Strange Things are Afoot at the Circle J

I'm not going to lie to you, friends--things have been a little nuts lately.
First, we moved. Deep into the 'burbs. How deep? So deep that I, who's natural compass is as fine-tuned as a Russian spy satellite, have a difficult time making my way out of our 'circle' in the morning (all the street names end in 'circle'),.Or evening. It's like Groundhog Day, only on a five-minute loop.
The good news is that my kids love it. They only come inside at night, like turkeys. Also, like turkeys, they spend most of their days barefoot, pecking at each other and not paying particular heed to car traffic (which is, granted, mostly minivans trying to find their way off our circle).
The better news is that my new shop will be up and running soon, so very soon I can catch up on backorders and stop turning away nice folks who are interested in custom boards.
Speaking of boards, this one's for sale at SEALS Watersports here in Santa Rosa. It's my take on a 90s hi-pro longboard (rocker, volume), but with a bit beefier of a glass job than its predecessors, which tended to be as fragile as a polar ice cap with a Republican-dominated congress in office.
Excellent for our steeper beachbreak at any size, or pointbreaks at lower tides or when things start to pick up.

9'2"

 Looks like a baby square tail, but it's actually a rounded pin being swallowed by the lush, deep, slightly umami-smelling, 1980s-era shag carpeting of my new living room. Don't get too used to it--wood floors are on the way!

Shiny

This thing's got enough finboxes to keep even the most OCD tinkerer (me!) busy for a long while.
Go feel her up at SEALS if you have a few moments. Ask for Zeke--he's huge and could crush you, AND he's got a mess of kids, including a newborn, so be super nice.

Blue Tuesday

Spring's a season of vexation.  On one hand, things warm up outside and we can all stop wearing socks. On the other hand, there's the itching. Oh, the itching!
Surf-wise, we're also on the opposite end of the shred stick from Fall. The wave period drops lower than a limbo bar at a gymnasts bat mitzvah party, and the onshore wind speed climbs higher than my grandpa's WWII khakis.
In his poem The Enkindled, subtleperv D.H. Lawrence writes of spring,

                                   THIS spring as it comes bursts up in bonfires green,
                                   Wild puffing of emerald tress, and flame-filled bushes.

I get the 'bursting' part. The 'bonfires green' makes sense, perhaps, to those living outside drought-plagued California (more like, 'bonfires banned because of severe fire hazard'). The only wild puffing I've seen is from my eyes, which I desperately want to scratch with the force of a thousand fingertips. Oh, the itching!

We'll chalk up that last part, "flame-filled bushes" to some typical D.H. Lawrence stuff, which could be boring or gross, depending.

The best remedy, as far as I can tell, for spring's one-two sucker punch to the histamines is a new surfboard.

This one's Cat's:

9'5", 2+1 Bronson, which is crazy fun all around shred sled with a pleasing combination of curves and flats that can handle a vast swath of Northern California conditions. Which is what we see in Spring. For example, this week's forecast calls for everything from 2-3 foot swell to 2-3 times overhead. Spring!

The engine room features some serious edges complemented by patriotic-hued fiberglass fins. The center fin's a flexie, so it wants to snaaaaaap! out of turns.

This is the part of the board where some shit happens

Spring's blows are lessened a bit by a new, blue shred sled. Couple that with some Port Charlotte "Islay Barley" release, and you should be set until Fall, of which D.H. Lawrence writes,

                                                        I go slowly,
                                                As under the hairy belly of a great black bear.
What's with that guy?

Foiled Again

Fish

 Is

Good

The Dog Days of Winter

In his poem No Possum, No Soup, No Taters, Wallace Stevens writes, “it is deep January. The sky is hard. The stalks are firmly rooted in ice.”

The poem title leads one to believe it probably doesn't get much better from there.

Sorry, bro!

Excepting the worst drought California has ever experienced—and it’s seen some doozies—this year so far has seen lots of metaphorical possum, soup, and taters.

The first of January saw Mario’s new 6'4 looking like this:

 While I was in Southern Baja doing this:

Then back home to Sonoma County where the shit got fifty shades of shreddy and looked like this for a solid week:

Then Mario’s board suddenly looked like this: 

And this:

And this! And, again, our pots were full o' possum.

Clearly, we need rain. Shakespeare's no Punxsatawny Phil, but it would be great if February goes something like  act five, scene four of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, when Don Pedro greets Benedick with, “what’s the matter, That you have such a February face, So full of frost, of storm and cloudiness?”

We'll take some of that.

A Very HHG Jewishy Christmas in New England

Shaped, Glassed, Wrapped in Northern California.

Unwrapped, Jumped On in New England.

Intracontinentally stoked.

This year's  Headhighglassy Kind-of-Jewish Christmas in New England Tour saw much family, much stoke, a few alarmingly underheated homes, rain, snow, high winds, freezing temps, freezing rain, freezing snow, and enough fine bourbon to fill every bathtub in the fine state of Kentucky. The highlight was my eleven-year-old niece's first custom shred stick, ready to rip NC waves with the unfiltered stoke of an eighty-pound ten-year-old girl.
Of course, back home the local beachbreak has been pumping. The weather, according to the local paper, has been 'epic' both at the beach and inland. The sandbars, previously as unruly as a cowlick, have smoothed into shape.
Still, it's nice to be swathed in down and wool, drinking steaming mugs of hot tea while the gray light outside fades and my girls gorge themselves on My Little Ponies, which Santalah Clausenberg knew would keep four and six-year-old girls occupied for hours without interruption--long enough for the grownups to pull another tiny dog onto our laps and sample some more fine bourbon.
I took a brief hiatus from shaping in late 2013 to work on some other stuff, including my website, which can be found right here.  I still don't know how to feel about it, but it was time and makes things a bit more simple, and what could be better than simple?
Other highlights include talking to tiny dogs in New York accents, storing perishables in cars (!) when there's no more room in the fridge, complete Rainbow Loom takeover, debating the current existence of Megaladon with a fourth grader, catching my seventy-year-old parents grabbing each others' asses in the kitchen, and watching kids fall over in snow. Doesn't get much better than that.
Anyway, here's some more pics of an 8'0 Broadsword in some snow.

 Happy New Year!

All Clear

Cha-Ching! Paul gets to cash in his Sandwich Club Card with the receipt of this sleek 6'0 double-wing MiniSimmons. It's got a slight arc tail, a cedar stringer that made my shop smell like barbecue for a few days, and is super shiny.

If I had just aquired my sixth board, I'd go for a General Washington: an off-the-menu #98 with fried chicken substitited for halal chicken on Ike's own (non roof-of-the-mouth-destroying) dutch crunch. Good lord!

I hope Paul doesn't order a Lizzy's Lips (halal chicken, italian dressing, pepperjack). Not because the of the sandwich, which sounds awesome, but because Lizzy is my sister's name and that would be weird.

This board can be ridden as a four fin or three fin. I recommend pairing it with some waves, a little wax to make your feet stick to the board, and a nice dram of Templeton Rye. Even though it's from Iowa and not upstate NY, this is one hell of a whiskey. Honey and vanilla give way to crisp mint and wintergreen. Makes me wonder why I used to waste valuable drinking time mixing in vermouth and bitters. Perfect on a cold night, a warm night, a mild night, or during a hockey game. 

Keeping it Bronson

Jordan's a good guy. He agreed to meet at my favorite Outer Sunset baking company for a mind-blowing breakfast sangie, then handed over some monies and a mind-blowing Highland single malt--perfect for summer!

In return, I only had to hand over this surfboard: 9'4 single fin Bronson.
If trimming were currently-gentrifying mid-sized cities in Northern New York state, it would be Rochester. You get the picture.
It feels very good to ride this surfboard on waves (they're made by wind!) in the ocean.

True to the Bronson legacy, Jordan kept it classy: cedar stringer, clear with a gloss-and-polish finish, volan deck patch, neapolitan mixed-wood tailblock (cedar, bass, balsa, redwood). Tight.

I recommend pairing this wave-riding vehicle with Jordan's generous gift: Ancnoc (pronounced uh-knock, which is great for creating Ancnoc-Ancnoc jokes)12yr. It's first casked in bourbon, so you get the toasty vanilla and caramel notes of a fine American whiskey, then finished in sherry casks, so you're not at a loss for rich fruit and mulling spice flavors. Highly recommended after a summery-but-foggy California/Baja shred session. The malt will work its way down from your head while the feeling of a locked-in bottom turn works its way up from your feet. They'll meet right in the middle, coating your heart with a malty mixture of blissful warm stoke. The undeniable harmony of a single fin, a single malt, and cold, cold water. Ahhh, summer.

Of Beards, Boards, and the Naming of Things

It would be a nailbiter if TofuChris and I had a beard-growing contest. My Scottish/Jewish heritage has me predisposed for both facial-hair density and uniform coverage, but Chris's lack of shame and humble grooming habits more than make up for the sparseness of his face bush.

9'4"

Plus, Chris pays little heed to the Full Beard Protocol, which clearly mandates beard-free faces between Memorial Day and Labor Day (similar to the Law-of-White-Pants for douches).
Beards aside, we figured it was time for Chris's signature model, mostly because he's been begging me for a 'signature model' for years, and I don't give a shit either way. We nailed the design, a high-pro noserider for  beachbreak shredding, but got stuck on the name.

In Genesis 2:19, Adam named all the animals in one big push. Impressive. We tried this with the help of a few IPAs, but came up with bupkis.
The obvious choice was the TofuChris model, but agreed this could isolate hysterics and meat eaters--my core constituencies.
I like keeping it simple, and offered Hi-Pro Beachbreak Noserider. Shot down.
Chris liked The Throatee, after his beard, which comes in low and hangs on dearly. Perhaps a bit close to the Neckbeard model by an industry leader in imported boards...

Names are central to identity and should be taken seriously. Scientists are keenly aware of this, which is why we have the Dumbo Octopus and the Dhole wild dog.
So I'm taking matters into my own hands and calling this hi-pro beachbreak noserider model the Helen Putnam, after Sonoma County teacher, mayor, and county supervisor. What a lady!
Plus, it's the name of the Ike's sandwich TofuChris is most likely to shred after one more punch on his Sandwich Card--avocado, breaded eggplant, cheddar, and french dressing, yo!

 It's business time.

One Lone Swordsman

New Broadsword, and punch #3 on the Sandwich Club Card for SC shredder Mike.

This was my second-to-last blank from a batch of US Blanks that had insanely dark cedar stringers. Every time I'd make a pass with a hand plane my shaping room smelled like someone eating a pulled-pork sandwich in a Norwegian sauna.

Mike wanted a shorter version of his previous Broadsword (see here) for maximum rippage in more sizable surf. Since he digs the other board so much, we just had to make some down-scale adjustments (rocker, outline curve, fin placements) to recreate the magic in a smaller form.
Customs are rad!

If you live in or around SC County, there's a solid chance Mike oversaw the shipment, unpacking, and shelving of your foodstuffs. Not an easy job, nor one without some serious lift-from-the-legs skills.
The dude knows his veggies!

Le Bronson

Who introduces a new classic longboard model while the NW swells are still pumping long-period juice onto our rocky shores?
I do, bitches!
This is The Bronson. In France, you would call it Le Bronson.

Know what feels good? trimming.
The Bronson is designed to be an all-round, crazy fun, trim machine. The nose is pulled in so that it finds the pocket, then lodges itself firmly into it. The tail is wide, the bottom is rolled, and there's an edge behind the fin for release.

Will it noseride?
 Like its namesake, The Bronson is no one-trick pony. But yes, it will noseride.
The rest of the time you can find it locked in trim after taking the drop, fading back toward the curl, wrapping around, and finding the sweet, sweet, sweet spot on the wave.

This one is for Northcoast ripper Brendan. He likes surfing cold, dark, meaty waves. He looks like Paul Bunyan and could totally kick my ass, but he's a super nice guy. It has a tailblock.

Bronson. Nuff Said.

Local H

What do you do when a really big dude wants you to shape him a big board?
You shape him a big board, damnit.

 Howard, who stands at least three feet taller than me and would make Thor feel like a schoolboy in shortpants, gets a 9’9.
Why 9’9?
Because he wanted something between 9'8 and 9'10. I'm no math teacher, but 9'9 seemed right in there.

Howard is a bicoastal shred and ocean enthusiast, a hell of a kayak fisherman and--I hate to blow his cover--as nice a guy as you could ever meet. So, if you see him tearing it up on the central coast, just go ahead and push him off his board and have a turn on it.

You might want to bring a couple friends to help push, though. Even then it would probably look like a kindergarten class trying to uproot a sequoia.

Production shot of Almar Glassing and Tony's resin-fume hideaway. Those stands have seen more tints than a Jersey Shore tanning booth!

October

If March roars in like a lion, then October pads in giddily like a golden retriever, all joy and gentle reminder.

You may need these, October suggests, your socks cradled in her mouth as you creep out of bed at dawn, suddenly darker than it was last week. Or this, she says, nuzzling a sweatshirt.

October points to the Thermos you almost forgot on your way out the door, the hotwater jug, the hat October knows you’ll be glad you remembered when you get out of the water.

October rides shotgun to the coast, head out the window, head back in to look at you, warm lips stretched into a smile, and asks, isn’t this amazing?

And it is.

And then you’re at the coast and October is bounding in a frenzy, dizzily pointing the soft cylinder of her nose at the sea—its cloudy breath and slick, morning-gold surface.

Then she’s wriggling, belly on the ground and you lower yourself to see what she’s got. Down here, she implores, listen. And you press your ear to the ground—wet, fresh—and you hear it. Thump Thump Thump of October’s tail on the packed earth.

Thump Thump Thump of the waves’ as they shatter onto sand.

Thump Thump Thump.

Deeper you listen, eyes closed.

Thump Thump Thump it goes.

Winter’s almost here.

Your Title Here

I shaped a clear winged keel for a customer last month. He rode it the day he picked it up, which was about twenty minutes after it was polished.

Did he give a shit about recommended curing times?
No, he did not give a shit about recommended curing times.

He was very excited about the board after he surfed it, which made me very excited about the board, so I shaped another one.

Why? Because I like the shape, and I couldn't sleep due to an afternoon cup of coffee. The coffee was a bad choice.

Also, there was this blank in my shop. Just staring at me. Daring me.

And now it's daring you!

You see, it's for sale.

5'8x 21x 2 5/8. Single wing. Cedar stringer. Gloss and polish. Foiled. Fun beachbreak board for someone between 48 and 300lbs who enjoys surfing.

Lokbox boxes and CI keels (not pictured) for maximum shreddage.

Good for All Occasions

Egg.

7'6.

Performance foil.

Fins.

Scotch.

Why pair Old Pulteney with this fresh surfing board?
Thanks for asking.

The OP 12yr is a classic, no-nonsense, workingman's scotch with a surprising complexity: honey, peat and spice, and a saltwatery briney finish that grabs you by the heavy canvas pants and exclaims, "this goddamn scotch received its character from the ocean. So should you. Just like this goddamn 7'6 egg with a performance foil and a 2+1 fin setup. Good for all occasions."
That's why.