I rode my bike to scout the Estero Americano over the weekend, the body of water dividing Western Marin and Sonoma counties. Almost exactly a year ago I made my first post on this weblog after a paddle on the Estero to explore the availability of sea grasses like bulrush for a furniture-making experiment. I’ve […]
Category Archives: california windsor
Stellate Geometries
The more time I spend away from the urban grid, the more I fall under the spell of non-rectilinear geometries. Straight lines and right angles are on the wane in my imagination, replaced by radial, spiral and stellate forms wherever I roam. I have a new appreciation for domes and geodesic thinking, and increasingly want […]
Windsor Longboard Roadtest
Aili took her Windsor Longboard for a test spin and loved how it handled- it carves with ease and feels rock steady going fast. The camber is just right, with just enough flex to ease road vibration and pump on a quick turn. I’m now taking advance orders for the deck on my GOODS page […]
Windsor Longboard Lives
My first Windsor Longboard experimental deck is a head-turner. My friends at Quinn Brothers Board Shop in Sebastopol, CA took to the ‘uber old school’ spirit and helped me rock the deck with super wide trucks and generic wheels; note the ‘rasta’ bolt heads, the board’s only fanfare. After some road testing I plan to […]
Windsor Longboard Shapes Up
My prototype Windsor Longboard is nearing completion. I shaped the outer contours with my favorite Italian-made, mini spokeshaves. I have a set of three but use the one pictured above for almost everything- its rockered base allows for the most delicate control. Over the weekend I plan to mount trucks and wheels and test its […]
Windsor Longboard
clamping the deck’s laminates over a contoured armature for camber I made good progress with my longboard skatedeck experiment. I built a clamping armature with a gradual contour to give the deck adequate camber, over-compensating slightly for the inevitable ‘springback’. I reversed the camber at the tail of the deck to lift the rear of […]
Uber Old School
I’m making a longboard skateboard deck as my first experiment with forming elm into complex contours. I like thinking of the deck’s shape as continuing in the evolution of the morphology of weapons pictured above (not because they are weapons but because they have a common ancestor in the stick, or branch). My plan is […]