The title says it all. This show is slowly becoming our own little “Sacred Craft”, here in France. The fourth edition started yesterday and I opened the shape demos series, shaping a replica of Jeffrey’s “Tweener” (but with a single stringer blank) in about one hour and a half. Turned out nice, too…
Here are some random photos; If any of you are around the Landes area, the show will last until next saturday, don’t miss it: fine boards, shape demos, overall good vibes.
Jeremy FERRARA is a brave man: he took three US Blanks (one white, one black and one red) and sliced them in pieces. Then he glued back the pieces, alternating colors. Then he dropped by my shop and we sawed the new blank in half and planed a balsa stringer for it. Then he glued the stringer in the blank and brought it to the show to shape it in front of the public, not even knowing if the glueings would hold… Turned out they did…
Many nice boards to be seen… Two Parrish guns:
Some weird things:
Some even weirder:
Some downright fabulous:
Some space-age:
There’s even one weirdo who collects power planers: (Gene, your Wen is on the other side of the window…)
My friend Daniel CREIGNOU (Daniel’s Surfboards) provided some interesting shapes:
Need foam?
Need fins?
My own little booth:
Axel LORENTZ’ booth: (on the left, the “Enterprise”, remember?)
Axel’s self-portrait:
Speaking of which, during last year’s edition Axel did a shape demo and he donated the shape to me as a thanks for a pair of wooden keels I had made for him. I glassed the board and put it as the grand prize of the raffle in this year’s edition:
Too many great boards to show them all here. Have a look at the album if you are interested:
I like so many of the boards but the black board with red patterned insert and twin keels looks particularly intriguing. Dark colors are hard to buff out but they did a great job on that one.
Not too much… Actually, I was pretty nervous last year when I did it for the first time but i’m really at ease now. When you enter the “shaping room” and see all those people around, it’s a bit intimidating but the minute you start shaping routine takes over and you really forget everything and focus on the blank only. Did another one today and made a very standard longboard (9’6" x 23 1/2" x 3 1/8") in less than one hour and a half. It would probably have taken longer if I had been shaping it “at home” because I would have stopped now and then whereas here you have to keep people interested and thus go fast…
I started a ''shaping demo stories'' thread a while back, and nobody else had any stories. I've seen (and done) some funny sh#t at those kind of events. Looks like you had a nice set of ''racks'' to work on, haha.
Photos show you guys have a lot of adventurous shapers in France, I guess you have a tradition of pushing the boundaries of art to inspire you. Good stuff!
edit: someone else did share a story on my demo thread - it was balsa!
Nice video... the sound quality came through really good on my computer speakers. The band was great. The boards weren't too bad either! Great job guys. There is some great work coming from over there. Balsa sent me a link to the website of Daniel's website... http://www.daniels-longboards.com/v2/index.htm. He is doing some stunning artistic craftsmanship. Shaping, glassing and finished glosses of the finest kind. WOW!
The band is Jean-Pierre STARK and friends. For those in the know, JP has been THE shaping leader in France for about 30-35 years, shaping boards for some guys of the top 30 on a regular basis. He’s the one on the right with curly dark hair and glasses, playing the acoustic guitar.
Not at all yet. These were brought in by a spanish shaper I had never heard of (but that doesn’t mean much: I don’t know everybody…) I’ll try and get some more info on him tomorrow through Sylvain and Lionnel (the show organizers).
