New custom hand plane

Here 's a new custom hand plane, or I might call this model a Hand Sled, for a birthday present. Made from royal paulownia with mahogany stringers and white cedar and mahogany nose & tail blocks. I did a little experiment with texturing the deck on this one too. As always there is a nice concave on the bottom for lift.

I think this is my favorite one so far. Models like this one will be around $150 if anyone is interested. Basic hand planes start @ $65. Send any custom orders to info@JKSurfArt.com

Kara's hubby's cutting board

Some of the rips for cutting boards went into the glue up for my college friend Kara as I said before. I shot a pre-glue-up photo, but forgot to take a post return from the mill shot. Oh well. The guys @ South Jersey Lumbermans hooked it up. It was run through their giant belt sander and flattened out perfectly. Some finish sanding and routing and it came out perfect! This cutting board measures approximately 24" x 18 1/2" x 2". Wow it's a beast, super cool though. The coolest one yet! So far it has 1 coat of butcher block oil on it. I'm adding a few more and then shipping it off to Lancaster.

Let the cutting boards start up again...

Kara, an old friend from my art school daze, contacted me on Facebook about a cutting board for her husband. I of course said yes. This one is going to be a beast... 2' long by about 18" wide and 2" thick. WOW! I'm going to have to take the glue-up to the mill to plane it down, b/c my planer can only handle 12 1/2" boards. Here are the boards being milled from a few pieces of maple hardwood flooring scraps my buddy Jimmy gave me. Plus there will be pieces of purple heart, yellow heart, black walnut, and mahogany being put into the random glue-up blank.

Custom Wedding Cake Topper ...

My friend Steve Gibson and his new wife Kathryn commissioned me to do a piece for their wedding cake. Congrats guys the wedding looked beautiful. I'm glad you chose me to be part of your special day.

Special thanks to Rebecca Perazza-Benson for the photos.

Dashboard surfing San O

Here's a shot from Sterling's dashboard rider's perspective...

Dashboard Riders headed to San O!!!!

These 2 dashboard riders will be on proud display in 2 different San O surf vans. These triple stringer boards are glued up from maple and mahogany, both with red cedar log cutoff bases (I found on the beach in my secret spot).

Sterling, I hope you and your buddy enjoy these guys as much as I enjoyed making them.

New baggies designed by yours truly...

They are finally here...

I designed these shorts as a part of the Quicksilver Collaborative. 6 surf shops were chosen to design their own shorts. Heritage Surf Shop was one of these, and I was asked to design a one of a kind "Fin Revolution" painting to use as the print on them. Quicksilver made up a pair of their bitchin Diamond Doby board shorts with the image. I'm super stoked on the way they turned out.

Here's another one of them tharrrr tide clocks for the Old Salt in Ocean City, NJ... The body of the glue-up is Maple & Brazilian Cherry with a t-band of blood wood, pine & purple heart.

2 of Lances' wall hanging boards...

Here are 2 boards I finished for my friend Lance for wall art. The first is made from brazilian cherry, red oak, purple heart, and yellow heart with blood wood and maple nose and tail blocks. The fin is made from 12 sheets of fiberglass cloth with a mahogany stringer running through it. The second board is made from 1/4 sawn red oak and black walnut w/ mahogany nose and tail blocks. The fin on this one is made from red oak and mahogany.

Enjoy Lance!

Also, check out www.chipmiller.org charity foundation, it's Lances' families orginization dedicated to memory of his dad Chip. You can also follow them on Facebook HERE.

Andy's Firewire finished...

Here's a pic of the finished firewire of Andy's that I posted in a prior post... more from the ding room . It turned out really good. I'm getting better at these major epoxy repairs. Better late than never, I guess.

Anyway, it's all finished out and ready to hit the water again buddy. See you soon.

Dashboard Fishermen...

I just completed 12 of these for my friends @ the new 24-7 Bait & Tackle shop in EHT. They will be available there for purchase. They have great wiggling action and are mounted on driftwood bases. Check them out before they are all gone.

Busy woodworking day...

White cedar alaia w/ red cedar and paulownia tailblock

Harry's paulownia arc tail alaia

Handplane #10 paulownia, red cedar & mahogany (sold)

Handplane #11, paulownia downrailed swallow tail (sold)

I spent most of yesterday working on some projects for clients and my Etsy shop.

The Alaia Raffle board (Being raffled off @ Yesterdays restaurant in Marmora, NJ on 4/9/10) has been cut out. I also cut the bottom concave in yesterday as well as planed out the bottom rails. This board is made from white cedar with a red cedar and paulownia tail block. For raffle tickets contact me @ info@JKSurfArt.com .
Harry's Alaia has been skinned and is ready for the concave to be cut into the bottom.
Finally I made 2 new bodysurfing hand planes, one for a client and one for stock. The first is a slipper model made from paulownia with red cedar and mahogany stringers. The second is a downrail swallow tail model for Paul Aman. I'm coating both of these with a sanding sealer and a waterborne polyurethane. Once that is dry I'll add the straps.

more from the ding room...

As I've said before, I also fix surfboards. With surfboard technology constantly changing these days you need to step your game up. I got a friends buckled Firewire a few months back and have been researching how to fix it. The big thing was to get the cracked EPS back together. I had to inject 2/1 pour foam into the crack, cut back the extra, and then add an epoxy/ferring filler combo to take care of any extra bubbles. Then I sanded it back and wrapped it. Tomorrow I'll sand the wrap back and give it a final coat of epoxy. Then I'll do a final sand and paint it so you can't even tell.

New 3' boards in the works...

I've been working on some boards for clients lately. These are all around 3' , hand glued and shaped. The first 2 are for Lance and are going to be wall hangers. #3 is for a large sculpture and is once again inspired by Mike (Gnar Gnar) Black's Pig project. The 4th will be for a large sculpture also which will be placed in a local dentist office. # 2 & 3 will get glass chopstick fins that I am about to mount today. More pics to follow.

Heritage Ocean City counter tops cont...

The counter tops are now coated and look insane!!! There is so much figuring in the African Mahogany. The shimmers of gold are my favorite.

Heritage Ocean City counter tops

I've been working for the last month on building a new counter for Heritage Surf Shop in Ocean City, NJ. The base display cabinets are built out and now I'm working on the counter tops. This top is inspired by the floors I helped Jim Hyde of Old School Hardwood Floors install in Steve and Cookies by the Bay in Margate, NJ. It is reminiscent of an old boat deck. The African Mahogany and Maple set themselves off very cool. Here are shots of the tops before coating them.

Harry's Alaia continued...

I finished out gluing up the tailblock to Harry's board. I added a few more pieces of wood too. Here is a pic of the tailblock glued up and the outline of the tail cut out.

Curved tail block...

Here is a shot of the curved tail block I came up with for Harry's Alaia sitting in the jig. It's made from 3 strips of Honduran mahogany and 2 strips of royal paulownia.

Harry's Alaia

Here is the glue up for my OLC buddy Harry's alaia. Harry is the owner/roaster of Harry and Beans Coffee, yep, the guy that keeps me all coffeed up!

I ran into a bit of trouble milling this paulownia. The last time I got some it was very clear w/ minimal knots. This batch, from a different source, was riddled w/ worm holes and knots. Unfortunately I had to mill it into smaller pieces, so this glue-up is made from 5 pieces of royal paulownia. It's going to be around a 6'4 arc tail. I might do some fancy glue-ups in the tail for effect. We'll see.

Custom Sculpture for Carla in PR...

"10 Over" for Carla

Carla Puerto Rico contacted me about a sculpture last week. I made a cool little sculpture base out of royal paulownia with a hand hammered copper wave. The board is made from 11 strips of glued up mahogany and yellow pine with a mahogany fin. It came out super cool.