Surfboard Alchemy

Surf Update: the 11th month of the earth year 2017.  Here we go in the space time continuum.  Waves are rolling on Planet Earth as we cycle and recycle through the cosmos of DEEP Space...Surfing outer waves, inner waves, and ocean waves...We are all vibration so lets Vibrationalize!

I find sliding on top of the surface of the ocean to be an endeavour that on the best of days helps me to tune in to the oneness of things finding connection to nature, ocean, land, and sky.  On the worst of days, its still pretty damn good even when its "shit"..Or too f*ing busy .
Riding ocean waves is revibrational...Meaning I find harmony in myself and with nature when I glide across the surface of water at high speeds feeling the sublime refracting and bending wave that projects me through its sometimes mind expanding slides of water....This is why I live where I live.  Its why I do the things I do and go the places I go.  Sure its maybe a bit of tunnel vision, but thats exactly what I am searching for...the tunnel.

So anyway, this blog is about riding rubbish and the art of turning rubbish into incredible surf-craft.  You can still feel the supreme oneness of sliding on incredibly formed perfect ocean landscape when riding on rubbish! Sure, the surfing world is its own kind of waste monster.  Surfing is an industry...and its also a growing industry.  Every year more and more people are buying more and more surf products to prepare themselves as they go out and chase the bliss from hemisphere to hemisphere. More and more foam and fiber glass boards are being churned out of factories far and wide and shipped back across the globe to keen learners and blossoming surf-schools and surf-camps.  Petroleum based wetsuits and styrofoam soft tops are the major industrial products that don't have a long lifespan and often times end up rotting away in the forgotten holes of our earth.  As you can imagine, more and more of these petrochemical products end up in landfills every day.  Bummer!
Now there is an alternative.  We can reuse these boards and hand craft them into wicked wave riders.  I can't say that I am an eco-crusader by any means, I started out recycling or up-cycling soft tops because I was poor and needed to save money on foam.  In so doing I found a serious joy or "stoke" about turning a broken old soft top into a ripping new fish or mini Simmons type of wave catching machine.
Certainly recyclying soft tops is dirty business as well.  Its dusty, its poisonous, and its unhealthy when I grind off the layers of fiberglass.  But when I uncover good clean reusable foam...I get a buzz.  I love giving  rubbish a second life and lessening the impact on the earth. Its really just plane fun.  I recycle board to make new boards that make stoke... 

These 2 new Holy Surfboards pictured below are part of what I am calling the Recycled Rider project.  I am taking old broken surfboards and making them into new fun and exciting wave riding transport devices.  Its a project I have been working on for the last few years. I have made a few of these boards, and I am now excited to say that I have found the recipe for a sweet responsive, strong and more green surfboard.  Whoohoooo dude...Kick ass.  Apart from using recycled foam, I am also using Entropy Resins green epoxy which is a plant and pine sap based epoxy resin system that is fun and easy to work with.  The up-cycled EPS foam gets reshaped, and then glassed with a very solid "Glassing Schedule".   I lather on hefty amounts of 6 oz  and 4 oz glass sheets on both the bottoms and the decks of the boards.  I then finish the boards with 2 hot coats of epoxy resin.   Also, I am using carbon fibre rail systems on some of the stringerless eps. I am also experimenting with different cloths from Hessian Fiber/ Burlap, to Linseed fabric.   Fo sure Bizotch, I am stoked with new board making recipe.  It does take a lot longer than the traditional method, but the end result is awesome.

So what the hell?  How do these boards ride? Whats the Benefit of an Epoxy board versus Polyester?  And can I tell the difference between the them in the water?

Okay, so this is when I tell you honestly how good epoxy really is.  Some know some don't.  When I was making these boards a bicycle fell on the Monk (the blue board).  Nothing happened. No mark, No scratch, no ding.  Later, I stupidly knocked my board rack when I was glassing and one board fell out of the rack and smashed on the concrete floor.  Shit bro.  Lucky for me, that was an epoxy recycled board that fell.  Only one mark appeared on the rail, and a very light repair job.  Then just yesterday I bumped my Original Guru Polyester love machine on the concrete stair going into the work shop....crack...2 big dings on the dove tail....another couple hours repairing a tiny error I made putting the board away...shit.  I am starting to hate polyester.  Too me thats the best aspect about these boards is that they are strong.  Epoxy does not crack, ding and snap like Polyester.  Epoxy boards are better for traveling, and they have the potential to last a long time when taken care of.  Epoxy has less of a carbon footprint and they are not quite as stinky to work with.  Sanding it sucks, but apart from that, its gold...
 
How do the Recycled Riders ride?   Obviously every board is totally different and individually shaped.  I am blessed to be testing out some of the boards on some great little waves rolling into the Algarve shore as I speak...  To be honest, when I first started shaping I just wanted to make Polyester boards. One of the first shortboards I had was an light tufflight type "epoxy sandwich" construction that was pumped out of a factory in Thailand.  When I switched to a Polyester fish that was hand-shaped by Morph surfboards, my eyes were wide open to the superior feel of the classic  quad fish my friend shaped.  So, I  quickly turned anti epoxy.  However, a surfboard's feel or mojo can certainly not be judged solely on the hard coating of glass used on the board. 

What I have learned through making these Recycled Riders, is that an eps and epoxy construction can feel and ride equally to their Polyester counter parts.  Eps foam is lighter than PU, and so by glassing the boards with a heavier glassing schedule you create a surf stick that has relatively the same weight but is much stronger due to the added layers of good glass.  I have never came out of the water thinking, shit I wish I had a polyester...I am always stoked on the ride and feel of this construction method.

Twin fin Life

Waves have been firing here at the end of Europe.  Super long period hurricane swells and powerful Atlantic storms have gone back to back the last couple of weeks to make this small little Country known as the Ass of Europe a surfer's paradise.  Portugal...Bring it on! Sometimes the conditions conspire to make magic.  With consistent off shores and incredible long period swell sweeping in we've had a doozy of a couple of weeks.  Magic surf has been the special of the day.  Surfers are eating up these classic Fall conditions.  Surf looks set to keep on pumping...So with this all this liquid magic I had to reach up into the shelves of my shaping room and try out one of 2 of the Pheonix Fish Twins that I shaped last winter.  I have kept one, while its twin is for sale at The Magic Board Centre in Lagos, and the other is now well and truly mine.  Definitely the hardest thing about making a board is selling it..even a shitty board...So, with pumping surf I grabbed the Phoenix Twin Fin and headed to a lesser known spot for a special surf.  Surfing a new model is always fun and interesting.  Sometimes boards do unexpected things. They surprise you...Sometimes they even surf like shit.  Sometimes they light up like a London night Club on Sunday morning techno hour.
To be honest, I waited a long time to try this model.  Its a red and blue polyester board with a gloss finish and hand made and glassed in Bamboo fins....Man, I worked so many hours on this baby under stressful conditions last winter.....A lot went into making this board. I learned a lot in the process of its construction...  I thought I might sell it. I thought I might even make some good money on it... I put it away in the rack of my glassing room... I looked at it a lot...I mind surfed it... but...I waited...and I wanted...
What made testing this board also crucial to my understanding of surf craft was that I had never ridden a true twin fin.  Sure, I have been a "fish" rider for a while...years..quads fishes...."Performance fishes"  Fishes that blurred the boundaries between fish and short board....But fuck, this is a twin fin we are talking about.  There are reasons why this style of shape has stood the test of time.  I believe it was legendary San Diego shaper Skip Frye who came up with it in the late 60's...early 70's?  Thanks Skip.  You're a legend.
The fish surfboard to many old school surfing purists is the holy grail of boards. To be a true fish in the eyes of the purist, a few requirements had to be met.  I studied what old school shapers thought defined the classic keel twin fin...I wanted to do something classic...traditional....beautiful...
Here is what I found out...a  fish has to be at least 21 inches wide...5'10 or smaller...and thick...at least 2 3/4 to 3 inches thick. The bottoms also had to be classic...flat...or rounded with some vee... concave need not apply...Then of course there is the classic curved swallow tail (not the straight angled dove tail)......and 2 fins...  Ahh...what a recipe I had to follow.  So, I made a couple of twinnies with hand made bamboo fins cut out of a chopping board...I made them with a wide base... I rounded the bottoms and put in some pronounced vee out the back to add balance when putting the board on rail..... I glassed the boards heavy with 2 toned colors and gloss finish....And then....I waited...
Sitting here after 5 sweets surfs in a row, and maybe the best waves I have ever ridden in Portugal....I have learned even more about the twin keel surf craft....They rock.  I don't really know about small surf yet, because I have been surfing my 5'8 Phoenix in solid 4-6 foot surf. Not just any 4-6 foot surf...the periods have been 14-16 seconds on some days which translates into some very long waves randomly detonating with over 150 meter walls....some sick waves dudes.
What people usually say is true.  Twinnies are fast, loose, and skatey.  But, I have found that they also have great hold and can drop beautifully down the face of some big blue sculptures of water.  Never once in the last 2 weeks have a wished for anything  longer.  On some super critical drops, I found the twin fin held strong and unflinchingly in crunching hollow pits.  With a few pumps, the board found speed unaparalled by anything I have ridden except for maybe my old bonzer.  But what I love most about the board is just the good loose feel and I get throwing it around in the less critical parts of the wave.  Its like, the board just wants to party!

The Pheonix Twin Fins

Summer moves on...Small swell cometh...The North wind rips down in to the Algarve threatening to blow us all to Africa.  Thats how it feels here in this windy pocket of Western civilization.  As most people, I wish I had more time to...Surf surf surf..
Short and sweet...or not so sweet...which is the real mood I'm in. But hell, its not about my moods, its about these boards.  I have here 2 twin fishes.  I call them the Phoenix Fish series.  They are not identical, but they are twins none the less. Born in the same time period which was January 2016.  These babies were my winter's work, and they took a solid couple months to finish as life sometimes has other plans for us.  Anyhow, both have hand made and glassed in bamboo fins. They are both 5'10, while the red Pheonix is a more bulbous and voluminous 21 wide.  The Green Phoenix is 20 1/2 with a slimer and more agile figure.  She is a built with a bit more performance and speed in mind with a flatter bottom moving to vee out the tail.  The red Phoenix fish has a rounded belly to vee on the tail as well, but everything is more pronounced and fleshy.
They are a couple of special boards.  I imagine they will shine in small to overhead surf.  I have been tempting to but have abstained from whetting the fins of these twinnies....however, I reckon I am not going to be able to hold out much longer.  My shack is filling up quickly so if anyone is interested in taking one of these beauties off my hands...say the word.   Peace and love...

Recycled rubbish= Cool Surfboards

Welcome to Winter...November was so epic...and December is throwing it in the face of November with every day blowing off shoree on the West coast here in sunny southern Portugal... Its pretty freaky how good the conditions have been the last few weeks. Surf's up, crowds are gone...good times. Its time to pump up the Holy Surf Boards with some pranayama so I am trying to get my shit together and work on a website and official facebook page.  I am feeling good in my little shaper's studio, and am ready to pump out some more boards.  So recently... here is the Craik:
I am stoked on recycling.  We live in a fuct up world where everything is mass produced to hell..There is so much garbage floating in the oceans that microns of plastic are being detected in sea salt.  Plastic is a cancer!  Anyway, I am stoked on recycling...There is an art to it.  Recently I have made a couple of boards that are made with Recycled Foam!  To be a great recycler you just have to be inventive and creative.  However, the very best recyclers are the people who have the least amount of money.  They can come up with ingenious creations out of other people's trash...So here's the craik...(I like saying that today) I have been collecting a load of broken boards from surf schools, stripping them down to their eps foam core, and reshaping them...Holy recycled surfboard batman....
Not like I think recycling foam is going to save the ocean or make the world a better safer place, but its cool, its free foam, and its fun.  Its also a great creative process.  With recycled foam you have to cut out shapes within the confines of very flat and broken pieces of old foamie top boards.  Here is a photo of the first board I made. Its much more time consuming than shaping a pressed blank, but its somehow more rewarding knowing that you are working something that would otherwise go straight into the land fill.  The other really cool thing is that these pieces of foam are allowing me to experiment with some pretty cool and weird ideas.  This is Holy Surfboard 0013...

The Finless Wanderer...I got super stoked on Derek Hynd and Tom Wegener's finless revolution that I had try to one myself...And this thing is pretty wild.  I am no master of the finless surf yet, but I have pulled a few pretty wicked 360's on this nugget...And that is a really cool feeling. This board is flat, flat, flat...As I was working with a recycled blank, I used epoxy resin and a light glass schedule.  Originally I glassed on some very small side fins, however I found they limited the slide of the board so I sliced them off sacrificing bottom turn for bottom slide...This board has very hard rails on the laset 2/3 s of the board, and a very weird kind of single concave channel on the tail.  Still, I have only surfed here less than a handful of times, so I am no master. I epoxied some cork on the top of the board to experiment with a natural surface.  It seems nice but as you can see the cork is not super solid.  Looks like piranas were after me.   I will probably look for a thicker cork in the future. 
So, today I did have a little session on another little beauty...The UFO...Holy Surfboard 0016...

This little beauty has something going for her....She's fresh out of the studio, and At 4'8 she is not the tallest board in the quiver....Not exactly your Maverick's board, but she doesn't shy away from head high surf.  You might think she'd sink in the water, but, dude, she has some fatty foam in there...and bro, this board floats and paddles into waves pretty smoothly. Again, she is flat flat flat.  That translates into good paddling and wave catching.  I had a lot of waves in a short amount of time and she ripped it.  Really, the UFO surfs like a little skate board.  Here's the Craik...She's 4'8 X 19 1/4 wide and 2.8 "thick... with glassed on recycled twin fins (I grinded down the foamies plastic fins and shaped a small profiled twin fin)  The bottom contours are pretty much flat to small single conave channel on the tail and vee projecting from the fins to the rail. She has a green colored epoxy laminate coat and a polyester resin hot coat.  I used 4 and 6 oz cloth on the top and 4 oz on the bottom.  This particular foamie had a double fiberglass stringer.  Thats the Unidentified Flying Object.  This board is for sale.  I am not in a hurry to sell her, but I have a huge quiver at the moment and need the space and the money. 
 I could blog more...but we're gonna keep it short and sweet like the UFO...Happy surfing, whether its in your mind or in the water.

The Stoke....

I have wanted to blog about this for a while...What is the greater fascination every surfer seems to have with the word stoke...Why are all surfers so "Stoked" all the time? And what the hell does that mean?  Is it like a psychedelic euphoria surfers get from huffing sex wex on their sticks?  Stoked...its kind of like being "Psyhed...pumped...wired...freeking...rushing...stoke....Its the holy word of the holy experience that is at the center of riding waves...It is the one word that keep coming round like a big set wave on the head....If you watch any professional surfer being interviewed its all quite similar.  Usually its like bla bla bla...got tubed...bla bla bla...and I was STOKED.... As long as they are stoked...its all good.
So the stoke...I was thinking about this because in early August I found myself at a little uncrowded beach not too far from the big beaches of surf school mania.  I was tired, but I had my long board and the waves looked okay, small and clean.  So I paddled out to an empty line up.  Amazing, just half a kilometer up the beach was a crowd...Anyway, I had a couple of decent rides, but I was still feeling low and the ride was not so bitching. I was about to paddle in, but alas... a chest high wave came through and suddenly I was on a reeling right that took me about one hundred and fifty meters....I was kind of befuddled.  Suddenly, I was not feeling so tired.  In fact, I was starting to feel pretty good.  And then it happened again.  Talk about a blessing.  I was all alone and all of a sudden in August in the Algarve I was scoring long glassy empty waves.  It was like a wonderful dream where the fairy godmother waved her magical ocean wand.  U know, I was stoked!  Truly...I became envibed...happy...energetic...vibrant...colorful...My energy got completely turned around.  I had one classic amazing leash free longboard session.  Magic.  I was so amped up, and the waves kept getting better and better.  After 2 hours finally another couple of surfers came out.  U know, they too got stoked... We were all stoked.  I rembember seeing schools of fish swimming around underneath me. And man, I swear they were stoked!

Okay...And in other news.  My photographer friend Lucy Le Brock came to visit the Holy Shack.  We hung out, and

My Magic Quiver...

she snapped off a couple rolls of film...Well, I guess a few megabytes would be the more modern term...So, here are a few of the photos...She rocks...More photos to come when the website rolls around....Also have this 5'10 Dream Catcher for sale that I shaped last month...To all....Peace...

Balance the Work, life, surf, baby continuum

Winter in the Algarve now seems like a distant memory...And summer is upon us.  Sometimes life whizzes by in the blink of an eye, though that is not exactly the reality.  When u r working, time has a different quality.  The last year has probably been the busiest working year of my life.  Yet, I am still broke. How does that happen?  And I think the biggest work of it all is most definatly the job of being a Dada!  Nothing knocks you on your ass 24/7 like having a baby....But its one of the most rewarding experiences ever...a joyful slap in the face! And having a baby makes all the surf sessions that much more precious as they are much more limited!  So it goes.

Right, Lets talk boards and shacks.  The Holy Shack is up and running!  I have now completed a couple of boards this month in the new shaping room.  They were the first boards I have made since February.  I had dust off the skills and cobwebs. These plonks took a little longer than expected, but that is board making.  There were a few little surprizes and F#* ups along the way but nothing too major.  With resin tints and gloss finishes, these boards are now happily on my finished wrack and looking for new homes. First up is the new model The Sadhu. 

This board is a 6'0 x 21 1/4 with a wide nose template and a medium to hard rail in the tail with fcs 5 fin box.  The bottom contour is a rounded hull exposed belly that transitions smoothly into a double concave out the back of the board.  With a good flat rocker, the Sadhu will fly down the line without sacrificing maneoverability.  I imagine this board will ride equally well as a quad or a thruster, and should cave some hard turns.  The glass job is 4 oz by 4+6 oz on the deck.  Finished with a gloss resin and polish, this is a great all wave board and should go well from knee high to well over head. If I were going to have a one board quiver, I think this could be the ONE .. Sadhu is an Indian word for saint. These are the yogis and renunciates that live in caves, cover themselves with ash,  chant mantra, and smoke chillums.

The Next up is an Original Guru.

This is a 5'10 by 20 and 1/4. It is roughly 2 3/8's thick.  It is a 5 fin option with fcs fin plugs.  The rails are medium flowing into a hard dovetail.  The benefits of the dovetail include high maneuverability and boat loads of drive.  This board is a monster for fast down the line surfing and hard quick turns.  The bottom contour is a single to double concave.  It has a flat rocker so it paddles eaily into the wave.  This is a high perfermance feel good board.  I prefer to ride it as a quad, but it performs well also as a thruster.  This specific board #008 was glassed with 3 layers of 4 oz S cloth and finished with gloss and polish, racing stripe, and some board tattoos.  


And so it goes Flat here in Portugal.  There is summer swell and offshore winds in the future!  Inhallah,  which is why I am blogging now, before the swell fills in on Thursday.  Happy sufing from Portugal. 

Holy Surf Boards...The Beginning

Greetings to all.  This is my new Blog, and its based around what  I have going on in my now here life...Yes this is a business blog...Not like a serious business, but a surf business... You see, I just started  making surfboards, And flip...I have surfboards that I need to sell.  So, this blog is all about the boards, and the waves of course, and a little bit about my eccentric self.  So, welcome.  The labels is called Holy Surf Boards. And this is the Blog.

Surroundings.
I live in Portugal, the very south and  west part known as the Algarve.  We are at the very southern tip of Europe, and are blessed by having an exposed western Coastline and a mellower Southern coast.  I live near the surf town of Sagres.  Naturally we have a great variety of beaches and conditions that can generate a "plethora" of surf.   Cool.  I guess that is why I landed here and never left 6 years ago...That and a woman.  I like Portugal! The life style is mellow, the food is natural, and the air is clean.  Also, Portugal is a pretty live and let live kind of country.  U can stay camped out on the beach for months without any hastle.  For an American, I found that pretty damn comforting.

Beginnings
I had the inspiration to make a board many years ago.  As many people do, I scribbled pictures of boards in my notebooks.  I dreamed of dimensions and tail shapes.  I stalked websites like the Cambell Brothers looking for inspiration for the next board I wanted.  I thought of fin shapes and fin placements, channel bottoms and bonzers.  I watched old Lopez videos just to get a glimpse of those classic single fins in action. I went surf mad. Surfing had taken over my waking and unawakened consciousness.

So I felt drawn to the art of surfboard making.  I picked up a planer, bought a kit and made my first surfboard.  What a feeling it was.  And what a trip.  It wasn't easy.  After my first go with the laminate coat I thought I was going to have to scratch the whole project.  But, it all came together after many many hours of hard work. The end product was this

This is my lovely 5'8 quad fish with a dove tail. I call this model the Original Guru.  This board was my teacher.  Guru litterely means bringer of the light.  It is the Guru is the teacher of the aspiring yogi.  The Guru is the guide, and this little board was my guide to this totally new and complex art of board construction.  With the Original Guru I began the journey of  learning the process of polyester board constuction, a traditional surfboard construction process that uses polyurethane foam and polyester resin... The classic stinky sh*#t

Why Surf? 

To many surfers surfing is more than a sport or a leisure activity.  Its an obsession, a lifestyle, and an art.  Its linked with art, media, corporations, and clothing brands.  But it is soooo much more! You don't find any of the big brands at the heart of the surf. Instead, you find nature.  You find the ocean.  Which is where life on earth began.  You find the wind that distubs the water and generates the wave.  You find yourself  sitting in contemplation waiting for the next wave.  You find the sun, the rain, the clouds drifting.  In those moments, there is a world of discovery at your finget tips that goes beyond words.  I guess surfers generalize this experience into the familiar word "Stoke" .  Its a word that sums up an otherwise indescribably good feeling.  Through sliding across the face of water, we find a expecience that is, at its best, indescribabl.  There are fish swimming beneath our toes, and an amazing array of  birds soring above our heads.  Damn, Surfing can be a magical and also an enlightening experince!

Wrapping it up.

I am the Chef shaper... jack of all trades ... cooking up new custom pieces of floating foam and fiberglass for ocean lovers, bandits, yogis, pirates, all people alike. I will constantly update this blog with photos of new boards and hopefully some videos too.  Keep checking back to see what's new for sale.  Peace.