Journal
The latest news and stories from our workshop, and beyond.
The latest news and stories from our workshop, and beyond.
At the start of April, we packed our tools and a big stack of bodysurfing handplane blanks into the back of a van and set off on our 2019 “Workshop on Wheels” Tour, delivering our workshop sessions in Finisterre stores around the country. Taking in Bristol, London and Edinburgh, James and Ally left a trail of sawdust and happy bodysurfers-to-be in their wake. We’re incredibly grateful to our friends at Finisterre for allowing...
It wasn’t until Nick and Matt, our two February workshop attendees, had spent a bit of time together on Monday getting to know each other that they...
When we first started running make-your-own wooden surfboard courses, we honestly never considered that somebody might come back to make a second....
In mid-October, the workshop was full of the noise and energy of the Koska kids; Flora, Ellie and Jolly. In the summer of 2015 their dad Marc joined...
The first of our new range of exploration stand-up paddleboards to be developed was the largest; the 12’6” Endeavour. A former workshopper,...
Sharp chisels, plane blades and saws in a woodworking workshop are a given; but a sharp pencil is probably the most important tool of all. There’s no place for dull or blunt when you’re doing fine woodworking, and it all starts at the marking out stage. Consider that a blunt pencil might create a line that is a couple of millimetres wide, and then think about the knock-on impact upon accuracy as you move through subsequent processes. The...
At the end of last year, James’ dad Andrew turned sixty. We’d been developing, slowly but surely, our range of flat-water exploration stand-up...
Everybody loves getting a postcard through the mail, particularly in the age of e-mails when most of what lands on our doormats is bills and...
“It has taken seven years to write and it’s only 27,000 words long but I have finally finished the thirteenth book that will have my name on...
Summing up all of the steps and processes involved in one of our week-long wooden surfboard workshop courses can be a challenge - how does one go...
Over the course of the last year we’ve been developing a range of three flat-water exploration stand-up paddleboards. We spent this summer refining and testing these three models and two paddle options and are now (having dropped a few teasers and left them in the background of some workshop photos) excited to be launching them for sale and as a seven-day workshop course.
June, July and August have been busy months so far here in the workshop, with “business as usual” colliding with the culmination of various...
Last week, Joe and Mat joined us for our June wooden surfboard workshop week. They’re identical twin brothers, and back in January they had a big...
Sometimes, and completely coincidentally, we have an “International Week” here at the workshop when all of the participants on a wooden surfboard...
We’ve written before at the close of a workshop week about how, over the course of these five-days, the learning flows both ways. It’s rare that...
Everybody who joins us to make their own surfboard has an interesting story; Tim’s is one that none of us could quite get our heads around though.
Attending a course to make a wooden surfboard is, for many of our customers, the culmination of many months or even years of day-dreaming and either...
The community of surfers who have passed through our workshop over the years is a beautifully broad spectrum representing the 21st Century surfer....
Spending a week making a wooden surfboard here at Otter is, for most people, going to be a step away from their day-to-day. The differences between...
