DECEMBER IS COMING

december is bringing some good news: waves cleaned up nicely today, swell for this weekend, a local resort is opening up on the 5th...snow tuesday and friday at the local mountains,...found a couple of more of those awful trucker hats...and sanded out nick's board, passed on using the router, and justed sanded the rails by hand, round on the bottom half and vertical on the top (I'll explain more later)...going to get my real camera back this week, hoping to post quality pictures "daily" (every day) this month....after the skate session yesterday, I'm amped up for this new season...went thru my first couple of hats quickly last time, email me at decembersnowskates@gmail.com for any info or orders on decks and or hats....
boardbags/socks coming soon....

...sanded the you know what out of this board, it feels so smooth..

...i have an old mid-eighties time-trail bicycle (triathlon style) I bought off of ebay a few years back for entering small local triathlons...the bike was made by a Italian bike designer in Italy called Sannino....Mr. Sannino is such a craftsman/artist that he would place all the steel tubing on pillows for a day or two after cutting it to size and before welding it into a frame...

...the reasoning, He believed that cutting the tubing (however non-violent approach he used)messed up the molecular structure of the metal, and that placing it on a pillow allowed the metal time to "recoup" prior to welding...sounds eccentric and extremely hard to believe, even if it made zero sense I still love the idea, and the labor of love behind his work.,.. however after working for years with different materials, and taking classes in building construction -'strength of materials', mechanical drawing, autoCAD, and every other class to finish my certification in industrial arts, followed by a masters in educational technologies, I can tell you one thing, he's right,......more is more...more love equals more love, or a better product

...but the real proof happen many years ago hand nailing a hardwood floor in a huge mansion, the wood was so dense it would wear out our pilot hole drill bits like crazy.. but the amazing part was setting the nails with our nail sets...each carpenter on the job had a magnetized nail set by lunch time...due to all the pounding and vibration the electron particles in the nail set completely aligned themselves, causing it to become a magnet..(much like all the nails and screwdrivers in your junk drawer that gets opened and slammed over the years)....hated that job...but it proved Sannino right...the vibration from the saw could rearrange the particles in the metal, which would not make for the best product..

more to this story.....I was extremely lucky to have worked with two older trim carpenters that just started a business together (after years of field work) many moons ago... They were out to prove themselves to the local industry that they were the best. They would give me pep talks before the day would start, (like two coaches) and would tell me to stop working when another carpenter from a different crew would walk into the room , so he wouldn't pick up on one of their "special technique's" (i swear that was true) they had egos, they were paranoid, and they were seriously talented...and luckily I was along for the ride...I learned tons of stuff from them ....that all being said...Sannino's work ethic inspires me the most when I make a board...He has set the standard on how a handmade product should be built, and every board I make I seem to ask myself if Sannino would approve, its a nice little benchmark....

sidenote: last I read Mauro Sannino is still making carbon fiber bikes for Corratec....

oh and he didn't like chrome, he felt it robbed the elasticity from the tubing..the dude liked flex..