Journal
The latest news and stories from our workshop, and beyond.
The latest news and stories from our workshop, and beyond.
One of the really special things about sharing what we do through our workshop courses is the fact that we almost inevitably form new friendships. It’s really lovely when, several weeks or months after helping somebody to build their own surfboard, bellyboard or handplane, we get a postcard through the letterbox or an e-mail with some photos attached, with stories of where friends are riding their new surfboards and how much they’re...
This winter we’ve been investing some time in materials research and development. With our backgrounds in design it’s important to all of us...
The first workshop week of our 2015 programme ran this week, and it was wonderful to welcome a friend from just down the coast into the workshop....
This deep into winter many of us rely on the woodburner in our front rooms to provide warmth through cold evenings. At Otter Surfboards we also rely...
Sometimes a great swell coincides with a busy week of work, and there's nothing much that you can do about it. It's a great problem to be faced...
Not many twelve year olds can say that they built a wooden surfboard in their half term holidays. Alex can, though.
Tom’s choice of t-shirt on the middle day of his “build-your-own” workshop week was wonderfully ironic. He hadn’t thought twice when...
Two weeks ago, James was sat in his back garden eating breakfast when Ralph called. "Would it be possible to come and build a surfboard with you...
One of the nicest things about running our workshop experience weeks and sharing the joys of building wooden surfboards, is the people that we get to...
The 2014 World Bellyboarding Championships are fast approaching us, and we're busy practising and preparing for one of our favourite "surf contests"...
Luca arrived in Cornwall a few days early for his "Build-Your-Own" workshop week with us, and it turned out to be a stroke of very good timing on his part. We've been waiting for the surf stars to align for a while now, holding out for the perfect combination of swell, sunshine, winds and tides to allow us to head out with some friends and capture some new summer imagery - and the best day coincided with Luca's arrival.
Wooden surfboards, due to the way in which they are designed, built and shaped, differ from their foam cousins in that the shape of the surfboard is...
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...
On our May workshop we had the pleasure of spending a week building wooden surfboards with Kim and Shelby. A truly international couple, they are...
Back in March we were joined by Lloyd on one of our "Build-Your-Own" workshop weeks. Lloyd is a joiner by trade and so had a bit of a head start...
A good set of chisels is fairly essential in any woodworker's tool cabinet, and because of the variety of tasks that they can be turned to it's often the case that traditional joiners and cabinet makers end up with an impressive collection of different sizes and profiles. We use Japanese nomi chisels in the workshop here and are often asked why we use so many Japanese tools rather than their traditional British counterparts.
This week all three sets of trestles in the workshop have grown a surfboard, as Patrick, Pete and Claudio joined us to build their own. All in...
Packing up the van and taking our workshop on the road is one of our great pleasures. Last Saturday the road wasn't a very long one though, as we...
The saying goes that two’s company, three’s a crowd: We’ve had a wonderful crowd in the workshop with us this week, and luckily our...
