Hats for Harbour Surfboards

Finally found some free time to paint more hats. These 3 hats are up for sale at Harbour Surfboards in Seal Beach. Stop by and check them out!

New Source of Inspiration

Need a new way to get inspired? Go buy a GoPro camera and play in the shore break like when you were 7 years old. This is what you might see.

1st Session with the Bamboo Plane

Swell finally materialized for me to try out my new bamboo handplane that was in the previous post. The plane works great. I was very pleased with the adjustable strap, it felt strong and secure. I think the combination of the channels and the pintail definitely made a difference in holding a good line through the steep sections. All in all I am satisfied. Time to make more!

-Body womping close to home

Photos courtesy of my friend Brian Kucera, check out his other great photos at www.briankucera.com

#11, but 1st Bamboo

This is the newest creation in my world of hand planes. This hand plane is made out of bamboo. I wanted to try bamboo b/c I am intrigued by the aesthetics of its interesting grain configuration. I took 12 squares of bamboo plywood (each one roughly 3 1/2"x3 1/2") and glued them together to make my blank. I rotated every other piece so the grains would be facing the opposite direction to make a checker board pattern. After I shaped the hand plane I soaked it in red wine for 24 hours to give it a darker sort of burgundy tint and I was very pleased with the outcome. I used UV curing polyester resin to seal it. Then polished it up, put on an adjustable velcro strap with neoprene on it and thats it. Its ready to go. Its heavier than any other hand plane I have made but I think the weight and the pin tail will only help in more powerful hollow surf. Just waiting for the right day to use it and hopefully I will have a good review and photos to post later.

The way the end grain looks on the rails is my favorite part!

Recent Sketches

Here is a couple sketches out of my sketchbook from this summer.

- the top one is a random guy hanging out at the bay and the bottom is my girlfriend getting one more nap in under the summer sun before fall comes.

This is a mountain goat that was mounted on the wall of a cabin I stayed in at Bass Lake this summer.

Handplane #10, double digits

This is the diamond tail model that I have made a couple times before. I recently got to use this model on a left hand point break in Mexico and it worked great. After telling my boss at Harbour Surfboards in Seal Beach, CA how well it worked in Mex and he wanted to me to make him one for the fun shore break of laguna beach. So here is the one I made for him. This one has a new adjustable strap on it too, so its ready for sharing. The new strap is two pieces of velcro that fasten tightly for a nice fit. There is a piece of neoprene sewed to the bottom of the velcro to keep it nice and comfortable.

R & D in Mex

New adjustable velcro and neoprene strap

Diamond Tail

Crux Surf Order

This hat was recently painted for an online order through cruxsurf.com.

Thanks for the support!