FINLESS AND FREE... IN BALI

It's been ages since the last blog and it's taking a while to settle here in Bali but I haven't been sitting on my hands! Dustin was quick to team me up with a young surfer named Jason ' Salsa' Salisbury and craft out a few boards for him. One that was of particular interest was the a finless board and I must say I really enjoyed the challenge. Starting with no preconceived ideas apart from wanting to have fun ... keeping my mind open to what ever direction the shape will lead me ....here it is in the raw....it's not over yet... I still have a few more additions in the glassing side of things that may or may not materialise but never the less it is going to be interesting to see the finished board... I'll keep you posted...

Ps...My long time friend Phil Ward has been shaping himself a board at Deus this last few days and having seen my finless board, suggested we take a look at a shaper friend of his in California by the name of Hoy Runnels...the similarities are uncanny considering that I've never seen his work ...marvelous how our brains tick

Pps ...yes it does look like a pair of breasts on the tail ...what ever was I thinking?!!!!

FATHER , SON AND SINGLE

The last run down before moving to Indo has been a pretty interesting time and this last week has been no exception. Lots of new boards, lots of change and friends dropping by. This is Pete Harris and his new board. Pete and I have been making boards together for a long time and this is the realisation of one of his designs. It's basically a single fin that has provision for optional side bights, 7'2'' x 213/4'' x 3 , light conny feeding to a double vee out the tail... low, relaxed nose rocker and an accelerating tail release....down rails and this one has a hard tucked under edge almost to the nose. Pete surfs Burleigh a lot and drives quite hard off his front foot and needs the edge to set the rail and because of the tuck ...it doesn't catch....although the photo doesn't show it ...this one is tinted coke bottle green.


Dropping by for a visit was Pete's son Nat. He was out cruising the hills on his Vintage BSA Bantam. Super styling and grinning from ear to ear.... Nat is hooked on my epoxy /carbon fibre boards and was just ordering another before I go...good luck!!!








And the yummy mummy Louise and her new Single fin. Her new shooter is 6'x 20'' x 21/2''. She is about to set off on a trip to WA with her hubby Grant another long time customer of mine who loves my 6ix channel bottom boards. Below is a pic of him surfing on one of his recent surf guiding trips.

BEAU'S NEW TOYS

Beau was around picking up a couple of boards yesterday and I managed to pin him down for a photo. He rides competitively in the long board circuit and these two are a couple that he rides when not in training for the comps...or when he gets bored of riding mals and wants to just smash it. The main focus for me as a shaper was to get the boards to relate to his longboards so the transition between the two is not so radical. I hope to have achieved this with this pair. The initial response is good....just need some surf to surf them in!!....it's been so crap lately. The Blue board is a Deluxe...66 x 191/2 x 25/8 the yellow one is a a Bill fish...510 x 201/2 x 23/4
Below is a previous quiver of boards that I made for him to take to the Maldives where he was working as a tour guide for Tropic Surf. Beau's standard board dimensions for his comp boards are 91 1/2 x 22 x 25/8 . This model is called the HP mal and is designed to surf tight in the pocket ....it's basically a 9 foot short board that nose rides....which it does really well now after we increased the nose rocker to slow it down when you're forward on the nose. This keeps it in the pocket and stops it accelerating out of it allowing him to stay there for as long as he wants. Beau weighs in at about 85 kgs.

below are a deatil of the drawings that I did on his boards...

A NICE BOX OF STUFF

This is my good friend Luke who was just in the states recently and while hanging out in southern California picked himself up something to remember the occasion by. What turned up at my house today was a box of superbly handcrafted boards shaped by Mandala and a bonzer from the Campbell brothers ...Luke can't remember which one.... So nice to see these boards in the flesh and see such beautiful resin jobs done by artisan craftsmen that are passionate about their craft. I can't wait to surf them!!!

THE LONG AND THE SHORT

This is Scrubs....don't really know his real name but it doesn't matter anyway...he is picking up his new death machine. It's 56 x 19 3/4 x 2 1/2 ..13 in the nose and 16 1/2 in the tail. This original design was done in collaboration with my friend Nat....he has now modified it to be called the Albat Ross...,but back to the death machine.... the nose rocker is typically quite low at 3 1/2 " with a decent concave feeding into a massive double and out through a vee at the tail. There is quite a bit of thickness at the tail and with the vee, puts you on rail easily even though it's wide at 8". The wide point in the plan shape is 4"back from centre giving you a nice pivot point between your feet. The volume is loaded towards the tail....this board was the fore runner and inspiration to the Tug Boat.

This is my mate Steve picking up his new board. It's a HP mal that is 91 x 22 1/2 x 2 5/8 .... the nose is 17 7/8 and the tail is 14 1/4. The HP stands for High Performance....I know really original hey but if you can come up with a good name just let me know....anyway this has a lot of rocker in it nose 5 1/4 and the tail has has a hefty 3 7/8 that allows you to surf tight in the pocket. This is based on the boards that I have been doing for Beau Nixon and is for the crew that want to take the short board approach to long boarding. Steve has a lot of fun on my boards and with the custom artwork done by Morgan when he was here a couple of weeks ago....is beaming!

BLACKIE FISH

..last weekend Blackie dropped by to grab his new fish for the summer slop that he's expecting in the next few months....this one is 64 x 20 1/2 x 2 5/8 with a quite flat nose entry at 4 inches over the length of this board makes it quite the wave hunter. Tail lift is also quite flat at a little over 2 1/4" but to keep it alive and turning it has a vee bottom with a substantial double concave in it to put it on rail and keep you there and driving. Foiled rails for extra sensitivity and running off a flattened deck for good paddling. ...A couple of flyers because I think that they look good!.... in the background you'll notice the container ....yep the move to Bali is on and with less than 3 weeks to go, I'm getting excited!!!!

...THE POWER OF BLOCK...

Well I don't think that this may mean much to you guys but from my perspective it speaks volumes. This is my shaping block that I use on every board that I have shaped since about the mid eighties and here is it's story.



Back then Dirk Van Straalan was getting his boards glassed at our factory in Burleigh and we used to have some great rants about life, surf and stuff, anyway, one of the things that he did have was an old pile of balsa off cuts left over from a reshape of and old malibu that he had done and he let me have some of it to use as tail blocks on mals etc. I looked at the history of the timber ...that being from an old malibu that had probably already caught heaps of waves, was bound to full of good energy....and the fact that I really needed a decent shaping block...I put it to better use. The pieces were a bit small but I managed to glue a couple together and make the size that I needed. I'm stoked and passionate about this block on so many levels....light weight, given freely from and old master shaper, recycled from the ocean...etc. It used to have square corners and a flat smooth back....the face side is still quite flat...now it's well worn, well used and gets better as the years go on....I like to think that there is a little bit of the balsa block that gets rubbed off in each board....maybe I've been spending too much time alone in the bay ...who knows but I love it anyway!!!

DARYL AND THE SINGLES

A while ago I made a new board for the Barron of weirdness...Darryl Miller.....I've made many boards for him over the years and while picking up his latest creation he couldn't help but notice a couple of singlely's that I had waiting to be released to the sea. so while admiring them I thought a couple of happy snaps would be nice....




and here is the board that I made for him....Von surf is one of his board labels.... the paint brief was 'just do something brown'
it's a 7'11'x 22'' x 23/4'' thick....it has 3 inches of nose rocker and 3 inches of tail rocker....concave under the nose feeding to a vee twin concave. ...he likes it a lot

GREG SLED

Greg is one of the many diverse characters that frequent my shed from time to time with a concept design that they want realised and I try my best to make it happen for them. This was a design that he had that dates back to the 60's when he was surfing around Burleigh. Quite interesting really, with the channel exhausting to a step tail and the bevel on the rail giving a great tucked under edge. According to Greg...I go to the top of the class for this board as he says that it goes unreal. The board to the right is a similar one that we did earlier in the year, the one below is his latest. It is a PU blank glassed in epoxy resin for extra strength as durability was important to him.

ART BOFFINS AND FOAM SLAVES

Hi there, just spent an inspiring last few days with a great mate of mine, Morgan Bridgeford from Anglesea in Victoria. Morgs has been responsible for a lot of my artwork over the years and was a key player in the Phanzine project. He and I go way back to my old factory days in Burleigh where we would get a bit messed up and then go make stuff for our own entertainment....(bit like now really!!) and here are a few shots to see what we came up with....sorry I don't have any more pics showing process but we were too busy doing it rather than recording it...I think Morgs has a few more photos, since I was busy being the slave and he, the boffin....hehehe.!

PHIL'S NEW QUAD FLYER ...

Hi Phil .....here's a glimpse at your new board mate....I ended up making you a 62 x 20 1/2 x 2 5/8 thick. it has quite a flat deck with refined rails, triple concave feeding out to the nice vee at the tail that I know you like....the nose entry is quite flat around 3 3/4 and the tail is 2 1/4, litreage is 40+.....was thinking about those tiny days at the pass, and the smallish beachies that we always to get too often when you don't want to ride your mals!


just finished painting it and I'll be getting it off to the glassers tonight ....or tomorrow...going to use the new skull decals offset somewhere on the nose...and yep I'll put futures in it for you.....Cheers mate have a good day....yo

MICRO MAL

Hi there again....just going through some photo's and came across this one. This is a Micro mal that I was doing a couple of years ago ...this one is 64 x 22 x 23/4, flat nose rocker with a concave to actually nose ride, feeding into a soft vee and out through a double concave vee with a nice balanced amount of tail lift. They paddled really well and could almost catch ripples from a boat wake!.....similar to the conditions that we've had the last week or so...unless you live in WA or Indo!!....Cheers ...phantom

THE PHILL DEWS MACHINA

Hi there again, dreams really do come true and these guys are stoked! My good mate Phill Dews picked up his Dews machina model late today and said that he took her home , laid her on the floor and drank 3 Coopers whilst admiring her clean lines. Phill weighs in at about 120kgs is about 6'5'' tall and his machina is 7'8 x 23 x 31/4'' 4 channel swalllowtail. It has a single to double concave (triple) feeding out through a vee in the channels. WAA custom made fibreglass fins just for him by Feather. Now all he needs is for the surf to get above 1 foot and he's on it!





Anna is about to take her new shooter for a holiday to Hawaii. This is a pin tail Deluxe that has been widened a bit and made into a quad. It is a 6 x 19 x 23/8 triple concave feeding out to a vee, and has some great custom words sprayed on the bottom by my talented sprayer Chris Third. ...sorry ....forgot to get a photo of that....doh!
Cheers for now...Phantom

....A COUPLE OF FRESHIES....

Hi there again, this is Kevola with his bubbly daughter Abbey picking up his new shooter. It's a 72 x 22 x 27/8 Rocket Fish. The paint job is a custom one designed by Kev and he is STOKED!

...and this next cat is Andy Bourke...the larger than life mad Irishman! He borrowed a Wonglepong off a mate of mine and was hooked from the 2nd or 3rd wave. His is a 55 x 191/2 x 23/8 with a quad fin set up and custom painted by Andy and his wife Michelle. Andy is a talented local muso with a full froth on for surfing and life in general. When he's not surfing or gigging, he sells apples at the local north coast markets ....funny bugger.

NEW TOYS FOR THE BOYS

Hi there again, just a few of the crew that have picked up their new bundles of joy this week

...this is Gordo and he'll be riding his new Kneelo....6 x 231/2 x 23/4...vee bottom a with a couple of cony's through it to keep it sparky.

...Greg's is a 66 x 193/8 x 25/8 deluxe with a 3/16 stringer and glassed in epoxy resin for extra strength as he likes to surf south straddie... and that place eats boards...set fins for more performance and an insane custom spray done by Chris third...the photo doesn't really do it justice.
....Hugo is riding a triple pin / crown tail...something that we kinda made up on the day as he wanted a wide assed fish that he could ride as a thruster as well as a quad. This one is sporting the new phantom decal too.
and Don's 7 footer is for Indo and Fiji. It's a quad of course with a bit of meat for a nice easy takeoff, vee with a double conny and foily rails for sensitivity and bight in the face....he's a well seasoned traveler and this new shooter will fill a gap in his quiver.

Cheers for now ....phantom

NEW MAGIC FOR TAKA

Well time flies and there have been lots done in the process, in particular a few new models that I've been working on with my good mate Taka in Japan. So here are a few boards that we have come up with that he is really stoked with and I'm really excited about. The board here on the left is a new take on the bullet. It has slightly deeper double concavees, refined in the rail and foily in the tail.... cool artwork by Louis.







This one is an old favourite that has been a great friend over the years for the clean hollow waves that we have on the Goldy. Tuned at Burleigh and proven in Indo, it's an awesome acceleration machine that pulls you down the line when you need it. Single double concave leading into 6 deep tail channels combined with down foiled rails is what defines the Phantom 6ix....nice.







The Bill'o'matic was a collaboration between my team guy James 'Billy' Watson and his desire to surf a fish that didn't just flap around in the mush but rather drive in the good stuff and actually behave it's self under pressure. Quad fins, triple concave bottom with a vee out the tail, pulled in nose and tail....high performance in crap to pumping surf....yee ha!







This one is a new design,the Tug deluxe, and yes it's essentially it's a cross between the deluxe and the Tugboat....more a tug with the narrower deluxe plan shape and still keeping the big double conny's and down rails. This one belongs to surf shop owner and all round good guy Mr doors...legend








This one also is Tug deluxe ...with another artwork piece by Louis


Cheers for now ...phantom