9’4" Jim Phillips/Robbie Keigel collaboration (circa’ 2003ish). I haven’t a clue about the dimensions on this one but it’s got a little bit of that hull vibe to it.
Keepin this thread alive…
My 3 hulls. A new 7’6" Liddle I got from Venice Mollusk this past Summer, a 7’10" Liddle I got from Matt, and a 9’2" Bojorquez Grande from Scott Anderson. The 7’6" is the most bladed for the best point waves. The 7’10" actually works good in small beachbreak among other places. The 9’2" is best for mushier waves (big or small).
The Liddles have the new TA volan Liddle fins. The Grande has a 9.75" TA Greenough 4A.
Pretty fun stuff!
Jim
Hey Jim, nice pics , thats a nice quiver that Grande is a sleeper, what I did on mine is have Scott cut that 9’2’’ down to 9’0’’ and he rounds the nose out more so its a little fuller. Try your smaller fins on it when its smaller surf.
love those hull pics from that rear aspect – where you appreciate the razor-thin tail, fin, and rails. looks like maybe i’m going to get some hull friendly waves here in the next day or so. ( it’s been over a month) if i can yank my son from school, mebbe i get some watershots to post.
Beautiful boards! You mentioning what fins you have prompts me to mention I just got a Volan L-Flex from TrueAmes for board I"m building and when I took it out of the box I was amazed at how finely crafted it is. The foil lines are absolutely perfectly even and the finish is perfectly fine sanded like a “mat finish”. Even the box insert base is so perfectly finished it looks machined. I’d have to make more boards than I have lifetime left for to get my level of craftmanship up to match.
I have seen a lot of glass flex fins over the years and this really does stand out.
Jim
any way you can do full side profile shots for comparison/ogling the foils?
Would be fun to see.
Those boards are so killer. I love good foils left clear.
greg
As I always say… DROOL!
I ordered and received a beauty of a 7’6" wth a roundtail back in October, boy I love it. Got it out at 2nd about 2 weeks ago and it was perfect.
Great boards Jim.
-Sean
ohhh baby! those photos are best yet showing the s-deck, foil, rails, etc. bitchin’…itis totally flat here today, waiting on the “monster” swell. perhaps it will start showing this afternoon…
Hey Jim,
How’s that Bojorquez Grande treating you? I’ve thought about ordering up one of those for the last couple of years (I’ve seen one in the Beach House here in SB and one at Kirk’s house over the last couple of visits). They look like they would be a super interesting ride but I have yet to actually try one.
Does it blend the feel/function, so to speak, between a mid-length hull type board and a standard log? Can it noseride or is it just simply bigger hull for the smaller/softer days when you still want that effortless trim speed?
I’d love to hear your input. Or if Matt or Kirk have any firsthand knowledge on how those boards ride, I’d be keen to hear about it from them too.
Cheers,
Nick
I picked up a couple of those volan L-flex fins from Pierpont Scotty when they first came out. They’re sweet. And you’re right the foils are absolutely perfect!
It’s funny you mentioned they look like they were machined cause I think I remember hearing that they were in fact machined. Whatever the case, they’ve got the nicest foils of any of the fins in my collection.
-N.
The Bojorquez Grande has the paddle feel of a longboard rather than a hull. It paddles like a 9’ board. The Liddles are harder to paddle and feel like paddling a board much shorter.
The Grande still turns from the rail. I don’t really ride the tail at all but you probably could. I stand pretty much in the middle for all my turns and it can get going pretty fast. You could take a step up but the nose feels pretty unstable compared to a regular longboard.
I ordered it mainly for surfing overhead PV Cove which is a longboard dominated mushy wave. However is worked great at small Malibu too.
Jim
This is what I have in the workings:
Right now it’s 8oz volan top and bottom, PU but I have to switch to epoxy and possibly get evicted or use PU and definitely get evicted…
It’s going to have a 9" liddle flex fin.
Bottom: 
Deck: 
seen this on e bay shaped by billy hamilton on a holiday to oz
huie
Jim,
I’d like to try that Anderson some day at Malibu or at PV Cove. Does it turn from the middle like a Liddle, or do you have to tail turn it like a traditional longboard?
I have tried some of the late 90’s 9’0"-9’4" Liddles, and they have way too much rail line to “bend” turn into a wave and they must be angled into the wave when standing on the mid section. They have great glide and flow once they are on the wave face, but for me, it’s that “bend” off of the bottom that makes 6’6"-7’6" Liddles the way to go.
I once had Robbie Dick shape a 9’6" square tail longboard for me. I saw him a few months later at Malibu, and he stopped me and wanted to know why I had only waxed the middle third of that board. I had been riding Liddles for such a long time, that I had forgetten that waxing the entire deck surface is a must on longboards. What was I thinking? I felt so foolish.
This was the thread that I was looking for!
here’s my version of a displacement hull:http://www.allangibbons.com/NextBlackJack.html
6’0’’ x 21-ish. Its made of a secret blend of 7 herbs and spices.
Hey Allan , checked your links, very cool!! I was asking about the carbon because Liddle made one in the mid 70’s and for that type of board IT SUCKED to stiff.Maybe with the flextail it will work. Keep us posted.
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Hey Allan , checked your links, very cool!! I was asking about the carbon because Liddle made one in the mid 70's and for that type of board IT SUCKED to stiff.Maybe with the flextail it will work. Keep us posted.
I rode it in small Cove this afternoon, and it went really well. It was pretty much longboard-able only, but I was able to trim and glide across the flats, and carve and pivot when I wanted to.
I used the carbon partly because I wanted an all-black board (I had a dream…) and because I had a little laying around, and because I wanted to make the entire board really really stiff, except fo the flex area.
Allan did you get any kind of spring out of your turns? I have a few old flextails, 1 goodone and one that was to flexy, it would kind washout when pushed to hard. With your construction , can you retro fit a finished board? Also have you seen Tony Masials,flextail he’s a fireman in Carp a good hull shaper and surfer used to be Liddles glasser?
this past week i gave away a brand-new thruster to a friend – with bag and extra fins – all new. i had it made along with my fish in late 05 and only used it once. on tues i got a sesh in on a long right point …300 yd rides – kind of weak though, and only about chin-high… but i was on my liddle PBer, man i could just go forever… it was like effortless. I just realized all i really need these days is the liddle and my mat – covers all the bases – gives me the speed, flow, and glide i crave.
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Allan did you get any kind of spring out of your turns? I have a few old flextails, 1 goodone and one that was to flexy, it would kind washout when pushed to hard. With your construction , can you retro fit a finished board? Also have you seen Tony Masials,flextail he's a fireman in Carp a good hull shaper and surfer used to be Liddles glasser?
Yeah, I don’t think you want the panel to be too wet-noodle-y. On the other hand, I made a standard thruster with a wider tail block, and the flex panel was super twangy, like spring steel. It felt pretty wild- too reactive for my taste, but other (younger) guys liked it.
I adopted the flextail idea (I make no claims of originality and freely acknowledge the designs of others- Greenough, Tim Bowler, Mitchell Rae, Tom Morey, et al), anyway, I adopted it to see if it would liven up a thicker, more durable (and more rigid), board.
That, and I got really bored with “regular” boards, and wanted to explore possibilities.
The Nextboard® project (I like that little ®-I just received my official notice from the USPTO) is all about making high performance boards that are clean and efficient to produce, at a reasonable price.
I wanted to get away from boards that are so dimension-critical (1/8’s of an inch, 1/16’s of an inch- give me a break!) and to make more of a one-size-fits-all design. Or more realistically, 3 sizes fits all (S,M,L).Flex allows for more rider input, and the customizing is more in the degree of flex (stiffer for bigger rider/bigger waves, etc.), rather than the overall size of the board. I’m even proposing tunable flex- dial it up or down.
Change the flex, change the fins, and really open up some variables, all with the same platform.
I like the flex so that I get a powder-snow kind of ride, but it can be done so that it gathers and explosively releases, as well.
The flexboard is just one aspect of all the data I’ve compiled over the years. I’ve got some other things percolating as well.
To answer your question, Kirk, I suppose a board could be retro-fitted. I’d have to take a look at it. Email me, I’m in SB on and off (gone most of the rest of Dec.)