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Yesterday we had such a beautiful morning down here in Cornwall, it would have been a shame not to have made the most of it. With no surf about, Romain Juchereau and I headed over to the woods where the National Trust's board began its life to get some background shots for a little short that we are about to complete...as soon as there are some waves!

About 18 months ago, the head gardener of this Trust property got in touch saying that they had just had to fell one of their biggest Macracarpa trees (can anyone tell which garden it is?) and wondered if I could make use of any of the timber they managed to mill from it. With all the fissures and inclusions in the trunk, there wasn't actually much usable timber that they could salvage from the tree, but enough for a surfboard!

So over the past couple of of months we have been building a board using only the macraparpa for its skin. It has turned out to be such a beautiful board and all of the Trust staff that we met yesterday were blown away to think that it used to be one of their trees. It was great to see their reactions and also to take the board back to where it grew...I can't explain how excited it made me feel having the board back int he garden with the warm sun out and not a breath of wind, just such a great way to close a project.

So the next and last thing for us to shoot is some surfing on the board and we'll get the video wrapped up and posted online.

Here are just a few shots I snapped on my phone while we were at the base of another huge macracarpa within the grounds.

Check out that tree! The board is one of our mini magic shapes and stands at 6'10 and is completely dwarfed by this macracarpa, which was planted at the same time as the tree from which the board came.

You can just about make out some of the beautiful detailing in the timber...more shots will be on their way!

Romain behind the camera gettign a few more shots...we both agreed that we would have happily stayed for there for hours in the morning sun enjoying the woods.

Day Two of our one week workshop

Here are a few snaps from our second day in the worshop with Darren. Today the emphasis was on the rails...we needed to get as many strips as possible in place today to make sure we could hit our target tomorrow. Things managed to run so smoothly that we even started thinking about the nose and tail blocks too!

The rail strips are a tricky thing to get set right without breakages, but once the first few are on, the rest follow on pretty easily. Although it's important to keep your concentration to achieve consistant glue joins, which i think Darren found out as i was following him around for most of the day making tiny adjustments to his clamps.

Those first couple of strips going on give us the outline of the board - so critical.

Darren made the most of all the clamps at hand...lucky he was the only one building rails on Tuesday!

Darren making some micro adjustments before applying the clamping pressure.

The board starting to take shape now, you really begin to get a sense of its template.

Towards the end of the day we even had enough rail strips on to start fitting the nose and tail blocks.

Day One of our one week workshop with Darren

Here are a few images of what we got up to last monday with Darren from Jersey. It was the first day of our first one week build-a-board workshop and the day passed with a few cups of tea, plenty of conversation and surprisingly few hiccups....

By the end of the day we needed the framework to be cut out and glued together, then marked out onto the bottom skin and glued down for some overnight curing. The board was a custom 7'4 that Darren had the pleasure of naming....he had a week to think about it though, so didnt decide the first day.

Fitting the framework together to make sure it all fits.

The laying out of the frame is key to the whole build going smoothly so we took our time and glued it down at the end of the day.

The overview of our first day of work....in the new workshop too!

The next set of handplanes are ready for some oil!

This month's batch of handplanes are almost done and ready for their oil coats so if you'd like to get your hands on one as the water starts to warm up and swimming about in the surf seems like a nicer idea, drop us a mail and we'll set one aside for you.

We're soon to be launching a photo competition for our handplane owners too, so if you have one or are planning on getting one, get snapping and you may well find yourself the proud new owner of one of our hoodies!

Who wants one?

Our Storyboard Project makes it into The Surfer's Path...last week to grab a copy!

Through last year we pulled together a project with friend and phtographer Mat Arney called The Storyboard. What began life as a few photos and an idea soon became the seedlings for a full exhibition. We documented the story of one of our surfboards, from the timber being harvested, milled, machined and finally constructed into a board with a few little twists along the way.

We have exhibited the board and its 12 accompanying framed photos at a couple of places down here in Cornwall. Firstly the Tubestation at Polzeath at the end of last year and currently it sits at The Scarlet Hotel in Mawgan Porth.

Mat, being the talent that he is, wrote a lovely story to compliment the photographs. Putting the two together, we have had some handmade books created by our friends down the road at Monkey Puzzle (£25 from our website) and following this, we have been lucky enough that The Surfer's Path picked it up as a feature article in their current issue (88).

The magazine is only on sale for one more week, so if you want to get your mits on a copy you'd better move fast!......failing that, here is the whole 6 page article....you can just about read it if you make the images full screen.

The Cover...we didn't quite make it that far! Maybe next time...

Others from the South West that made this issue...Karl Mackie, photo on page 10....Julian Mathews of Gulf Stream, interview on page 30.....and Rob Tibbles, full photo portfolio on page 70

SAS Fundraiser Board Sold on E-bay

The 6'10 Mini Magic that we built as a donation for the SAS fundraiser raffle last year was kindly donated back to them as the raffle winner felt she wouldn't be able to do the board justice - how kind! So SAS put the board up on e-bay to see if they could raise some more cash and it sold last weekend for a bargain price of £1022...with a Wave Tribe board bag and leash as well as a lovely Rainbow Fin Co. 9" fin.

The final winner is somewhere down here in Cornwall, so hopefully we'll be able to build a good relationship with them and get some feedback from the board as well as offer them a visit to the workshop when they come to SAS to pick up the board.

Here are some pictures of the board that SAS took to show the board off and if you want to get your mits on one, let us know and we'll see what we can do for you....

Dom from SAS holds the board up in the sun at the back of their offices in St. Agnes

The Winner's loot - board, bag, leash and fin, oh and one of our little jute bags to keep his accessories in.

The board in the making last year - looks like we needed to tidy the workshop a little!

I wonder if we'll be working with the guys down the road again...keep a look out for further collaboration projects coming this year!

Handplane Review in The Surfer's Path current issue

We have been lucky enough to have two sections about us in the current issue (88) of The Surfer's Path. One of which is this one here, with a lovely write up about our handplanes on page 36...Thanks to Alex for such a lovely review and keep up the good work with the magazine!

Let us know your thoughts and if you'd like to get hold of one of our planes, we are making our next batch this week