Well, with the rain-day off from work today (seems like we've had a rainy weekday at least once a week every week this year), I decided to clean up the shop a bit, and while doing that, I decided to install two more boxes in my Simmons and try it out as a quad. And, judging by the surf forecasts, it's looking like I might not have to wait too long to test it.
There's SF 004 in the back there, healing from some ding repairs and very lonesome. Someday, 004, someday. On the mini-Simmons, put the trailing edge of the front fins up 10 1/4 I think, with 1/4" toe. I'm hoping it works well, at least until I get some more keels for the board.
I found this Clairtone Stereo Cabinet while walking Henry before work yesterday, so I quickly grabbed it, thus saving it from rain and/or the junkyard. It has a tube-powered Clairtone amplifier/receiver in it, and I tested the tubes; they all work, just two have a faint gas leak, nothing major. The AM/FM on said receiver does not work as of now, but it's just the dials that are messed up I think, because you can hear the a faint station and static. It also has a Garrard Laboratory Series Type A turntable, which, I am happy to say, DOES work, and sounds pretty good.
It blows my mind to think that someone would throw something like this away. "Hey, Trashman, here's a relic from the past. Nope, they don't make them like this anymore. Yes, it's in good shape and works but I don't want it, please smash it to pieces in your truck." Unbelievable. What blows my mind is that this was found on one little side street in Tuckerton, NJ. Just think what kind of stuff gets thrown out everyday the World over? I can't think about it...
It even had the manuals.
To test out the record player, I grabbed this record from the stack in my living room. Herbie Mann Live at the Village Gate, recorded November of 1961. I hadn't listened to it in a while, and after listening to it now, I don't know why. This song, "Comin' Home Baby," is the first of two songs on side A, and it's really, really good. The whole album is actually. Check it out.
Had a good surf on Thursday morning. It was my second time out on the mini-Simmons, and this swell was much more powerful than last week, the lines at WJ were connecting for so long, w/ the best rides, at least for me, coming just outside of the Rockpile and heading south. Was having tons of fun, but then, for some reason, I went to take off on a pretty nice wave, and the tail just slid right out from under my feet. I knew right away: a fin's gone. And it was. That's the second time I've made box fins that they have gone missing during a surf, which is discouraging. The first time I knew the reason, they were cedar-core, which is a soft wood, but I thought the glass would help it. This time, they were all fiberglass, so I thought they'd last, but something must have given, because the set screws were still set, so the glass must have broken. Real bummer, because even though I planned on trying out different fins in the future, I would have liked to test these a bit more. Plus, I liked the yellow/blue color scheme. Oh well, I've got some FCS FK-2's coming, which I think might be a little small, with only a 7" base, but they were cheap (used) and if they don't work for this they'll work for future projects. That's it for now.
Another one of my favorites of his, "Spirits Rejoice." However, this version isn't as good as others I've heard, but I can't find any others, and it's 9 AM on a beautiful Saturday morning, so I'm not going to sit on the computer any longer. TAKE IT EASY.
Jeannine and Erin have started a blog for their Etsy site, on which they sell vintage clothes and housewares and whatever else they want to sell. You can check out the blog HERE, and if you ask me I'll tell you the items I have on consignment there, so you can buy them and make me a rich man.
Old things are better, and that broad-sweeping generalization is not just a nostalgia or a vain reminiscence of bygone times, but a fact, for the most part. Take a Pyrex bowl, for instance:
I use this bowl, not this exact bowl, but a bowl just like it for oatmeal every day. The pattern and colors are really interesting(look for the Spring Blossom Green series Strange Flora Surfboards, coming soon), but really simple all at the same time. No superfluous details or extravagant hyperbole, just a plain bowl with a simple floral design. But these old bowls feel good to hold, and as far as the bigger mixing bowls and all that, they just work better. Mix something, a cookie batter or anything, in a plastic bowl, or even a metal bowl, and then mix something in an older, heavier Pyrex bowl. Feel the difference.
Also, show this to your grandparents, or even parents, and chances are they will recall this or a similar set with fondness. When we are older, will we remember that plastic bowl from Target or that metal bowl from Walmart? I can tell you we won't. It'll just be another thing we had that was cheap and got dirty and old and broke and we bought a new, shinier, plastickier(sic) one. That's one of the things I like a lot about old things: they represent a time when industry attained, for a brief, magic instant, the ability to create things of quality and substance that would be not only remembered, but used to the highest degree of their intended function, for decades and decades. The same could be said for old surfboards, glassed heavy and made to last. This is before everything became disposable.
So, I'm done with that, now go to their Etsy site and buy things. If I ever sell my Skil 100, it'll be on there, but I never will, so just buy something else instead.
Sometimes, this is one of my favorite Bob Dylan songs. Joan Baez tries to ruin this version, but it's still alright. The album version, on The Times They Are A-Changin', is much better. Seek it out.
Hey, why don't you take a moment, just one, and go vote for Frank's design over HERE and help him win big things. There are cash kickbacks given to Strange Flora Surfboards for every person who votes a five, so get voting.
Well, I've taken advantage of this outrageous flat spell to actually "finish" the Strange Flora shaping/glassing facilities. It got to be too disheartening working around open framing and bare insulation, not to mention not quite energy-efficient, so I decided to do some work before proceeding with anything else board-related. Now I have an actual space, with a door (!) and switched overhead lights (!!). I think if all the World could get as excited as I am about those simple things, then maybe, just maybe, this sinking blue ship would be saveable.
Oh yeah, and all those boards lying around aren't clutter, they're boards in the midst of repairs, all sanded and waiting for some resin work. After finishing up the last board wading through junk sandpaper, extension cords, tools, dust, and used masking tape, I made a New Year's Resolution, something I am not very wont to do, to keep the shop clean. It'll be better for the boards, and it'll be better for my mind, too.
PLEASE KNOCK! Well it looks like waves just around the corner, and not a moment too soon before I lose my landlocked mind! As Ishmael says:
"Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking peoples hats off - then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball."
Today's musical selection seems to befit the first rainy day we've had in a while. If you haven't heard of, or perhaps, have heard of but have not heard, Nick Drake, I implore you to do so at your earliest convenience. All three albums are great, and all the collections of unreleased material are equally worth your while.
Maybe it's the lonesome way my soul has been driven to during this ridiculous flat spell (doesn't the ocean know I have a new board to try out?), but I've been listening to a lot of the mournful late-60s early-70s country rock of Gram Parsons lately. Well, not all of it is down, but it's all very, very good, from the International Submarine Band, through his stint with the Byrds to the Flying Burrito Brothers to his solo stuff released right before his untimely demise in '73. I suggest you discover everything he did or had a hand in, because it's all good.
If the Riptide Wranglers ever become a band, they will cover many Gram Parsons songs.
This blog was started as a way to chronicle my adventures into surfboard shaping and just surfing in general. Since its inception, it has evolved into a log of whatever I feel like rambling about and sharing with the world, including, but not limited to: photographs, bicycles and bicycling, film, music, gardening, cute pictures of Henry, and more.
