noosa!

... it's on again.. the noosa festival of surfing... such a good time, this little town comes alive with great personalities... your wave count might go down a tad but it's well worth it for the entertainment value

... to get you in the mood, here's a clip from noosa stalwart Tom Wegener with some tips for taking out what may be the first judged event for finless boards this weekend:

good wood

a smooth slide into the week... photos by Kerry Down

Jim Mitchell #017

I had a bit of a crash course at poker work last week - not Texas Hold 'em, but the red hot, wood burning type of poker... my house still smells of Paulownia smoke... smells good.

It was an honour to have such a beautiful canvas to work on, thank you Paul Joske.

roughing it out

primitive but effective torture machine

iconography from the Mitchell
vault of popular culture

Tyler Warren's still to come - then next stop Tokyo - get the Asahi in the fridgeru Masahiro!

photos by Nathan Oldfield - many thanks mate

Steven Harrington #140

.... Alaia #140 was the most technical of the whole project.

We asked National Forest artist Steven Harrington
to come up with a design for this board
- Steven's sketches & concepts below:

we then took Steven's design to Image Plastics
out in the wild west 'burbs of Padstow, where Bert
got it ready to meet their new laser burner

+

=

the new burner can work on art up to 2 metres long
but this was to be its maiden voyage, so I had some
nervous moments as we started her up.....

beautiful!

all photos of the laser process by Elle Green
(who couldn't wait any longer & hopped an early plane to Tokyo in case I asked for more work)

Damien Horan #139

... spent today at Peter Leis Screenprinters in Leichhardt with Damien (doom doom) Horan and shooter Elle Green to watch as his art, Homeward Bound, was screened onto Valla alaia #139:













big thanks to Shivaun Leis @ Pete's Counter Sales for all her help... these guys are beyond professional... except they made us clean the damn screen. Did you check the size of that thing?!

a good day indeed... 2 down, 3 to go

woody goodness

a few weeks back I sent my copy of Cyrus Sutton's dvd about making alaias to Andy Wellman in Bali... figured he was more likely than me to make something that actually floated. And sure enough, check it out folks.... the Wellman Backyard Model Mark 1




yet to be launched, she's a beauty to behold. hopefully Andrew will give us updates on how she goes

sage & surfing world

a great article in the latest issue of Surfing World with interview & photos by Andrew Kidman of Sage Joske. Sage & Andrew discuss the magic of surfing wooden craft with their usual eloquence.

further into the issue is another article by Andrew with Bert Berger also weighing up the wood/flex factor. All makes for a good read.

stylin'

Tom Woods has sent us these shots of Brett Caller making riding a plank of timber look like the easiest thing in the world....

check this out

Cyrus was busy on his recent trip to Aus... go here to see the trailer of the film he shot with the Wegener men.

Match stick

Paulownia is a genus of between 6–17 species (depending on taxonomic authority) of plants in the monogeneric family Paulowniaceae, related to and sometimes included in the Scrophulariaceae. They are native to much of China (its name in Chinese is 泡桐, pinyin: pàotóng), south to northern Laos and Vietnam, and long cultivated elsewhere in eastern Asia, notably in Japan and Korea. They are deciduous trees 40–50 ft tall, with large leaves 15–40 cm across, arranged in opposite pairs on the stem. The flowers are produced in early spring on panicles 10–30 cm long, with a tubular purple corolla resembling a foxglove flower. The fruit is a dry capsule, containing thousands of minute seeds.

I think it makes a nice board.

Been chipping away at this sled the past week, thanks to sean for the guidance, and for letting a madman use his tools and in his shaping bay