Journal
The latest news and stories from our workshop, and beyond.
The latest news and stories from our workshop, and beyond.
The name paipo (pronounced pipe-oh) is derived from the Hawaiian "Pae Po'o" which means to surf headfirst. Essentially these surfboards are simply thin wooden bellyboards surfed prone in exactly the same manner they were when Captain James Cook dropped anchor in a Hawaiian bay in 1778, when he described the locals riding waves prone on boards that were between 3' and 6' in length. These boards were popular in Hawaii and elsewhere were...
The making of anything is likely to result in some wastage of materials, and wooden surfboards are no exception. But how much you waste and what...
This past month it has finally felt as though Summer has arrived here in the south west of the UK - on some days at least! And when we get a high...
This weekend just gone saw the 2nd edition of the Girls 10 Board challenge go down at Godrevy, hosted by the National Trust. The idea of the...
This afternoon Glenn Bowker carefully lined up an inked rubber stamp, paused to take a breath, and then pressed it firmly down onto the deck of the...
"A man who makes things with his hands is a laborer. A man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman. But a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist." It was incredibly flattering when we read this quote in the short introduction to a movie project that we've just got involved with. And this is one project that we're getting awfully excited about! A few weeks ago we were approached by the...
Poplar is a popular choice when we ask customers which hardwoods they would like to have laid up into the deck and bottom skins of their surfboards....
It's that time of year again! We've spent the day helping to put up the signage for all of the Open Studios events that will be happening...
It's Friday afternoon which means both blog-time and also, during "build-your-own" workshop weeks, the culmination of a week's hard work and the...
We were delighted to welcome 10xEuropean Longboard Champion Ben Skinner into the workshop this week to get started designing a wooden big wave gun...
The saying goes that it never rains, but it pours. Today feels like one of those days here because so many seeds that we have been planting over the past nine months or so have suddenly sprouted and come into flower. Back in September last year James was in front of the camera being filmed for Clarks Shoes who were making a series of web shorts about "The Art of Craft", with each episode featuring one of their craftsmen and a subject from...
Let us introduce you, a little more formally, to The Island Hopper. At 7'4" it's the Otter Surfboard's "one board quiver" model, perfect for...
The last few weeks have delivered some really good waves here in the South West of the UK. In fact it's been a winter of note, which is why we've...
What're you doing next Saturday? We'll be going for a swim in the waves - you should come along too.
Every now and then you see the sort of weather chart that makes you want to drop everything and run to the coast. This weekend, bookended by bank...
It's officially Spring, and that means that for many of us the prospect of being fully immersed in the sea rather than floating above it on a surfboard is a little more tempting. We'd like to facilitate that immersion and so we've expanded our range of handplanes to offer a neoprene strap alongside the current hand-hole option. Until now we've produced our handplanes with an ergonomically curved handhold which allows you to switch hands...
Abrasive paper has been around for a long, long, time. Back in the thirteenth century the Chinese, in amongst inventing all sorts of other clever...
Pilot cutters are the vessels that worked the coastline between the Isles of Scilly and Bristol during the latter part of the 19th Century. Their...
It's always great to get feedback from clients about the boards that we've shaped them, and particularly so when the feedback is accompanied by...
