Young innovator getting ready for summer.

Although Marlborough, New Zealand is not known as a hot-bed of surfboard development, Tom Costley is leading the charge thanks to his Australian surfing connections. He has taken to building himself a quiver of wooden boards through the colder winter months in readiness for some quality time at his local break Robin Hood Bay. Tom has a strong connection with the bay as his grandfather and great grandfather both grew up there living next to the sea.We look forward to updates and ride reports.
 Here Tom proudly shows off his latest shape , he has gone for the high performance thruster fin setup on this one , long ,  narrow and built for steep fast waves coming in off Cook Strait.

 Tom keeps it simple with tool selection and workshop space, a very organic approach to his craft.

 He is very relaxed in the shaping bay and enjoys the thrill of creating new boards.

The ever important fin placement only comes from years of experience.

4 wooden boards on the go at once

 I decided to take on 4 boards at once and get them together for the up coming Wooden Board Day. So it was quite an undertaking. As you can see by the line up of cut blanks.I have started by designing the blanks in AKU Shaper on the computer. So the normal board design and then taking away 4mm for the deck skin and 3mm of thickness for the bottom Paulownia skin. Also allowed for the rail build out of 20mm and had the rails cut square in the Core Fusion EPS blanks.

 

 5ft 10" round nose Simmons , 5ft shovell nose Simmons and a 4ft 8" round nose Simmons.
I designed the files in AKU shaper with 4mm taken off the deck and 3mm off the bottom for the timber and 20mms off the rails so that they are square cut.The blanks are Core Fusion EPS.

3mm of Paulownia is glued all round to hold the rocker in the board as it has no stringer.

 After trimming the 3mm all round to the foil of the board , cut the top and bottom skins 5mm oversize and glue up the blank with polyurethane glue mist water onto the wood to aid the glues reaction. Tape the skins in place, slide them in the bag for 2 hours with the pump on and out it comes like below. Ready to be trimmed up.

 With the bagging you can pull some pretty big curves.

 Gluing the Paulownia stringer in the Alley Slider blank which I had hot wired out of block ESP.

 Starting the rail build out 4 x 5mm strips

4ft 8" - 6 laminates of 3mm Paulownia to go round the nose. It takes a while.

5ft 10" all trimmed up ready for rail bands to be glued on.

 Adding the 3 x 6mm rail bands on the 4ft 8"

Tail block on and ready to man the hand plane

 Foiling the rails once all the wood is laminated on the 4ft 8"

 This little board came up nice. A real test hand planing the rails on the little board from rolled nose and up rail to 50 / 50 in the middle to hard down rail in the tail in 4' 8" length. Lots going on in a short length

 The 5ft board coming together quicker with the square nose and tail.

2 done nose laminate on the 5' 10' started and Alley Slider bagged

10ft long and one rail band nose to tail. You can see the 5mm concave through the nose.

 The 5 footer came out nice as well.

Fin set out for Futures boxes and Rasta Keels

 Gluing up the custom  hot wired EPS blank for the 10 footer with a 5mm Paulownia stringer

 3mm all round in this case nose to tail one length.

 I got the AKU machine to cut the 6mm off the deck and 4mm off the bottom and foil the rail bands on the way through.

 Nice clean job with 3mm of Paulownia all the way round.

 Gluing up and adding the skins prior to bagging.

On the bottom I was able to pull the 5mm of concave in the nose and even start up the underside of the rail with the timber with a 20mm rail build out of Paulownia.

 Was able to pull a good deck roll even in 6mm Paulownia

 The steam iron enabled me to glue the rail bands on nose to tail in 5mm tick Paulownia. It really softens up with the steam.

 Last rail band glued on the 5ft 10"

 All ready for foiling out and shaping the rails

 Not all these shavings are from this board

 Last bit of glue prior to shaping the rails

 It has come up pretty nice 6mm on the deck and 4mm on the bottom and it feels about the same weight as my foam and glass one.

 All ready for the fin box to go in and a few coats of lanolin to finish.

 This is the finished 5ft 10" simmons for Brian with Rasta Keels from Futures

Brian says it rides completely different from his foam and glass version

 I used a rubber stamp to brand the boards as there is no glass to float a tissue under. 

Seems to work well.

 10ft x 24" x 3 1/2" - 5mm of nose concave tapering back to flat at the widest and thickest part of the board before a roll out round the fin and a tail flip on the deck. Just like the foam ones I build.

 It rides unreal and is very easy to catch waves , very responsive.

A 10" Slick  fin from True Ames Fins works well.

 This is the 4ft 8" for Raz , great looking little board. Looking forward to his ride report.

Rasta Keels once again.

 This is the 5ft x 23" for Josh , a nuggety little board with plenty of float as he goes 85kg and flies on his foam one. His ride report will be interesting.