Way To Go David

David doesn't like to toot his own horn. In fact he's very low key about his shots. He mostly does it just to bring a smile to his friend's faces.  Me on the other hand, I'm stoked for him when he gets his shots into the mainstream so I don't mind telling everyone.  

So if you happen to see Surfline's feature on the west coast double swell you will see the shot above. During that swell he spent a few hours posted up on the bluff shooting his friends for fun. One of them just happen to get a great shot so he sent it off to Surfline not expecting much. To his surprise he got a call letting him know he made it in. Congrats David and Jon! Great shot and surfing.

Inspired

16 year old John Cappetta sent in this picture he drew of Erik. He saw this photo on the site, got inspired and sent this in. Way to go, John. Keep up the drawing!

Were You Out This Day?

Dec 26, 2001, were you out that day? I have had these pictures on my various computers for 8 years now. They were taken by my friend's boy friend Mark. I borrowed her camera one day and downloaded these by mistake. I just came across them and was stoked I still had them. I remember that swell well. These were shot on the roof of their Neptune house. There is some serious size for out front and more surprisingly it was ridable. Most huge swells close out.

Grain Update - Hot Coat and Sanding

After having to take a break for a week to due to sick kids, we were back at it with the Grain. This time the hot coat was on our list of items to tackle.

Once again, Kipp did his thing and guided us through this process.

Kipp leveled.

I taped.

I poured.

Kipp heated the resin so that the bubbles would come out.

A trick that all should know. I got the rookie tip that hot coat resin was just laminate resin with a surfacing agent added.  You can buy it premixed (more expensive) or you can buy the additive and add it to your left over laminating resin (less expensive). Thanks to the guys at Encinitas Surfboards for hooking me up with that piece of knowledge.

The board was prepped and ready to go.

We didn't have a shooter so again, the hot coat was committed to memory. It was VERY quick. I let Kipp do the deck to watch how it was done. The resin kicked REALLY fast. It was a good choice.

Came out great. No problems.

Next up was pulling the tape.

A lot of the glassing processes is redundant. You do a lot of the same processes over again.

The bottom went smother yet and was done in no time. I set out to do the bottom myself but Kipp ended up diving in at the end as the resin yet again set really quick. We need to work on refining our catalyst ratio.

More tape pulling.

Done!

She is a beaut or what?

Now it's time to sand.

Sort of made me nervous to take a power sander to her.

I got the hang of it pretty quick.

Lots of dust. You sand and then you hunt for "Shinnies" as Kipp puts it. Anything shinny hasn't met the sander yet. 

It took a bit to get it done.

After the deck was sanded we cleaned her up to see how she looked.

Then we started on the rails. You have to scrape the bead that is left from the bottom and top hot coats overlapping.

A razor works really good for this.

It took some work to do but it was fun and really worth it.  More to do but looking forward to it.

Before this project I took myself for a "Likes to surf surfboards" guy over a "Likes to build surfboards" guy but I have to admit after taking a week off I really started to miss it. I'm going to have to find another project to do when I'm done. I'm thinking some fins. That would be cool.

Thanks to Kipp for taking some really great photos as well as telling me what to do!

More John Haffey

Ebb and Flow Fundraiser for the Arts is a Success!

Results are in. With the help of the community Ebb and Flow was able to raise over $6000 to rehire the art teacher. Really cool. I love the way the community comes together in times like this. Give it up to Ryan at Ebb and Flow for organizing this. Go give his shop some love. Click on the image to enlarge the flyer to see all the other fine folks who helped out. I'm taking note and will support them as well. Congratulations everyone!

View photos here.

Video of Sunny Garcia at Pipe Winter 2000

In Dec of 2000 I went on a trip to Honolulu for a marathon Alia's mom was in. On the plane ride there I was reading Surfer and all about how Sunny was the new world champ. The trip was really short. Maybe 4 days max. On one of the non race days we rented a car and went out to the North Shore to check it out. I had never gone before. We parked, walked up to Pipe and sat down on the beach. Right as we do Sunny walks up and paddles out in front of us. I had just gotten a video camera and was so stoked to watch and film this all go down.  It was a smallish day for Pipe but everyone was out. (Andy, Bruce, you name it, were out.) Sunny was on top of the world. You could feel how stoked he was.  When I got back I put this little video together and forgot about it until today after I found it cleaning up an old website I had it posted on back then. It brings me back to that day. It was one of those things you never forget.

A side note on that board he's riding. It is a bamboo veneered board by BSA ( Bamboo Surfboards Australia). Everyone knows that he rides for BYB, but he actually had 2 board sponsors at the time.

Music is Beck http://www.myspace.com/beck 

Thumb Prints by Cheryl Sorg

My neighbor Cheryl has been working on these really cool finger print pieces lately. I would stop in and bug her while she was working on them so I got to see the progress. I was intrigued even from the beginning but once finished I was really impressed by the detail of it and the use of book covers and such as the medium. If you follow her work she normally does a full book's copy cut out and reassembled together as large objects. These are smaller at about 24" high and uses a multitude of book covers and text from her favorite readings to make the piece. 

If you want one of your own finger prints with your own favorite books and such as the medium let her know. If you get one send me some photos so we can post it up.

By the way, is it just me or do thumbprints look like barrels?