Wellen Body Surf Art Show a Success

photo Pierce Kavanagh

Skye Walker 

photo Pierce Kavanagh

photo EL

Matt Jung form Wellen put on a very cool, first I've ever I've heard of, Body Surfing Art Show at their old HQ. Complete with original artwork by the artists Skye Walker, Keiron [Seamouse] Lewis, Ciro Bicudo, Jen Peters, Anthony Faucheuxthat who work with Wellen. 

We were lucky enough to get invited to join in on the fun. For our part we brought eight handplanes to display along with a little impromptu wave sculpture I made out of scrap card board and hemp string complete with little hemp string bodysurfer. (Not pictured but added in the night by Kipp was a beer tab for an handplane.) 

Thanks to Matt from Wellen for inviting us!

Thanks to all the artists that participated in making the Art Colab models with us! If anyone wants a handplane painted up by one of them let us know.

As more pictures come in from the event we'll post them.

Clockwise from the top center:

"The Greener Blue", Resin Tint on Foam by Kipp Denslow

"The Yellow Mexi", Resin Tint on Foam by Kipp Denslow

Untitled, Acrylic on Hot Coat by Tak Aoyama

"Enjoy the Universe", Airbrush on Hot Coat by Peter St. Pierre

"Tinny Bubbles", Pencil on Foam and Resin Tint by Ed Lewis and Kipp Denslow  

"The Crabby Trilobite", Posca Pen on Hot Coat by JP St. Pierre

"Orange Iket", Acrylic on Hot Coat by Susan WickStrand

"The Harder They Come", Acrylic on Hot Coat by Jeremy Farson. 

Center: 

Untitled, Cardboard and Hemp String by Ed Lewis

photo EL

photo Pierce Kavanagh

photo Pierce Kavanagh

Live'n the dream

Kipp and I have been busy with the handplane project. We are having a ridiculous amount of fun with this. You can see more over at the enjoyhandplanes.com blog. We feel like we stumbled onto our 12 year old boyhood dreams of shaping, surf photography and surfing. It just turns out that what we thought was a dream about a 6'0" thruster was really a dream about a 1'3" handplane. Oh well, we'll take it. We are self actualized and live'n the dream!

The best part though is knowing that the 12 year old boy in us was a genius. He knew how to make us happy. He knew that if we made things with our hands all day and played at the beach with those things we made we would be really stoked. We would get up in the morning and run to work and do it all day without the foggiest idea that it WAS work. Brilliant. I just hope the 60 year old me is that smart.

Candy

Kipp made this one as an experiment in color and texture. It looks like a piece of candy. There is a lot going on but I have to admit it turned out really cool.

The process of making these handplanes takes awhile and is a labor of love. Each board we make is like a little friend to us. The process is interesting. You start off with a little white ghost and then when you add color it becomes alive, it takes on a personality of it's own that makes you want to see it take life into it's final form.

This little guy grew on us, as it had such a unique personality. I certainly didn't want to see it go, but it didn't stick around long. It was for sale for a day and it got snatched up by my friends and local water couple Rich and Allie. It made me feel better though that it was still in the neighborhood. Go have fun little candy board. You have good owners now and will spend many days slotted in barrels.

Blue Horizon - GoPro Ready - Enjoy Broken Board Handplane

We're calling this one Blue Horizon. This is the first of many Kipp and I started collaborating on. Many more are on the way. I have been doing a bunch of shaping and helping out with the glass jobs as well. I love resin tints. This one we experimented with and did it right on the foam. It came out really cool. You see every nook and cranny in the foam as it fills in with the resin and darkens up. It looks like watercolors. Amazing in the sunlight. The pictures don't do it justice.

Again this one is made to be a GoPro POV tube machine. All it needs is a tube hungry test pilot, a GoPro and a little south swell.  Contact us if you'd like to own her.

Latest Enjoy Handplane - GoPro Ready

Here's the latest addition to my quiver. Enjoy Broken Board Handplane #5 by Kipp Denslow.

I've been getting some really fun waves with this one from the outside all the way into these little inside barrels.

This one I'm really excited about because we are developing it for water shooting with a GoPro camera. We added an FCS mount to the nose so we can attach one.  This one is designed with a bit more foam so that when you are swimming it stays on top of the water rather then sinking.  It works really good as your arm stays afloat and it doesn't get tired from trying to hold up the board and camera while you shoot your buddy. It also works great around here because it lets you plane like crazy through the flat sections to get those inside POV barrels shots.

If you have a GoPro and want to try one of these out contact us. I'd love to see what kind of shots you get.

Mini Me Handplane by Kipp Denslow

This handplane project is starting to get really fun. What started out as a way to save some boards form the landfill has turned out to be ridiculously fun both in the water and in the shaping room. I don't think I have laughed so much in the water in my life. I feel like a little kid again. If you have been bodysurfing then you know what I mean. There is something addicting about it.

This latest handplane is one Kipp made. He made it to match his board he shaped a while back. I really like it. Love the colors and it works really good too.

We have a fresh batch we are glassing now. We have made 9 so far and will need to start letting them go to good owners. As much as I feel attached to them we can't keep them all. They need good homes so we can rescue more blanks and make more. 

 If you are interested in buying one send me an email and we'll let you know when they are finished. Also for those GoPro owners. We have made and are testing a version with a Camera mount!  Perfect POV tube vehicle!!!

More to come later... Enjoy

Tie Dye Resin Tent Handplane By Kipp Denslow

Here's the latest broken board handplane by Kipp that came from the Iron Cross. Complete with tie dye resin tent and pin-line.  I have to admit that these handplanes are addicting. It's sort of crazy you get that new board rush even though they are just over a foot long.

Kipp and I will be at Sacred Craft tomorrow with these so if see us around stop us to check them out.

Enjoy.

The Iron Cross is already turning into Handplanes

Kipp doesn't waste any time. With the fresh foam from the Iron Cross, Kipp has been busy making some new handplanes. He has been getting inspired and going nuts with the resin tents. He's making me wait to post the final boards but here's a hint of what one is going to look like. He got the idea from a piece of  tie die that was laying around.  Enjoy.

Broken Board Handplanes by Kipp Denslow

For a while now I have been thinking about what to do with the countless broken boards I see at the beach and in peoples yards. Boards that will never see water again and will eventually end up in the land fill. 

The idea of these once beloved boards ending up in the trash just because they got snapped bugged me. It was a waste for one and cruel to a board that was once free and spent its time in the water. 

After some thought and some inspiration from Cyrus Sutton, Danny Hess and Brown Fish for their wood handplanes, Kipp Denslow and I started playing with the idea of turning these old boards into something new. Something that we could reshape into a new beloved friend of the wave riding persuasion. 

The result of this project was something that has completely opened my mind to a new world of wave riding. The goal to save broken boards turned into something much more. It turned into fun!

With Kipp as the shaper and glasser and me as the broken board hunter and test pilot we are setting out to clean up the landfills and have fun while doing it.  So if you have a broken board and it will go into the trash, give us a shout and we will take it off your hands. Who knows, maybe you'll see that board again in the water someday? 

Enjoy.

EL

Kipps New Mini Wood Fish

Kipp's been at it again. This time he made a beautiful mini wood and bamboo railed fish. Kipp got the blank from Cowboy Dan's Wood Working Wonderland, complete with built in rocker and precut fish template. The fins are custom birch plywood he made himself.

Grain Update - Leash Loop

I knew right away that I wanted to do a leash loop on this board. With that said I have never seen one done and had actually only seen one on a board in person once. Luckily, Murphy clued us in as to what to do. But mostly we winged it. It came out really cool though.

Step one. Not pictured. Go to the drive through at Burger King and order something that comes with a straw. Places that sell milk shakes have the best straws as they are huge. Cut the straw to fit the width of the section you are spanning. I cut the sides at an angle which worked well for me.

Sand with a little 100 grit.

Take your fin rope and put in through the straw and cut to size. You need enough out the sides so that you can fan it out like a bow tie and attach to the deck.

The trick to this is that the straw is there to hold shape and resin. To get this to work you saturate the fin rope by holding on to one side and sliding the rope to the one end of the straw, wetting with sanding resin and then sliding back through the straw. Repeat until the rope is saturated. Next, fan the rope strands out like a bow tie and press to the deck.

After the resin is set, use a grinder, sandpaper and a razor blade to remove the straw and grind down any excess.  We ended up with a bubble so we added a bit more resin and then grinded.

Sand...

Sand some more...

Don't forget to get under the bridge...

Wala. Leash loop!

All and all, easy and fun. Try it on your next board.

Yet again Kipp was a huge help and my resin guru. Many thanks for helping AGAIN!

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!