Diamond on Fire

 Redwood burl, Flame maple, Ebony

Early 60's, Hobie template

The fin is cheater-coated and ready to laminate in these photo's.   It will be laminated, with a 5/8", old school, clear bead around it.  It will become a framed art piece for a good friend and client.  That's all I can give up right now.  Christmas is coming.

Recent Fins

Tri-fin set for an 11'0" Skip Frye Glider.  Owner;  Luke Brown

Wood burn art on birch plywood.  Woods;  Ash Burl over figured bubinga over 1/4" Finnish Plywood.

Tri-fin set for 11-0 Pavel,  fish-simmons.  owner; "Big Steve" Shirmacher.

solid flame maple.

 Rising Sun, "D" fin for a Weber classic longboard.  Owner;  Scott Johansson

woods: African walnut and flame maple.

Tyler Olson's 2nd Commerative Board

T.O. just picked up the 9-0 longboard that commemorates the birth of his second son.   Tyler will ride these occasionally, but his main goal is to pass each of these on, in great condition, to his boys when they are old enough to surf.    Board #1 is 9'4" glassed in volan.  Board #2 is 9'0" glassed in standard cloth.

"SOUL ARCH"

Aloha Tyler

Tri-Fins, double-foil x 3 for 10'-6" Al Merrick Gun

Woods: Redwood lace burl, sandwiched between quilted maple.

This incredible board is a colaboration by al Merrick and Larry fuller. I have done lots of fins and finsets for Larry's special boards. I was stoked to get to help with this one. It began as a solid redwood board by Al. Larry Supplied the wood, Old groth California heart redwood from a defunct winery in northern California. The wood was once part of a room-sized cask that aged california red wine. Larry has his own secret (really) sources for incredible woods. Larry took the shaped board apart at Jimmy Phillips shop and chambered it, bringing the pre-glass weight from around 110 lbs.....to about 28lbs. In this photo, I had just finished cheater-coating the board with a 50/50 laminating resin and styrene mix, an absolutely necessary step to prevent the wood from "gassing" as well as absorbing too much resin when glassed. The same treatment was required for the redwood fins.

11-0 Glider for Chris Tomlin

Pick-up Day. My young shaping apprentice, C.T. could have shaped this one himself, but he wanted one from me. The outer-space shine is from reflective tape on his USMC sweat suit. This American Hero, an E.O.D. specialist, has 4 tours in Iraq. He deserves to shine!

Glassing: by Michael Miller Surfboards www.mmillersurfboards.com

dbl 8oz volan both sides + 8oz volan deck patch.

Dimensions
Fin: 10" flex, 12" up. Finnish ply with sapele veneer.

Aloha C.T. JC

Tyler's # 2. Ready for the Glasser.

Blank layout: I glued up a 2" center T-band of agave and 1/8" cedar. The 3/16" outboard

T-bands I glued up with 3/32" cedar / balsa / cedar .

Woods: Fin, Tail block and Nose block are of old-growth, curly redwood, Peruvian walnut, American walnut and flame maple.

Your basic point-break, single-fin long board.

Dimensions: 9'0" ~ n 16" ~ w 22-1/2" ~ t 14-1 /4" ~ th 3"

Custom #2 for Tyler Olson

Tyler's #1. I built and shaped this board for Tyler in January, '09. Tyler ordered it to celebrate the birth of his #1 son and to eventually pass on to him. (Pretty Freakin' cool!). This 9'4" has an agave and redwood T-band and 1/4" outboard redwood stringers .

We did a custom fin, nose block and tail block for it.

Tyler's custom #2. Tyler just ordered a similar board to celebrate son #2. This 9'0" I just glued up for him has a 2" agave and 1/8" cedar T-band and narrow t-bands 6-3/4" out from the T-band. This one will be very similar, but I will change up the fin and tail block designs.

#2: She's templated and ready to shape T.O. as soon as I build the fin, none block and tail block.

I'll keep you posted!

Aloha, JC