Really is worth a 1k words

Our local elevated surfline cam points straight out to sea.. It's not aimed at a surf spot or even a place that breaks, it usually a low Res shot of crap beachbreak, very misleading ( which could be a good thing) it's the only surf cam that has a poker face, nothing is revealed by checking it.. Yet we all check it daily. I check it on my cellphone so it just a still image grab every 12 minutes or so, not streaming video.....

This photo is a testament to how good the swell was this weekend, that crap lo-res cam randomly snap a picture worthy of one of those old rip curl "the search" ad's.. Pretty incredible, sidenote: that wAve is way outside and big ..

getto camper

Wasn't a tough chase looking for swell this weekend... It was big and it found us

3.2 oz. rhinochaser

For the weight conscious thru-hiker/surfer...A cedar handplane ... custom molded for a right hander.. Finishing up the matching cedar swim fins... More to come on this..

Just click it to your backpack and you will always have a quiver with you ...

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snowskate news:

working on a much lighter version of our single deck... it will be ready for the market in late October/November after some test piloting...

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The Horror

...soon after breaking this board, it became apparent how fun it is to ride ..

Inspiring stuff

...check out Wolle riding strapless on his powderskate...very clean boards and style...do to his efforts Wolle has brought bindingless snowskating to a different level.. congrats Wolle and good luck with your boards...

http://www.aesthetiker.com/web09/flvplayer/flashvideoplayer.php?video=shows/56.flv&skin=skin-videoflash.swf&skincolor=0x000000&preview=/web09/flvplayer/previews/56.jpg&autoscale=true

FINLESS, leashless, and bindingless, SEAN K. Getting it done

FINLESS, leashless, and bindingless, SEAN K. Getting it done
..recieved an email from Sean the other day... He was up in Maine for a skimboarding contest, and took first place... That's awesome, ...the email wasn't really about his results it was really about his desire to snowskate this season, he can't wait... Modest kid, and dedicated snowskater ... Very rad..

FLEX

Design and flex
My understanding is that flex keeps more of the board ( weather it's a ski, snowboard, sub deck or surfboard) on the riding surface, which translates to more speed... Very common in snow related, equipement..not so noticable or common in surfboard design.... A few very talented shapers have been designing boards with flex as a major component...for an experts explanation on this subject check out pendo.com..... Steve and cher pendarvis have created a beautiful new site.. Choke full of design talk, pictures, art, stories, and a blog ...do yourself a favor and check out their site, better yet demo a pendoflex surfboard, and smile as you flex through the tube...
pendo.com

high gloss/ flat chocolate

..some holes and a couple of clear coats to go

...custom paint job available

Stuff being worked on lately

... More to come on the deck in my left hand... The right hand is a 42"x 9.5" top deck I've been working on.. Graphics going on next

.. If you click on this picture it will enlarge.. look real close at the photo (taken by my brother) pinned up above the cans, there's a man kneeling down praying while holding swim fins at waimea shorebreak(oahu) I can't remember exactly if this was the day, but it was the same swell Donnie Solomon tragically died duckdiving a twenty footer ... Very sad, very heavy photo

.... My good friend who owns a surf shop locally, asked me to make some casper's for his shop.. Haha, not my bag, but the conversation lingered for a few weeks and morphed to foam and glass bodyboards.. So here's my take, went with boogie board rails in front third and surfboard rails through the tail..this will be buried somewhere in his shop... More to come...Keeping fairly busy.. Some quick alaia news: thin and skinny works too, real clean conditions helps....

...preorder snowskate sizes available

male, female, and product

..the heart in sole of December

swell fun

casper

Steve's cigar box (make me one stevo)

..."good evening" "blah" (dracula voice)

check the carpeted wax box..what a kook..

Steve's new paipo

...got the call friday that my older brother was coming out to surf on sat., we live in two seperate states so our sessions are less frequent...he mentioned that he liked the staten island paipo, so I decided to reshape it and give it to him... So friday I spent a few hours shaping, even glued on tiny skegs from the leftover scraps....it was alot of fun

....he too surfs a casper...he even built a protective "coffin" or "cigarbox" to house it... which is hilarious and functional (check out pics)...we had three great surf sessions today...

super big thank you to:

Kirk at "a day at the beach" blog and 'Foam and Function.com' who gave me the greatest post on his blog....your support has been greatly appreciated...

and

Stevie lakeside and his bro for sending in those photos of the latest december deck in action...

...so if your interested in skateboarding on a saltwater halfpipe using mind-control to steer with a half a century of lineage you gotta see KIRK and ride a CASPER ... he also carries among other board's Mick Mackie Surfboards, Mick shapes surfboards with gorgeous lines. He even adds sidecuts on certain models inspired by the 70's winterstick, and his own personal love and experience riding snow, a true craftsman...his surfboard site has some all-time stunning snowboard pictures...very classic...my guess he is due to try a snowskate...whoever is down under with a bi-deck hook him up for a demo..

oh yeah, Kirk also carries freakin wayne lynch surfboards..(snowskaters think slater or curren in Australia) ....man I would love to check out his personal quiver...

thanks again

kevin