Breaking The Mold

The older I get, the more I think about the materials I am working with and thinking about our long-term health – my clients, my family, and my own.. As I shape through my last few blanks in my stock-pile, I am thinking about ways to incorporate organic materials derived from nature, drafting my ideas and harvesting my inspiration from fellow pioneers and artisans like Yvon Chouinard, Fletcher Chouinard, Andy Powers, Les Paul, Leo Fender, George Greenough, James Wharram, Paul Jensen, Danny Hess, Paul Gross, John Cherry, Jerry Lopez, Skip Frye, Josh Hall, Jerry Ingham, John Carper, Mike Diffenderfer, Bill Thrailkill, Cal Schafer, Phil Edwards, Bert Burger, Bob Simmons, Richard Kenvin, Lindsay Lord, Daniel Thompson, Jim Kinstle, Marlon Bacon, Jim Phillips, Daniel Partch, Geppy, Velzy, Avila, Masuzzo, the crew at Keahana – and the list goes on. Think about it – we are made up (99%) of the six elements oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus; about 0.85% of the five elements potassium, sulfur, sodium, chlorine, magnesium; and other trace elements, which are all necessary for life. Trees and plants need sun, soil, water, and carbon dioxide, among other trace elements in order to survive.  The earth is 71% salt water, 2.5% fresh water (69%of that is frozen), and 26.5% land.  We love the earth.  We love the oceans, lakes, rivers, streams, and estuaries.  We love life.  We love to surf, and let’s face it – we need the plants and trees for our oxygen. It only seems natural – the bond between humans and wooden surf craft.   I want to be a positive cog in the wheel by using UNHARMFUL variants of naturally occurring organic materials, rather than HARMFUL synthetic materials to make our surf craft. I am excited to see all of the wood board builders out there, and the guys creating green blanks and resins, because it makes me realize that we are finally starting to change our mindset as designers and shapers.  We are finally starting to break out of the mold – like we had to when Grubby Clark took a sledge hammer to most of his blank molds and we had to solve the blank equation.  There are ways of doing it, and I am excited for my kids, and the experiences they have ahead of them with a lifetime of riding new waves and refining their surf craft.

Artisan Surf Designs: Falkenau Surfboards & Fins has expanded to Elkhart, IN.  My wife and I bought what used to be the Beardsley Flower Mill on the St. Joseph River up until 1900, founded by Havila Beardsley (who is also the founder of the city of Elkhart), and are restoring the beautiful prairie style 3-story walkout river estate "Riverside Manor" which was built there in 1906 by the famous architect Enoch Hill Turnoch. We are still living in California, as well, so don't worry, you can still find us in Carlsbad and Fallbrook. 

I started Paramedic school at Elkhart General Hospital in on January 2nd, 2013 and will graduate as a National Registry Paramedic (EMT-P) on April 12th, 2014.

I have a new line of surfboards, SUPS, paddles, hand planes, fins, skateboards, and other surf craft, so call me at 619-757-0100 and order yours today!

- Dave & Melissa

Hybrid Fibonacci number sequence 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987,...

For those that think the Fibonacci number (Fn) sequence is just a coincidence, there are MANY "non" math equations and sums on the "insides".  For example by combining 3 consecutive Fn creates a new Hybrid Fibonacci number that still sums in a sequence!  Please note that a "0"* is added where needed.

ex 0,1,1,2,3,5,8 become
011,112,123,235,358 etc
011+112=123
112+123=235
123+235=358
20305+30508=50813*
30508+50813=81321*
5813 +81321=132134
81321+132134=213455
132134+213455=345589
21034055+34055089=55089144*

This works forwards and backwards. It also works with the "sister" Lucas numbers (Ln) sequence, and of course adding 2 hybrid Fn equals a hybrid Ln and all it's variations - and still sum to the golden ratio! The Fn are the most unique sequence in existence - the key to the future of surfcraft design.  Thanks to Robert Wilson Simmons, he unlocked the secret for us - only it took Richard Kenvin to rediscover it, Joe Bauguess to bring it all back to life, and Daniel Thompson to perfect it on a whole new level.  If you haven't seen what these guys are doing, be sure to check it out!

I'm still shaping boards, so if you want something feel free to give me a call and we'll set something up... 619-757-0100!

Body Surfing Hand Planes & Hand Boards - $50 on up (2658 State Street Side Door, Carlsbad CA)

If you are into body surfing, add a whole new dimension to your wave catching and wave riding experience with these revolutionary hand planes & hand boards! I make all kinds of hand planing hulls, from regular marine ply; to koa; to palownia; to pre-bent, formed, and curved; to custom glue-ups; etc. I have short templates, mid-range templates, and long templates. I make some with hand holes, and some with straps. They range in price from $50 to $150 depending on the labor and materials involved. I can do custom projects as well, but I charge $38 per hour for labor plus whatever the materials cost comes to. Thanks! Dave 619-757-0100 ARTISAN SURF DESIGNS

I am happy to announce that I am back in the shaping bay, and open for business again!

As I stated in my last post, I stopped taking orders A while back to pursue earning my badge at Elfin Forest Harmony Grove Fire Department, and last night, it was official. I've earned my badge, and am working on Getting as much FF experience as possible, and earning the opportunity to drive and operate our fire apparatus at EFF.

I am back in the shop shaping boards and foiling fins. Call and place an order today!

Sincerely,

Dave Falkenau
Owner, Artisan Surf Designs: Falkenau Surfboards & Fins

Important Annoucement:

http://www.eff-fire.org
I was picked up by Elfin Forest / Harmony Grove Fire Dept. on Saturday as a PFF-EMT, working Sunday shifts, training at least 4 days per month, and on-call for Fire-EMS.  Therefore, I will be putting my shaping and fin foiling on hold until further notice.  Right now, my buddy Cal is shaping his Zen Surfboards label out of my shop and bay, allowing me to keep the space and keep the rent paid.  Have fun, and if you want to place an order for a later date, perhaps we can talk... until then, via con dios!

Camp Pendleton Rappelling Tower EMT Duty, Sunday, April 18th, 2010

Here I am spotting Chris Mui, and coaching him on how to belay for another cadet at the OCC course.

Demo...

Good times!

An Old Epiphany On A New Day

I was on a streak, surfing at least one session every day for four months, and then my Grandfather-in-law had a bad fall and I went over with my wife to help him out.  That day broke my streak, and then I was only surfing sporadically after that whenever I could find the time.... then for the past two months, I was completely DRY... No surfing for me, because I was rereading all of my EMT-B material to prepare for the National Registry (NREMT-B).  After taking the exam, I realized that I was stressing over nothing.  I blazed through that exam and passed it after only 70 questions.  Out of 134 questions, I got up to number 70 and the test shut off, said "You have completed the National Registry EMT-B Exam" or something close to that, and just shut off.  I felt really good about it, and two days later, I received my confirmation e-mail that I PASSED.  Within 3 days, I received my NREMT-B card, Certificate, and Patch in the mail.  I immediately began studying my course materials for the Paramedic class I am in, and that's what I have been so busy with lately. 

I have been working 5 jobs (Teaching full time; working as an EMT at the Academy; Working 2-3 nights per week in the Dell/Mac Lab at school; Administering the SAT and ACT whenever it is on my campus; and just barely keeping my surfboard gig going).  Add in these classes that I've been taking, and I just came to a realization a couple of days ago, that I need to get back into the water to clear my head.  I literally got off work three days ago (Monday), went home, ran 3 miles, grabbed the brand new 5'10" that I shaped and Keahana glassed, paddled out, stood up on my first wave, flew down the line, and just let out a HUGE YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That one wave was all I needed to get myself back on track.  I kinda forgot how great surfing is for the mind and body and soul.  I missed Tuesday because I drove up to Fallbrook for my mother-in-law's birthday, but made it out again yesterday.  I'm getting ready to go paddle out right now... as for the epiphany.... This has happened sooooo many times in my life, where I get so caught up with work and life, and SURFING is the one thing that brings me right back to my balance point.

My lesson?  NEVER STOP SURFING.

Hey gang! I just wanted to share some cool news... I was just featured on Keahana's Blog because they were impressed with my attention to detail, and my avant garde approach to modern surfboard design...

Hi David,

My name is Jim, I do the blog posting for KEAHANA.
Raul and I noticed you have a fine attention to detail and thought we might feature your shapes on our blog:

http://keahanausa.blogspot.com/2010/02/from-carlsbad-with-love.html
Strong work man!

Hope you got some waves today.
Thank you,
Jim Noonanhttp://keahanausa.blogspot.com/2010/02/from-carlsbad-with-love.html

I just finished a 5'11" Swallow Tail Shorty for my brother-in-law Myles Pallasch! Pics soon! Here are the design dimensions...

Here's my Myles Pallasch Model:

5'11" x 18 x 2 3/8" Deck to bottom rail before concaves (or 2 1/8" with calipers deck to bottom concave) at widepoint

Here's how you can lay out your template if you want to try to shape one yourself...

• N1 = 11 1/8" Wide

• N2 = 16 1/8" Wide

• Center at 35.5" = 17 7/8" - 17 15/16" Wide

• Wide Point is 18" and runs from the Nose back 37 3/4" to 40 1/8"

• T2 = 17.5"

• T1 = 14"

The Swallow Tail is 4.5" across, pin to pin, or corner to corner before you cut the swallow in.  The swallow can be 1 1/8" to 2 1/8" deep... or traditionally, it would be half the width of the tail (2 1/4" deep).

The board thickness before concaves are shaped in is 2 3/8" @ the center through wide point area, from Deck to bottom... after concaves are shaped in, a caliper reading will read 2 1/8" (because you are essentially putting 1/4" of single concave in the center portion of the board.

Rocker: using a straight edge with the fulcrum point in the center of the board (35.5" from the nose), measure the distance from the bottom edge of the nose to the straight edge.  Do the same for the tail....

• Nose rocker: 4.5"

• Tail rocker: 2 1/4"

Bottom Contours:  Single Concave with Double Barrel Concave running throughout...

• N1 has 1/16" of Single Concave (the Double Barrel doesn't start until 1/3rd back from the nose)
  

• N2 has 1/8" of Single Concave and 1/16" of Double Barrel Concave

• Center (35/5") through the Widepoint (from the nose back 37 3/4" to 40 1/8") has 3/16"-1/4" of Single Concave and 1/16" of Double Barrel Concave

• T2 has 3/16" - 1/4" of Single Concave and 1/8" of Double Barrel Concave

• T1 has 3/16" - 1/4" of Single Concave and 3/16" - 1/4" of Double Barrel Concave
  

The tail 1/3rd keeps a hard edge, going sharp from the tail up to blending with the rail tuck at the 1/3rd up from the tail mark...
(The Board length is 71", so 1/3rd of that is 23.666666666666666666666666666667")

The board works well as a Tri-fin or a Quad...

HAVE FUN!

Thank you Captain Eric Bertotti, Crew, and Oceanside Fire Department for the excellent opportunity to do a ride-along with you guys last evening.... and see how it's REALLY done!

ANOTHER PILOT WHALE MASSACRE IN DENMARK... Help the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society to put a stop to this nonsense!

Fight the Slaughter!

In the following picture, the sea has been dyed red with the blood of a pod of thousands of Pilot Whales, herded into into a Denmark bay for an annual tradition of mammalian slaughter .

This happens EVERY YEAR  in the FEROE ISLANDS in DENMARK!

This traditional massacre represents a "right of passage" into adulthood for these young and very misled Denmark youth….

The Pilot Whales do not die right away... their bodies are penetrated with flensing hooks and knives, as they shriek and groan with audible cries!  They suffer a slow and agonizing death.

The Danes have no compassion as the docile marine mammals bleed slowly and suffer from their tremendous wounds as they fight, dying in a bay full of the blood of thousands of Pilot Whales from the same pod.

The COWARDS committing the mass slaughter are celebrated (as if this were a sporting event) by onlookers and fellow islanders as heroes of the island, having demonstrated their maturity... to the inhabitants of the island.

"...flensing hooks impaled into their their skulls and bodies as their bones are shattered by the blunt trauma and their skin is flensed off the bone while they writhe in agonizing pain, fighting for their lives..."

Obviously the Danish youth are misinformed and are not educated on the ecological effects of how the their actions negatively affect the entire marine ecosystem on a global scale.   Put together a program which goes to countries where mass slaughters like this are performed and accepted as part of the culture or tradition of the people of that area, and educate the people. Convince them that their cultural traditions must be reformed to stop these mass slaughterings of our fragile marine life.

STOP THE SENSELESS KILLING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  YOU CAN HELP BY GETTING INVOLVED!!!!!!!!!!!!

SUPPORT THE SEA SHEPPARD SOCIETY!

Paul Gross on the basics of designing a hull

"Some general hull building info:

Typical outline dimensions, depending on how much drive versus manueverability you want, range from 16" x 21.5"(+5) x 15" (manueverable) to 18.75" x 22.5" (+10) x 15" (drive). Bascially, the more drive, the more nose area and further up the wide point. The further up the wide point, the wider it needs to be in the center to keep the tail wide enough as the outline curve tapers in. 15" is a safe tail width a foot up. Build forward from that number for most mainland small wave conditions. That's a good constant for a hull with no tail V.

If you want to use V, go up to 15.5" or even 16". Keep the V ahead of the fin. V behind the fin adds too much rocker to the rail line in the back. No drive. V in front of the fin flattens the middle rail rocker line, making the board fly out of turns. However, V kills the forward trim capability of hulls. Turns the board into more of a tail rider. Personal taste determines which is better.

6'8" to 7'8" is a comfortable length range, but not limited to that. 3" is a safe thickness, but you have to use a triplane or domed deck to keep the rails thin enough. Resist the temptation to go thinner with a flat deck. The bouyancy of the center area is what get these boards rolling in smaller conditions. If you want thinness, put it in the rails and tail. And keep the rails at least 60/40 or higher until the last 24" to 18". Rocker low...4-5" in the nose. 1-2" in the tail. A slight straight spot running through the middle. Avoid evenly curved rocker schemes.

Tail shape can range from anything from hard square to squash to arc to full roundtail to round pin. Swallows and pins don't seem to work on hulls for surf under 8'.

Use a fin box. Fin shape and placement are pretty important, and every board is different...so give yourself a chance to fool around and see what works for you in your surf. Most hulls like a 9" Greenough/Liddle/Frye fin between 8" and 14" up. Stick with the rear measurement in the beginning. The hulls with fins all the way up are used on proven shapes ridden in good point surf. Put the box 7" up, that will give you plenty of lattitude. Glass over the fin box if you want it to last.

Single 6oz. top and bottom, with either a 4 or 6 deck patch in the middle 3' of the board. Weight isn't super critical with flat rocker and a hull bottom. Use a sanded 320 W/D finish. It helps to water flow stay wetted out. Volan cloth is more durable, especially on boards that bend and twist a little bit. S-Cloth stiffens the structure, so use it sparingly.

The classic S-deck displacement hull, like this circa 1998 7'2" Paul Gross Designed Hull, has a 9" Greenough Stage IV fin, set 14" up from the tail at the trailing edge of the fin. The extreme forward placement is NOT intended to "loosen it up," but to allow the forward rail line to bury into a turn. The entire board (rocker, rails, and hull) is designed around this concept. It appears radical, but in fact it's carefully balanced. The thickness flow on this 7'2" Paul Gross Designed Hull is 1.625" one foot back from the nose, 3" in the center, 1.75" one foot up from the tail.

The tight, parallel track is unique to these boards. They are very fast down the line, but weak in vertical performance." -- Paul Gross (Swaylocks Resources)

My personally hand-shaped home quiver for my son and me, when we surf out front of our house...

1) The orange and blue one is a model I came up with for Gavin, called The Tadpole. He loves orange, so I had Afranio Albuquerque do a fire resin deck and a blue bottom wrapping around the rails with black pinlines. It's 4'11". He's almost growing out of it, so it'll get passed down to Bella and then Eden.

2) The next one is an exact, and I mean exact replica of my favorite 5'6" MEZ fish. The board I replicated was originally purchased from Raymond Turnipseed for $200. It looked exactly like this one, only the El Pescado I hand-shaped in this picture is 5'7". That is the only difference. I matched the opaque white up with the same blue and purple resin. I love to ride my fish with fins set more forward because I ride with my front foot way up and usually have my back foot right behind it, so I immediately fell in love with the original Mez fish, and in fact, used the same tail and fin placement on a blue fish that I hand-shaped for Delco Hagen in one of my older posts. This board was my toughest fish yet, because I had to get everything exact.

3) The third board from the left is a cross between the 5'7" fish (modified from my 5'6" Mez Fish) and the 6'0" Newshape Quad (to the left and right of it). I took the 5'7" fish template and and 6'0" Newshape template (Bill Thrailkill), and merged them together to get the 5'10" Destroyer Twin in this picture. I like my personal boards logo free, with hand signatures... keep it simple... build 'em... ride 'em.... pass 'em on.... build more of 'em!

4) The fourth board from the left, and my latest project in the "fishy" realm of boards is this 6'0" Bill Thrailkill Newshape Template with quad futues and optional FCS twins. This is my favorite of the 3 shown here that I ride. It is simply MAGIC!

5) I templated, and foiled this lime green flex fin too...

6) Not that you really care, but you probably wouldn't even notice the cap and shoes if I didn't tell you to check them out. The hand stitched patch cap is from Donegal, Ireland, purchased down the street from my shop at "O' Ireland" on Grand Avenue, Carlsbad. I spent quite a bit of time in Ireland back in 1995, so this cap reminds me of that trip whenever I put it on. I found it appropriate for these shots. The shoes are Etnies with matching patchwork courtesy of Etnies shoes and my brother-in-law Aaron Pallasch.

Daddy & Eden at the beach

Team Rider Christian Rodriguez.....

These photos are Christian Rodriguez at N.S. Huntington Beach
E-mail John Lyman Photos at lymanphoto@aol.com





Here's Christian's 5'6" Fish that I shaped. Luiz Masuzzo glassed it. The pic is from his phone, so I'll put some better pics up when he comes down here to surf.

The 5'10" x 21 3/8" x 2 1/2" x 9" tail (tip to tip) Bill Thrailkill "Destroyer Twin" is up for sale after being satisfyingly yet gently test ridden..

The 5'10" x 21 3/8" x 2 1/2" x 9" tail (tip to tip) Bill Thrailkill "Destroyer Twin" is up for sale after being satisfyingly yet gently test ridden... $500 FIRM