Safety

This is my Dad's gun. Thick Redwood stringer, Double leg plug & Pintail.

Board Swap

This is my friend Yoshi and I with our new boards.

A few months back Yosh wanted me to make him a Vector... in the end we decided to make a board for each other and do a swap. Yoshi makes beautiful boards on the Gold Coast under his Takeda label, is a craftsmen and does some beautiful resin tints as you can see on the fish he made me.

Since beginning shaping I have found myself more and more just riding my own boards... for two reasons I guess - firstly its important to stay in tune with the boards your creating and secondly I guess I feel in some underlying way that I should be riding my own boards. After all, why would somebody buy a board off me if they saw me surfing and I'm not even riding my own board!

But the truth is I love riding other people's boards. It was interesting riding Yoshi's fish he made me... feeling different sensations on the wave than my fish gave me... drawing slightly different lines... learning.

I remember maybe about 10 years back my dad went through a period where he predominantly rode boards that other people made him. Experiencing different designs, giving himself a break from the dust and fumes, and learning a lot. I remember I thought it was a strange thing for him to do at the time.

To check out more of Yoshi's work go here.

Aaron's New Verve

Here's my buddy Aaron with his new Verve. Hope you're getting some sweet rides bro.

A Kid Called Jack - LSD from A Kid Called Jack on Vimeo.

Here is some selfless self promotion.
For my new blog at tumblr.
The vector is ridden plus a hint of 9'7 Log.

Logging Last Year at the Pass

Pics: Keith Novosel

Sweet Ride

This is Joe Hall riding a board my father made him quite a while back.

Say's Joe "I'm riding 'Red', the 6'1" your dad shaped me a few years ago. It's double 6oz on both sides and was a nod to the eighties thruster but heavier and with some more recent tweaks. haven't ridden it much this year, but it's a great board and that was a really fun session."

Joe has his own blog which you can check out here.

Another Beginning

A friend of Dad's was removing a tree from her property which we are hoping to make some surfboards from.

Wooden boards come out beautiful, are a pleasure to make and even more fun to ride. But there's a lot of hard work and patience in the spaces between. Here's some pics from the weekend.

Its not often Dad, Heath and I are in the same place these days so it was cool to load the logs together.

Dad sizing up the log.

Dad said it might only take an hour. He was off by a few!

Home.

pic by STsufimages

PJ Hawaii Quiver February 2004

Dad with his Handcrafted Hawaiian Quiver - 9'3" gun, 10' 2" gun, and 9'0" Vagrant

Vagrant means 'one who wanders from place to place and has no settled home'. The Vagrant was designed to be ridden in a variety of conditions, but to excel in larger more powerful conditions such as hawaiian reef waves.

This board was a favourite of dad's and left behind as a gift to Tom Stone and his family.

Back from the Cold

Just got back from 10 days hanging out on the North Island of New Zealand filming for a documentary. Got some cracking waves but it was really cold. It was an interesting trip... there were 8 surfers of different ages and backgrounds and 4 film crew. I was so frothing being out of the factory and able to go surfing that I forgot to take many pictures.... below are a couple of snaps I took.

A couple lineup pics of Manu Bay.

A few of my boards I rode one morning at Manu Bay. I love swapping boards when I'm surfing... it's great to feel the subtleties of each board in the same waves... especially when the waves are are lined up and breaking the same.

Mt Taranaki in the top shots. Sitting in the line up you could see it gleaming in the distance. Its' snowy top looked beautiful but made me feel even colder! Bottom 2 images are of my 8'9" Alaia and an old Del longboard I borrowed for a surf. The Del was similar to some of the old mals I've been ridding here in Oz and I had a ball on this board.

Couldn't help but see the humour in this sign.

So I have changed over to tumblr.
This has great meaning, as you can now stalk me here.
Photograph from Duncan Macfarlane

Noosa 9ft Shortboard

Keeping in the theme of old photos from Noosa.
Here is one from Andrew Carruthers.

Extended Valla Family

Here is a photograph I just found.
Of everyone after a lovley feed after amazing day of Noosa waves earlier this year.
Keith and Analisa, Brett, Sage, Yuta, Matty, and my large family.

Where it all starts.

Pic by Angela Raab.

Vice

Image by Keith Novosell

Mates, waves, winter, fire, cold beverage = good times

Pic by Duncan macfarlane.

Dreaming

A good day was had today, continuing to document Paul Joske pursuing his dream of making a surfboard from seed to sea. Nearly a year ago to the day, I witnessed Paul cutting down the grove of paulownia trees he had planted years previously. After twelve months of curing time, the timber was finally dry enough to mill. So that's what we did. One step closer to seeing Paul's dream realised. I look forward to to following the journey & including it in my next film.

To Middle Earth...

Heading up the coast today... Flying out to New Zealand first thing Monday morning. Above are a couple pics from a trip there last year with Brett Caller and Nathan Oldfield. Top is Brett at Raglan & bottom is myself logging at Manu Bay. Will back on board blogging and shaping in around 10 days!

Both pics: Nathan Oldfield

Outline

Hanging out at the factory last Saturday with Jack and Brett. Outlined a new longboard for Brett. It was fun searching through Old mal templates and not so old longboard template to create something new but with roots in the past.

Quad shorty.

Heath and sage working on a new quad shortboard for Heath to take with him to Jay Bay.