Burnett Wood Surfboards

You can’t stretch a plank of wood and so the length of the piece of wood dictated the shape of this little 5’.4”.

The shape is based on a similar board I made years ago for smallish, underpowered waves. I surfed it with twin keels and also experimented with a single fin. It was fun, like a skateboard on the turns and you didn’t need much power in the wave to bring it around. I took it on several surf trips. A great surprise was surfing it in more solid waves - a steep drop on such a short board always felt very sketchy, but once on the face with a bit of power in the engine room it felt amazing. There’s a local reef that in the right conditions gives you a chip shot into the bowl of a larger face and it really came alive in those conditions.

Great to have had Ryan in the workshop making a longboard. Here are a few shots of the process.

We were talking on one of the days about the value of making things by hand, and I appreciated a comment Ryan made that he liked handmade items because he could see the humanity in them.

Yes! In a world of AI and increased automation there seems to be something so valuable about the process of making, using your hands, and the individuality and creativity that infuses that process.

Many thanks Ryan for the good vibes and company.

The workshop this morning…

Well done Mike for finishing up his own hollow wooden longboard in a workshop last week.

Mike started out choosing the planks, glued all of the wood together, added the internal frame, built the rails, added the deck and then shaped the board and finished the woodworking, all done over five days. It’s nearly 10 foot long and came out beautifully.

Make your own ride workshop week…Milner just spent five days making his own hollow wooden longboard. Always inspiring to see how passionately people engage with the process of making their own wooden surfboard from a pile of planks through to the shaped board, and how everyone brings their own life experience and skills to the process of craft. Surfing, and working with our hands seems connected to something innate within all of us - creativity, freedom, immersion in nature…it all feeds our souls.

Polo, the original workshop hound who loved this exact position as she waited for me to close doors and go home. She grew up with my two kids, always had a friendly wag in the early mornings and was there from the beginning of making wooden boards. I sometimes wish I had the hard drive of her point of view.

📸 Daniel Grebe

Happy couple…so pleased that these two are going to the same home as they really do belong together. They come from planks from the same forest, same tree, all selected with the idea of making a set of boards that matched each other in look and feel.

After about four hours, shoulders aching, I ended up next to another guy I’d never met before and we sat on our boards and smiled at each other. “This is getting to be hard work,” I said to him. “Beats any other kind of hard work,” he shot back at me, and we both laughed before the next set rolled in.

Last rays of the day, last look at the workshop before heading out the door after an early surf and a good day of work.