Nicks' single/skateboard gets channels

This point way off to the right of the picture is usually worth the hike

Surf today was shoulder high (plus) lumpy perfection

none of my cellphone pics did the waves justice, so I'm posting this Lincoln log hut instead...it was pretty damn cool

Das camper

Summer

Today points

An off the radar swell got busy today... This spot wasn't working
well, but it made a nice photo

gremmie and the GUM DROP

the GUM DROP

... Well the shirt pocket rocket is all sealed and gripped with a
clear grip in checkerboard fashion...if you go through older posts u
can watch a few of the construction steps from cutting veneers to
pressing it in a one of a kind December mold... The local gremmies
have taken it over, it fits them well, it's at about 24"
long .....next one will be closer to 32" it has a ptex base so, I
guess it could be ridden on snow if under 70 lbs... Fun stuff.. Might
post some video soon... Email me if u want one decembersnowskates@ gmail.com

Thanks

6 maple ply laminated to a sintered base, kick, and wheel wells

Early bird gets the 3' @ blah seconds

Nick's new deck (in the raw)

Shooting cones

Checks

Shirt pocket rocket -test run

......real fast, compact tight turns,

very stable and extremely light... It's up for demo if interested

decembersnowskates@gmail.com

Shirt Pocket Rocket

Wheel wells and a stinger tail with kick..next step to skin the bottom
with some ptex..... Get the cones ready !
24" x 8.5"

Diving for stripers

Hand split Cedar Singled Stand up Paddle Cabana (must be nice)

he has no problem wasting away in margaritaville, but he'll be damn if his SUP's get yellowed during that process....the dude has a ridiculous quiver of stuff strewn out by his dock...

Hand cut wheel wells

Score: old lady 1 me 0

i surfed just plain old good beachbreak tonight, (top notch stuff)

earlier today my old lady was on the road and sent me this below average pic of a very nice pointbreak...funny when non-surfers take the "shot", they don't wait for sets, or pitching lips, or big long swell lines to march in, they just point their cameras out to sea and click, usually during a lull, its almost useless looking at their pictures to gauge a run to the beach. This pic revealed one little nugget, a tiny amount of white water in the right spot...I knew it was gonna be fun tonight...i got lucky
photo: her blackberry

Lots more to go (just roughed out)

Pocket rocket blank as per earlier post

this is what I'm talking about

couple years ago I picked up some gear from Mollusk Surf Shop. Mike from Mollusk threw in a video called Taming Alaska....
being an avid cold water surfer,this video was a real eye opener... potential galore...found the entire video on vimeo the other day, check out some of it...just replace the word snowboard with snowskate...the snow is incredible, and the waves scream potential....it planted the seed of a cold water snowskate film called Powder and Pointbreaks...I already have a few crazy pointbreaks scouted out...fun stuff

Taming Alaska from Paul Mcguire on Vimeo.

avalanche damage

A picture of a picture

...snooping around my brothers' garage this weekend, I found this
picture of a big day out here a couple of winters ago, pinned up on his wall...lots of neoprene, and lots of guts...orginal Photo by: Nelson



there has been a ton of excellent surf moves over the past thirty years, I think I get the artsy ones, big fan of offbeat ones,
love the unique, and obscure ones, but my all time favorite surf movie is one california day...

A Quick Story about moisture Content

have you ever wondered why skateboards in the large sporting goods stores and discount toy stores are so horrible? why they have such a dead feeling? Why within a few 100ths of a second after picking one up you know instantly it wasn't made in the US?...its such a bummer because the price is so right on those cheap ass decks....the problem isn't that lack of good wood or poor molds to do the pressing...

During the start of the tony hawk era, the wood coming out of china was from local trees, that didn't produce solid decks, and the skaters passed on them quickly...However the big corpos saw a profit and continued to produce decks....Their next big idea was to pack and ship real maple veneers from northern America. They stuffed all the wood they could into those massive metal shipping containers. The plan was to take the quality wood and just glue and press them in the China. However, it wasn't that simple, the moisture content of the wood changed during the long shipping process. The maple would dry out past its optimum moisture content, giving the wood a dead feeling, which translated to a soggy deck, with no live pop! I studied moisture content in a strength of materials class back in college, and my professor spent time talking about moisture content of wood, and how it related to the wood strength, he even mentioned that a residential house needs moisture, and ironically too much moisture could ruin it too, and that it was a very fine balance, practically magical...very interesting stuff....now think about this, the greedy corporations, aren't giving up, their latest idea is to ship the entire logged maple tree, bark and all, they believe if the bark stays on, the wood will retain its moisture. Then a local chinese plant would mill it into veneers...my personal assessment is, if they are willing to go through all that effort just to make skateboard decks, and still make a fat profit, the only place left to cut corners is in worker's wages...they must pay those sweatshop labors nothing, i mean really nothing .....pennies at best..to make it cost effective...which is very sad....

on a happy note, at december we touch every veneer by hand, the quality control is automatic, because there are no glue machines, sorters and stackers, I would have to close my eyes to miss something, every piece of maple, is sanded, checked for imperfections, sorted by faces, cleaned, glued, and pressed by hand, then followed by shaping, sanding, sealing,and screened by hand...even my resin is sorted out by hand, by a major snowboard manufacturer, and mailed to me in blank shampoo bottles with hand written mixing ratios on them, and thats the only instructions on the bottle(written in black sharpie) and I love it!!!! our skate projects are very hands on with the absolute highest quality materials, my epoxy has been proven for years, before i ever mixed it...and my classic rock maple comes to me due south a few hours, it's the prettiest stuff I have ever worked with, and if you have a deck from us back two years ago, those veneers in your board use to lye under my bed where the temp and moisture was the most stable place I could find.....I baby the materials so you can beat the hell out of them....email me at decembersnowskates@gmail.com if your looking for a custom skate deck this summer, we can do something one of a kind, or if your interested in discussing a deck for the upcoming snowskate season..

thanks
kevo