some content from down under!!!

david platt sent me the following via surfapig@live.com: " Hi Mike. I’ve had a couple of McDonagh pigs come in for some minor work over the last couple of weeks. Both of these boards are in great condition for their age. Greg McDonagh was one of the main players in Brookvale in the 60’s. He struck a deal with Joey Cabell while he was out here for the 64 world champs to add a Joey Cabell ‘Custom Special’ to the McDonagh range of models.

The Cabell measures in at 9'8 ¾” x 21 ½” x 3 ¼”. The wide point is 9 ½” behind centre. The nose is 15 ½”. The tail is 15 ½”. The pod is 5". The second board would have been built in 66/67. It measures in at 9'2 ½” x 22 ½” x 2 11/16”. The wide point is 14 ¾” behind centre, as is the thickness. The nose is 16 3/8”. The tail is 17 ¾”. The is pod 6". The rails are pinched. Enjoy. Regards, Platty."

nathan oldfield sent me the following via surfapig@live.com: "Hello mates. I just produced a new short for The Critical Slide Society:"

Hey Ho Let's Go Surfing from Nathan Oldfield on Vimeo.

balsa pig.

so stoked to know platty! yet again he sends me this amazing contribution. Hi Mike. Bill Cilia, a mate of mine and surfboard builder (Nirvana Surfboards) has been restoring a balsa pig. Unfortunately it is a no name, but the blank glue up and construction was done by someone with a fair bit of skill for the time. The board had seen better days as far as the glass job was concerned. Initially Bill had not planned to remove the glass. The plan was to repair the dings, sand, gloss and polish. The problem was the glass was so brittle from the UV’s working their magic, that when he started sanding the board, the glass started disintegrating in front of him. So he had no choice but to strip off the glass and re do the glass job. On the brighter side the balsa was like new. The fin was left intact, cleaned up and re glassed prior to glassing the board. The board is 9ft long by 20 inches wide. The photos show Bill and the board through various stages of the restoration. Unfortunately there are no shots of the lams going down. As I was behind the camera and it was too hard to take photos and help Bill glass at the same time. It’s always fun hanging around Bill’s little factory and giving him a hand if he needs one. Bill has a wealth of knowledge in the art of surfboard building. He started building boards in 1967. And he is always willing to pass this knowledge on without me having to ask. David.

platty giving us some mid length education!

platty sent me this via surfapig@live.com: Hi Mike. Here are some images and measurements of some boards from the transition period in regard to the Wayne Lynch inspired mid length pig.

Image 1.

Left to right.

Gordon Woods. 8’x 24 ½” N 19” T 18 ½” wide point 3” behind midpoint.

Gordon Woods. 7’6” x 22 ¼” N 18” T 15 ¼” wide point 5 ¼” fwd of midpoint.

Keyo Plastic Machine. 8’2” x 24 ¼” N 18 ½” T 18” wide point 4” behind midpoint.

Although the board in the middle has its wide point fwd, it is of the era and is an example of where shapes were heading.

Image 2

You can see that there is a hint of the pig in the two longer boards.

Image 3

This was part of an article McTavish wrote in the 70’s called “Pods for Primates.”

http://www.surfresearch.com.au/1972_McT_Pods2_Tracks_April.html

Image 4

The foils in these boards are similar to the V- bottoms they replaced. The Keyo and the longer Woods are almost identical. The shorter Woods has a flatter rocker.

Image 5 & 6

I thought I’d throw these photos in. As far as I can gather there was a fork in the road of sorts during this period of design, were one group went down the Pocket Rocket and Tracker path ( images 5 & 6 ) led by McTavish first shaping Trackers for Morey Pope in California in early 68, and then in Australia on his return.

The other path was perused by John Arnold and Wayne Lynch. Other manufactures also focused on the shapes featured. But by 69 even the Arnold / Lynch outline was becoming more like the Pocket Rocket but with a less pulled in tail. Then by 1970 it seems that the two groups came together again, going super short, all be it for a short period of time before being shocked into adding some length after Rolf Aurness won the world title in that year in Victoria, Australia surfing a 7’ plus round pintail.

Regards, platty.

thank you PLATTY!

the year of the pig.

platty sent me this via surfapig@live.com:

Hi Mike. I was lucky enough to tomb raid a garage sale a friend was having prior to the advertised date. I picked up a bunch of old Australian and American surfing mags from the sixties and early seventies. The first one I picked up was volume 12 number 2 of Surfer. I was two pages in when I saw the heading. “It’s the year of the PIG”. I thought cool, an ad for pigs. So I stopped to read the ad. As I read I was thinking some of this is not making sense. When I got down to the 1^st of the pointers in bold text I was definitely thinking this is not making sense. A 5’0” pig. It wasn’t until I looked at the inside cover that I realised I was reading an ad from the 70’s. After reading on a bit,1971.

Regards and oink oink David.

classic!

early Australian pigs and midget.

david platt sent me this via surfapig@live.com. i am humbled by the fantastic contributions that people from all around this planet are submitting.

"Hi Mike. I was looking for some info on a board I am restoring when I came across these photos. The first photo was taken at Bondi Beach in 1958. The fellow at the far left is Scott Dillon and to his left is Jack "Bluey" Mayes. Originally from Bondi. Scott Dillon was one of Australia’s pioneer big wave surfers and manufactures. He moved his operation from Bondi to Brookvale on Sydney’s Northern beaches in the late 50’s. Brookvale was Sydney’s board building hub during the 60's. With a stable of name surfers and shapers on the roster. The likes of McTavish, Bob Pike, Mick Dooley, Glynn Ritchie and Gordon Merchant to name a few. Scott Dillon surfboards operated right up to 1970. Scott Dillon now resides on the New South Wales North Coast where he has a surf museum.

Bluey Mayes was one of the "last of the hard cutters". He grew up on Bondi beach and was an accomplished cookbox rider during the 40's and early 50's. Bluey was widely regarded as one of Australia’s best surfers in the mid 50’s. He really embraced the new Malibu boards based on the boards the American lifeguards bought to Australia in 1956. Describing the feeling of riding them as ecstasy. Bluey is no longer with us. He passed away in 1997.The second photo was also taken in 1958. The young bloke third from the right in the checked shirt is Midget.

Regards. platty."

pig in a ute.

normally i abstain from posting pictures of the farm animal pigs on here...but this dog...and the story compelled me to. David Platt sent me this via surfapig@live.com: "Hi Mike. I was on my way home from a surfing trip up the coast on Tuesday. We were at a remote, out of the way spot three hrs north. Needles to say I was surfing my pig. Anyway here are a few shots of this pig I saw in the back of a ute on the highway heading South. Check out the dog wearing goggles.Regards, David"

(marc lleyellyn shot the above picture...i pulled it off a google search for "australia surf waves". i took the liberty of placing this photo in here with the other 3 photos David shot...add some intrigue...maybe that is how is was where Platty surfed!)

that dog is loving it!!!

David Platt restores a Bennett PIG!!

David Platt sent me this via surfapig@live.com. NICE WORK DAVID!! Thank you for your contributions. check his blog for details and pictures!!

 "Hi Mike. Just finished a restoration on a Barry Bennett Pig. This board is an absolute gem. The current owner is the second owner. This board was built in1959/60. It has two balsa stringers tapering from the nose to tail and a beautiful layed back D-fin that protudes past the pod by babout 4 inches. A bit of hisory. Barry Bennett was one of the pioneers of the Australian surfboard building industry. One of the Brookvale five. He started out building hollow plywood boards and surfskis in the early 50's. In 1956, after the American lifeguards came out to Australia and opened the eyes of Australian surfers to the benifits or riding the shorter modern Malibu surfboard, Bennett surfboards started production on a fulltime basis. Bennett surfboards is still producing surfboards today. The board measures in at 9'1" x 21 3/8" x 3 1/4" nose 16 3/16" tail 18 3/16" The wide point is 13" behind the mid point. Regards David Platt."

 http://davidplattsurfboardrestorations.blogspot.com/

 http://dpsr-behindthescenes.blogspot.com/

david platt knows how to recycle!

David Platt sent this to me via surfapig@live.com. David Platt RULES.

Hi Mike. Just finished a 9'6" pig. I built it from a couple of old surf club rescue boards. I've lifted the photos and text straight off my blog. Its dimentions are 9' 6" x 23" @ 12" behind centre, nose 17" tail 18" pod 7" x 3" thick. Feel free to edit if you think it is too long.

 Regards, David Platt.

 http://dpsr-behindthescenes.blogspot.com/

 http://davidplattsurfboardrestorations.blogspot.com/

David Platt's Balsa Pig!!

David Platt from the East coast of Australia sent me this via surfapig@live.com .
Thank you David! Amazing!

"Hi gnar gnar. My name is David Platt. I live on the New South Wales Central Coast, 100ks Nth of Sydney on Australias East coast. Thought you may be interested in a balsa pig I made in 2005.

This board was originally going to be made out of recycled Western Red Cedar. As old outdoor furniture supplies were drying up and end grain balsa was increasingly being thrown out at work. I decided to use the balsa and have three cedar stringers. End grain balsa isn’t the ideal balsa to build a board from but as it was free and with a little work I thought I could make it work.I use to work for a luxury motor yacht builder. Building 75' to 140' one offs. We used end grain balsa at work as a core material in the hulls and decks we builtWe had a lot of off cuts and scrap, which gets thrown out. I've been retrieving it from the garbage and stock piling it at home. It comes in sheets about 1.5 metres by 1.0 metres in varying thicknesses. I used 50mm thick balsa.The problem is the grain on the sheets runs top to bottom. On a board you need the grain running the length of the board. So I had to mill the sheets into 150mm by 150mm (6"X 6") blocks and glue them end grain to end grain 20 at a time in a jig I made up to clamp them in. In all there are 240 blocks. Plus 3 x 3/4"cedar stringers. It wasn't too bad to shape. I used an electric plane to remove the bulk and hand planes and sanding boards to do the rails. Because the density of the balsa varies a bit I found that I was getting a high spot when I had a piece of higher density balsa sandwiched between two lower density pieces.The center stringer was cut out on a CNC milling machine. This gave me an exact rocker to work to. The rocker was taken from my 9'6" old school longboard and stretched 4". I wanted a thinner tail with a little more bottom curve through the tail. Having the shaped stringer to work to was a great help. The dimensions 10’ x 23" x 17 ½" nose x 17 ½" tail x 3 ". The wide point is 12" behind the center and runs for a further 6". The thickest point is forward of center, where you would stand when trimming the board. As mentioned earlier the rocker was taken from my 9’6".The blank was a Surfblanks Aust . I think it was called the 63 rocker for old school boards. The plan shape was drawn up on AutoCAD 2000. To my design. Then a template was cut. I have changed the last 2'of the tail. Added a little more curve. Similar to the Bing No445 I restored. This is the first board I have shaped in close to 30 years so there are some areas, which are a little, dodgy. All up I’m very happy with the shape considering my lack of shaping experience.The shaped blank was sealed with one coat of Vinylester resin. A laver of 10oz Volan on each side using Vinylester resin. With cut laps. The hotcoat and gloss were regular surfboard resin. I ended up putting a 10" finbox in the board. I didn’t want to set a fin and find that it didn’t work. This way I can play with fins and positions and once happy then think about setting a fin.The finished board is very heavy as expected. 25kg / 50lb. But it is surprising how light and responsive it is in the water. Very easy to turn and trims like a battle ship. I need more time to get use to it but if feels as if it will be a good nose rider.
Regards David.

http://www.davidplattsurfboardrestorations.com.au/