Happy New Year

We just finished up a new board in the Wing Line. It's a beautiful custom 9' nose rider for a customer from New Jersey. The board has a squash tail, turned down rails in the tail transitioning to 50/50 for most of the length of the board, Some nice hollow in the nose and an in-house custom made glassed-on fin. Keep an eye out for it next time your surfing some Garden State waves.

"Tree to Sea" How-to DVD Update

I'm pretty active on some of the better known Surfboard design forums, sharing ideas and insights with the surfboard building community (and it's surprisingly vast). It occured to us that a video DVD would be a great way to broadcast GSB methods and techniques. I have a fully equipped production company, so why not? We'll be keeping the camera in the shop to record the process of the next few boards in detail (including tips, tricks and trade secrets).

Example Chapters will cover:

* Board design and selection
* Techniques for reverse engineering (acquiring key dimensions from an existing board)
* Employing Computer Aided Design
* Tools, safety, and supplies
* Wood Types/qualities and Lumber Selection
* Construction (Keel/Rocker, Frames, Re-sawing/Gluing Planks, Railing out)
* Shaping
* Glassing

This is just the start. We're working on CNC routered kits too.

If this interests you, or you have any suggestions, please let us know. Send an email to grainsurf@omniscopic.com to reserve your copy.

Also keep checking back. We'll be posting sample clips as they become ready.

1940's Waikiki remembered

Here's the kind of email we love to get (Read it here).

New fish joins the boardline

Just off the glassing rack - a new fish joins the quiver. The "Flounder" is 6' x 22" x 2 3/4" with sweet five spine fish fins.
Here is the first look but check our photo gallery soon for more shots.







In the meantime here's a few more:

Associated Press Covers GSB

About three weeks ago we got a call from an AP reporter who wanted to do a story on GSB. On Sunday, December 18th, the story went national (to all AP papers across the country). We are very happy with the story.

Here's a couple different versions:
The Honolulu Star Bulletin
Portland Maine Herald

Check your local papers.

GSB signs major long-term deal with manufacturer

In an effort to practice environmentally responsible ways, I've devised a plan to give a little back. I already spend plenty of time in the woods so this really wont be that hard. It's a very simple idea. I commit and promise to plant at least ten cedar seeds for every board we build (I asked mike to promise too and he agreed).

Board Building Update

We have two boards under construction right now in the shop, one is a 9' performance longboard, and the other is a 6'9" single fin. Both have been planked, and are in the process of having the rails put on.

Here is the 9' just after the top planks have been glued on. It is the first time we truly get to see the shape of the board and breath a sense of relief.

Perfect rocker, couldn't be happier.


Here' I'm gluing on the top planks to a single fin.

Good thing trees never go out of business

I guess this is HUGE news in the surfing world:

Clark Foam shut down by EPA

Honestly, I've been too busy building boards to be following this issue. But a friend of mine said recently "Surfing never needed foam."

Be that as it may - our longboard and single fin projects are coming out absolutley beautiful! Mike will have an update soon.

Back to the grind

We've been commissioned to build a couple of boards. Mike has undertaken a custom 9-footer and I am begining a 6'9" retro single fin called the Samurai. I'll let Mikey tell you about his project, but for me, I'm experimenting with using my computer to help in the design phase. I drew keel and frame patterns in Illustrator. The idea is to print out these patterns full size and use them as templates. As of tonight, I've got my frames shaped.





To the left you can see the Illustrator file I've generated (click on it for a bigger version).



Here we are down in the workshop. Mike is showing off the deck template for his 9-footer and I'm punching numbers into my computer. By the way, that fish I'm using as a table is just awaiting a shipment of epoxy. Once it's glassed it will need a good home ($1250 call for details).

Here you can see frame templates being dealt with at the kitchen table.