Saturday 2 August 2008

finessing the curves

John and I were talking with Sally from the original surfboard company ref design. We have been riding our Wegener alaia bellyboards and Sally's ply bellyboards and noted the very different approach that had been taken in crafting the various vehicles.
The Wegener boards are shaped in a similar fashion to that of a stand up board, with subtle curves running form top to bottom of the rails and undulating bottom shapes, whereas the ply bellyboards are cut and pressed, lacking the more finessed curves of the former. It got me wondering if there are any more examples of finely shaped timber bellyboards out there, or are they all of the cut and pressed variety.
Does anyone have any information on this and would you be willing to share examples?
Cheers, Christiaan (aka: slaphead).

10 comments:

Brooky said...

"It got me wondering if there are any more examples of finely shaped timber bellyboards out there"

www.paipoglide.com

Unknown said...

The Surfing Museum has about 40 boards dating from the 1920s to the 1960s - most are pretty similar - cut and pressed.
The only difference is some were solid woods like ash (earlier ones), then came marine ply.
We do have one with handles cut into the rails and a slight bottom concave in the tail.
Some of the Oxenden boards from 1920s Jersey were hand carved like traditional Hawaiian... then of course there were the so-called 'coffin lid' boards made by a Perranporth undertaker - two flat planks nailed together with battons! We also have two Tom Pohaku Stone alaias and an olo...

bellyboarduk said...

Brooky, Andy tells me he has a board in production for you, you are a lucky chap, they look lovely. I reeaalllyyy want to have a go on one. Hopefully soon.

bellyboarduk said...

Hi Pete, John tells me he has shot the front and back of all your boards, I will get him to show me the images, but it would be great if you could take a few digital shots of the details such as the concave you mention.
I'll have to get your number off john and give you a call. Christiaan.

Brooky said...

Hi Christiaan,
Yep, that's right. One of Andys lovely paipos is well underway. It's to be a gift for my daughter Sarah for doing brilliantly in her exams. As for the bellyboards, I've got an original Surfrider 8 that has very little nose rocker but does have (probably accidentally) a good 1/4" of concave just where the nose starts to rise. Sarah has had this on a clean face and says it just flies and steers by telepathy!

bellyboarduk said...

Brooky, got any pictures of the nose rocker and concave that you could share? Would be great to see.
Does your daughter, ride out back with fins and/or does she slide in the shallows?
It would be great if she could tell us about her experiences riding timber boards.
Does she consider it surfing or something else?
Would make an interesting perspective.
cheers, Christiaan.

Brooky said...

Can do Christiaan but I've no idea how to load pics into a blog comments box. Help?
Brooky.

Brooky said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Eef said...

Hello Christiaan,

i made some paipo's and bellyboards myself, you can find them at:

http://www.monsterboards.org

greetings, Eef

bellyboarduk said...

Hi Brooky, if you email me any content you want posting, I can publish it for you. Would be stoked to get your contributions up.
email me at:
oceanmotionpictures@hotmail.com
Cheers, Christiaan.