file:///Users/administrator/Desktop/-%20CHANNEL%20ISLANDS%20SURFBOARDS%20-..webloc
The ultimate pop-out? Hand made in the US of sustainably harvested wood. You can have any size you want as long as it’s a 6’2".
http://store.grainsurfboards.com/products/ci-board-deposit
And yours for only $2350 (glass-ons $200 extra?!)
callin bullshite on this one!
that’s what I call EXTREME GREEN MARKETING
here you have a ‘boutique’ wood board builder teaming up with a mulit-national corporation to harvest as much ‘sustainably’ harvested wood as they can so they can sell as many boards as possible.
may as well drive a hummer.
I will do a better board for $10 less…
Hi Paul. I didn’t intend the thread as an advertisement. I just thought it was unusual for the biggest (?) board company in the world to be offering HWS kits. In a way it’s a validation of what you do. (???) What do you know about the Grain guys? You probably taught them everything they know, eh? It sure seems like the technique is identical to yours.
There was recently a spat about people who come to Sways, get info and then, through marketing skills, go big time. And never share their info. Were the Grain guys ever here at Sways? Just curious. It seems more than coincidental that their technique is…yours.
Don’t go there.
OOps. A little history I’m not aware of?
I’m at work, last 15 minutes of school before summer vacation, watching my students going crazy…
ah, to be 13 again…
Hi Llilibel
PJ and Grain have the same overall concept, but their methods and techniques are quite different. There are other differences, but to see the main difference check out the rail construction of a PJ board and compare it to a Grain board.
Paul is most definately a good guy and I have no reason to believe that Mike and his crew are not. Paul was influenced by nobody in coming up with his methods for wooden board building but only the Grain guys know if they were influenced by Paul. I personally think that the Grain guys were taking a logical progression from building kayaks to surfboards as their methods are nearly identical. Did they gain some insight from Sways? Probably, what better resource?
Is the CI/Grain board marketing? Absolutely. Will anybody bite? I hope not. A much better investment would be PJ’s how-to CD (formerly free info on his site until too much piss taking took place). Combine this with information freely obtained on the tree to sea website and fine tuned with info here on Swaylock’s and I can’t see why anyone would ever need to buy a kit at all.
Paul is running on pure stoke - Grain are running a business; you can’t blame them for trying to tie up with Channel Islands really, can you?
Paul - I’ll be finishing up the PJ/Channel Islands surfboards as soon as it goes flat again.
Cheers
Buter
As far as I know (and I know very little) the methods to build the rails are different. Grain’s surfboard have rails made using a “Strip and Feather” method, I think Paul Jensen’s boards have solid rails…after I guess it’s basically the same: planks on ribs.
From those who have built both style of boards, I hear that the basic differences are these:
The Grain method necessitates building a special “Rocker Table” to
assemble the board…I use any flat surface…
The Grain method lays and glues the deck and bottom strips of wood one by
one onto the frame, one side at a time…My method has the deck and bottom strips of wood taped
together as a unit, then fiberglassed to hold the strips together, then the skins are attached to the
frame, both at the same time…
The Grain method of building out the rails is uses special “cove and
bead” strips of wood glued to the frame, strip by strip, taking at least
several days…At the tighter radius of the nose, steaming of the wood is
required…I use thin cork and thin bending plywood laminated together with various
instant bond methods to build out the rails…Doing it my way, you can build out
the rails in a day, easily…I also build out a hollow rail, not solid as
some seem to think…
Both methods are similar in that the basic design (length, width, rocker) is
built into the frame…One big difference is the way we do the rails…The Grain method for shaping the rails is that you just simply sand
smooth what they have designed as the rail shape…You only have about
1/8" of adjust ability to the rail shape or risk sanding through into the void…My way of
building out the rails allows you to adjust your rail shaping as you go…Hard,
soft or anything in between, it’s up to you…
I hope that came across as fair…
Paul
I my opinion, grain is doing a great job! They are bringing HWS to the public and are doing what almost everybody here dreams off: “Gaining money with building surfboards inside the USA”, or are these already made in thailand (in that case I’m totally wrong)?
But for me the best job grain is doing is sharing their build methods for free, Paul is doing the same great job offcourse 
Actually Paul is doing a greater job: I like to draw a parallel with the opensource software (firefox is opensource software). The opensource movement believes that all the code should be available for free and everybody should be free to modify, improve and redistribute (under the same conditions). They believe the profit is in the service, bringing software solutions and not selling code. There is a license called GPL that makes sure that you can’t use the code without the release of your modified code.
That’s actually what Paul does with his build your own HWS workshops! Except that there is not some sort of license.
BTW: get your own software for free, join the opensource movement http://www.linuxmint.com/ OR http://www.ubuntu.com/ OR http://www.opensuse.org/ OR choose your own at http://distrowatch.com/ (I use archlinux, but don’t try this one unless you know what you’re doing). You will be amazed by the ease of ubuntu, linux mint or opensuse.
Hi Paul - thanks for the explanation of methods. Reading it brings a couple of questions to mind, as well shedding light on business plan(s) and goals.
Besides the business end, I'm wondering about the characteristics in your technique in laying up flat skins and then bending them over the frame? I'd imagine, even though the skins are thin, that there is some stress on the glue joints when bending. I wondering too if you make any effort to do this in a warm room, or if you prep your material for bending. I like the refinement in procedures in the method you use. It seems very efficient.
Having heard your description on Mike's technique, I like the sound of individual strips laid up on the frame and can see this as a solid (traditional) way of building their board. I read they have boat building roots, which are cool, but can't help but think that they price themselves out of the market with labor cost. I don't really know, just thinking out loud.
I couldn't give a rat’s ass though on buying a CI lam, or being affiliated in one of those designs. To me, it shows where they are coming from, and where they are going. I love where you are going, all the power to you!!
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aloha~ep
Hi Hans
I agree 100%. I’m all in favour of seeing less high performance white potato chip boards in the lineup and more boards with character like a hollow wood or chambered wood board.
What I meant when I said that I hope noone bites is that if the price of $2350 is correct for this kit then I hope not a single one sells. To charge this kind of money for a kit because it is associated with CI surfboards is ridiculous.
There are enough free resources that will help you make all of your own frames, templates, skins and the rest that a kit isn’t really needed. If you still need more help you can buy the how-to cd from Paul.
If you still want a kit, you can buy a board kit from Grain for a lot less than what was quoted earlier in this thread. Paul also sells frame kits and would probably be willing to do a set of templates for whatever board you want.
Cheers
Buter
I actually hope they sell alot of boards or $2000+. That sort of ups the ante for anyone making wood boards.
Also, the biggest difference I see between the grain guys and Paul, is that Paul is always on this forum sharing info and answering questions. Thanks Paul.
“I’m wondering about the characteristics in your technique in laying up
flat skins and then bending them over the frame? I’d imagine, even
though the skins are thin, that there is some stress on the glue joints
when bending. I wondering too if you make any effort to do this in a
warm room, or if you prep your material for bending.”
A higher stringer in the nose, compared to the rails, is the most likely cause of any cracking…Any cracking usually very minor and is filled in with epoxy when the outside is glassed…
Sometimes I have to belt sand the nose skins a bit thinner to allow the wood to flex easily…Usually about twenty or thirty passes with the belt sander is all it takes…No big deal…
**
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Here is the real deal
http://www.grainsurf.com/forum/
the Rich and Mikey story goes way deeper than what's now called Grain. Part of it unveiled itself here.
Paul was first on here with his technique before getting ripped but Rich has found a way to stay core and build a home for folks like him. He still gives away his designs for a donation to plant cedar trees. One of his crew even created an APS plug-in to create fish bones on a computer. Funny you don't see more agressive modern designs in this build style with that computer program and a CNC machine. Grains one of the first to start migrating the build method in more modern shapes where as the guys here in Hawaii at http://www.haleiwasurfboards.com/surfboards.html have been building Brewer guns for almost a decade. You should see the monster hydraulic press they use..
funny in that most of his fans are woodworking hobbiest versus hardcore surfer's kind of like Paul's friend that makes those outlandish inlay boards. But their passion for the craft is none the less as addictive as in surfing itself.
I’d seen a couple photos on those Brewer boards in Surfer’s Journal. They’re HWS? No foam core? Do people actually surf them? Or are they intended more as wall hangers? What’s the price tag on one of those? Beautiful beyond words.
F-king unreal, Bernie.
I just watched the gallery and how-its-made slideshows on the Haleiwa site, and I’m floored. After looking at the gallery, I was asking the question of why they only seem to produce one model (nevermind the fact that they obviously have that shape totally dialed in). Then I watched the slideshow of how they make them, and that answered my question. The amount of tooling (molds, jigs, etc) that goes into making just that one specific shape is mind-boggling.
Really, really amazing stuff. Thanks for posting the link. Now I’m going to quit making surfboards.
My first response is that I think it cool Merrick is accepting of the style of construction.