22 . 06 . 14
Last week, thanks to a high pressure that sat right over the top of us bathing Cornwall in sunshine, we were able to slide the big, blue, doors wide open and let our visiting workshoppers build their surfboards in natural light. We had another capacity crowd, with Tracy, Martin and Paul providing great company and conversation whilst building and shaping three wonderful hollow wooden surfboards.
Martin hails from Brighton and built himself a 6’4″ Woodburner with triple teak stringers, the teak coming from a reclaimed hardwood kitchen worktop offcut. He grew up skateboarding and we think that the fast, loose, nature of the Woodburner will suit his skate-influenced style of surfing.
Tracy, a competitive cross-country mountain biker, built herself a 7’4″ Island Hopper with a central accent panel of poplar sandwiched between thin teak strips. She’ll be exploring western Scotland with her new surfboard this summer so hopefully this board will live up to it’s name and be taken on a few exploratory trips around the wave-rich Western Isles.
It turns out that Mat (who does all of our photography and content marketing) used to live just a couple of streets away from Paul in Perth, Western Australia. They spent tea breaks discussing the powerful waves at the surf spots that Paul will be taking his 6’4″ Woodburner to when he gets back to WA ready for Spring in the southern hemisphere. His surfboard had a central accent strip of ash and brown oak, and we’re looking forward to seeing how much the lamination process brings out the grain. Paul had bought with him a beautiful piece of patterned silk from India that he had planned on having inlaid under the fibreglass, however he decided that in the end the grain of the wood was too beautiful to cover up and we think that he made the right decision.
Half way through the week and our guest’s hollow wooden surfboards were almost ready to have the decks glued on ready for the shaping to begin. The mid-point of the week also happens to be the longest day and it’s great to see them with beaming smiles despite having a few tea-fuelled hours work ahead of them still.
We have just one space remaining on both our July and August “Build-Your-Own” workshop experience courses, so if you fancy shaping yourself a hollow wooden surfboard ready for those fabled September swells then get in touch with us here.
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