One of the most fascinating things in the vast world of alternative surfcraft is, once you get into it the discovery seems to never end. One of these days I come across Jeff’s work in my daily visits to surf bloging family. It did occur to me the idea of feature craftsman’s work on blog since we believe that the craftsmanship is one of the pillars that sustain the surf essence.
With so many people shapes, needs and tastes there's no other way except custom surfboard. The fact that Jeff’s committed to custom shape and use of wood caught my attention. Also, I always found fascinating the use of natural materials in surfboard construction.
I guess that material wise, when you look around Nature always has a wiser answer for your need, materials that evolved to act in a certain way, wood is definitely a good example.
Feeling curious about his surfboards I did contact Jeff and asked him about the philosophy he puts into his work:
“I basically started making these boards to try and come up with something stronger, that didn't require a lot of exotic, man made materials. I believe that wood has an inherent strength and flex characteristic, better than anything we can make artificially. It also doesn't require a lot of energy to produce and it naturally degrades. "
"I use the lightest weight EPS foam I can get to shape all my boards, so all the strength and flex comes naturally form the wood skins and rails. I build all my boards custom because I believe models can be too limiting for as dynamic a sport as surfing. Waves and surfers are unique and so should surfboards.”
“Got into shaping a little late. I'm 32 and I've been making surfboards for 5 years now. I always wanted to shape though. All through high school I constantly bugged the local builder I was getting boards from for a job. He brushed me off and told me to go to college and so 8 years later and with a master’s degree in fine arts I came full circle and started building boards in the shop of that very same builder."
"I had always been building surfcraft through those years as a hobby and it culminated in the construction of a 14 foot greenland style wooden kayak. The boat worked great in the surf and it got me thinking about the use of wood in surfboard construction. The more I researched wooden boats the more I found that wood is a revered material, not just for looks but for performance. I started by building hollow wooden surfboards (similar to boats) and the process just kept developing from there.”“Shaping a sustainable surfboard is just as easy as it has always been.You could make an oiled alaia and have a blast on it. Just look at how popular they're getting right now. The only hard part is incorporating modern design and performance standards into the process. Achieving a lightweight board with good flex characteristics and contemporary foils is a hard problem to solve. Surfers have become accustomed to a certain level of performance from their P/U boards. But then the modern surfboard has taken 60 years to develop, so who knows what we can come up with in another 60 years."
The surfboard shown it's a 5'5" Quad, a custom shape for Jeff's friend RT Thomas that affectionately nicknamed as The QuOdd. Last photo shows Ryan puting the Quodd to a serious test, photographed by Steve Hadley .
Thank you to Jeff, RT and Steve for the words and photos, please visit their webpages.
Related Links:http://www.ninelightssurfboards.comhttp://ninelightssurfboards.wordpress.comhttp://thecentralshaft.blogspot.comhttp://www.wwaarrbblleess.blogspot.com
