Archive for the 'Blog' Category

Since we started building boards, we’ve spent quite a bit of time exploring our coastlines. We’ve visited dozens of surf shops, some of our favorites we’ve stopped at over and over, just to drool over what other shapers/ builders are doing. Building boards in Maine, we’re a little removed from the mainstream surf scene, but all in all we think that’s not a bad thing.

Between our boards, kits and classes, we’ve had customers from all over the US and Canada, Japan, Norway, Iraq, Singapore, Australia, Mexico, Bali, France, Portugal and more.

Here in the US, while the majority of the boards and kit orders that we receive come to us directly from individual surfers, we do have a small but growing community of retail shops that are helping to spread the word on Grain. Some of these shops might stock a board or two, others may have kits, but each one is excited about what we’re doing, and we’re proud to have them as spokespeople of our brand.

In no particular order, here’s a list:
Our newest dealer: Ride the Wind in Ocracoke NC.
Cinnamon Rainbows in Hampton NH.
Farias Surf and Sport in Long Beach Island NJ.
Liquid Dreams in Ogunquit Me.
Nor’Easter Surf Shop in Scituate Ma.
Corduroy Boutique in Portland Me.
Quiksilver Surf Shop in Miami Beach Fl.
ZJ’s Boarding House in Santa Monica Ca.
Wetsand Surf Shop in Ventura Ca.
Channel Islands Retail Stores in Santa Barbara and Los Angeles California.
Cleanline Surf Shop in Seaside Or.
Edition Hotel- Waikiki Hi.
Buoys in Kanagawa Japan
Chesepeake Light Craft In Annapolis Md. And speaking of CLC, they recently sent their demo truck out to the west coast, and along with all their beautiful boats, they have one of our 6′5″ Seed display boards. So if you’re curious what our boards look like and want to get a glimpse how they are built, check out their demo schedule here.

Buoys in Kanagawa Japan
Be sure to check out these shops and let them know that your interested in our boards. If you have any suggestions for other shops that you think we should be in, we’d love to hear from you…or better yet, let them know that if they stocked our products, we’d have you as a customer in common.

Thanks for all your support.

During a past trip to the west coast, we jammed a foot in the door of the Surfing Heritage Museum just before it closed. Barry Haun was nice enough to stick around for an hour so that we could run around the place physically touching the history that’s inspired us. The boards are arranged on the wall roughly in date order so you can see the progression of board design and materials. It’s an education and an inspiration and we urge folks to visit if they can, and if they can’t – to donate so this great place can keep the doors open. With every donation they automatically give something back to you as well – goodies like T-shirts and gift certificates – so it’s a good deal as well as a good deed. Just click this link: Support Surfing Heritage

We were able to look for some of our favorite boards which were almost all in the museum. There were a huge variety of original kook-box style boards there which, when you think about it, makes sense: many people don’t realize that half the boards on California beaches (just before foam made the scene) were wood kookboxes. The other half were solid or chambered balsa, redwood or cedar.

We like to think about the heritage of surfing at Grain because our method of construction was born from that developed by Tom Blake in the 1920’s during surfing’s resurgence. Rendering modern-plan boards into durable, high-performing surfboards using a deeply evolved but related plank-on-frame method connects us to that heritage.

We also think a lot about the connection everyone gets to this heritage when they build their own board. For the first fifty years of surfing’s modern-day comeback (1903-1953), that’s what everyone did. It was the only way to get a board, and that inspired innovation and discovery. These were the days of Bob Simmons, of Joe Quigg and the hot curls and of some of the true milestones of board evolution. Building your own board in those days was normal, so it was also an integral part of the surfing experience that no surfer could – or would – miss.

Soon, one-time home-builder Dave Sweet got the foam/glass board dialed and that begat pro-shapers, which begat surf-shops which begat Gidget, and so on. The world changed, and building your own became a fringe thing. But slowly, the world is swinging back, people crave uniqueness in a pop-out world as well as ways to be environmentally responsible. We are always psyched to see how many people are out there trying to build their own. There’s no reason not to: there are lots of surf-supply companies that cater to home-builders now (besides Grain) including Foam-EZ and Greenlight Surf Supply. All you need is the space, a little instruction, and you’re back where some of the greats started; building your own and thinking about how to make boards surf better, hopefully with less impact on the planet. It’s a great winter or no-swell project, and you won’t believe how satisfying it is to meld with surfing’s history just a little bit and and get your own board as well!

Some other places where you might find inspiration:
korduroy.tv
Surfer Steve
Wooden Surfboards Blog from Australia

OK – we admit that we thought it was funny to name our one-week, build-any-board workshops after the weird pro-sports training vacation tradition… but what started out as a lame joke has turned into an amazing experience for us and for the two guys who’ve already built some really special boards.

First it was our old pal Bob B. who a couple of months ago built the most difficult board we offer – the Spray. He’s already built four boards, so he had the chops to take this project on to completion. It was a two-session marathon, but Bob powered through like a bull terrier. His board’s in glass right now, and is looking sweet.

Currently, Rob C. is in the shop working on another challenge – a 6′9″ Radicle, the slim needle we first designed and built with Dave Rastovich on the North Shore of Hawaii as a Backdoor mini-gun. Robert’s top planks just went on, which is no small feat given the dramatic rocker of this board, and now the trimming and shaping have begun. Robert’s experience building wood wall-hangers in Florida is standing him in good stead though the process of building a Grain board is completely different than chambering solid wood boards.

Today Robert came in with a gift for the shop – some 6″ spring clamps that we didn’t have enough of yesterday. Customized with handy boardbuilder’s notes in Rob’s handwriting.

Both these guys have had the run of the shop, an instructor all to themselves, picked the dates they wanted to come and selected two of the most distinctive boards we build. Congratulations fellas.

Thanks Jonathan for putting up these photos… and thanks Dan, Chris, Keith, Meat-Chris and Jake for the memorable week.

Just a quick thanks to everyone that made this past weekend such a great one at Grain. Saturday finished up our July class, with six new beautiful boards coming out of the shop. We’re thankful to our students for staying for the premiere of Taylor Steele’s “Castles in the Sky” and for talking it up with our visitors about their experience during the week.

As the moon rose over the barn, the parking lot began to fill with people from all over town, even some who drove from Cape Cod. Corn was popping and cotton candy was being whipped up by the minute. Not a bad setting for a surf move premiere.

Sunday afternoon it was off to Novare Res in Portland, to have a few beers with Dogfish Head founder Sam Calagione. Lots of what we’ve been doing with the great folks at Dogfish Head will be included in an episode of the soon-to-be-aired Discovery Channel show BREWED. In BREWED, Sam shows viewers the other side of the bottle, sharing the stories of beer sub-cultures as well as exploring life inside The Dogfish Head Brewery where many of their beers are flavored with wood – including cedar left over from our surfboard building!

It’s been a whirlwind couple days, but it’s the energy and passion that we take away from these days that keeps us moving forward and loving this place.

It started when a couple of Delaware surfers road-tripped up to Maine for a surf film fest we helped with in Rockland last spring. While visiting the shop, they spied a small trailer that was only half full – basically, the scrap we generated over the entire winter. Kyle and Mark turned out to be from Dogfish Head Brewery, famed for groundbreaking and unique heritage brews – often seasoned with wood.

Mark from Dogfish Head

They quickly decided that the wood left over from our board building would make a perfect accent for a new beer, called “GrainToGlass”, which has been released and can be sampled for a limited time at the Dogfish Head Brewpub in Rehobeth, Delaware. We’ll have a pile of boards up at what should be a great party hosted by Novare Res Bier Cafe in Portland Maine on Sunday, July 25th where we’ll be meeting up with Dogfish founder Sam Calagione and some folks from the brewery to sample a pile of hard-to-find Dogfish beers. If you can’t make it, you can still experience this whole story vicariously when the Discovery Channel program “Brewed” is aired later this year.

Thinking back, it must seem obvious that two unique companies like Grain and Dogfish Head would find each other and, more importantly, discover that they’re driven by the same values. After all, Dogfish Head Brewery is named after a point of land near Sam’s family home up in Boothbay Harbor Maine. Meant to be.

We were invited to head down to Salisbury Massachusetts last night by our friends at Zapstix Surf Shop. Donavon Frankenreiter was playing at the Blue Ocean Music Hall, and they were putting on a before-and-after party at the Surf Side 5 Bar next door.

Brad, Alex, Alison and I along with our friends Priscilla and Nicolette headed down to have a few beers and take in some tunes. Pat from Zapstix pulled some strings and we were able to park the pug right on the boardwalk between the two venues.

We had a lot of laughs and after the show, Donavon came by to talk about the boards, and tell us the story of surfing at Sunset last winter on the board that Rastovich built at Pipeline the year before. We heard some photos of the barrels he got on the board are going to surface soon, so cross your fingers, hopefully we’ll be posting those soon.

Donavon and Nicolette both work with Sanuk, so when she broke out a pile of ’staches that Sanuk makes to poke fun at the infamous Frankenreiter crumb-catcher, they started sprouting everywhere.

>>>Donavon Tour Dates

We’re happy to announce that we’ll be premiering Taylor Steele’s new film Castles in the Sky.

The premiere will be at our shop, Saturday July 24th starting at 8:30pm. Come early for tours of the shop, and to check out some boards that were just built by students in our July class. Weather permitting we’ll be showing the film outside on the barn wall (inside if its raining) so bring your beach chairs.
Free popcorn, BYO beverage. $5 per person, kids under 7 are free.

Buy your tickets here or at the shop the night of the show.

Castles In the Sky is a visual whirlwind that follows surfers to the farthest reaches of the known surf world and beyond. Castles in the Sky is a completely new approach to surf filmmaking. Filmed in five countries over three years, the movie delves into the true heart of the locations while the surfers travel through them with a sense of open-minded awe. With never-before seen waves, an original score, and some of the best surfers in the world such as Jordy Smith, Dane Reynolds, Rob Machado and Dave Rastovich contributing their art, passion and athleticism, this is as close to the experience of pioneering new coastlines as you can get without getting on a plane.

This is gonna be a great night!

Whew, what a trip! It went by fast but I have to say I had a blast! Everywhere I went people turned up, got stoked, and generously extended their hospitality—all of which kept me, and the Pug, going for the long haul. I know surfing is essentially a solitary pursuit but it was really all of you and the interactions we shared that I’ll always remember.

Thanks to Jon Hoover for the Flickr Photostream he made from shots taken on LBI.

So I would like to extend some thanks for everyone who contributed in one way or another. First off, those who deserve a mil gracias (thousand thanks) for making the ol’ ramble possible:

Big big thanks to:
Jim from Jimbo’s surfwax for cranking out a last minute batch of wax with dope labels! It was so great when people asked me for a business card (which I don’t have) and instead I gave them a bar of wax! And who doesn’t need wax? So now there’s a trail of Jimbo’s down to Hatteras!

Planet Earth Clothing for some sweet (organic cotton) threads and gas money!

Michelle and Ted at Eastern Mountain Sports for hooking us up with camping gear. Seriously, I ended up using all that gear a ton. Without it I would have been eating with my hands, lost in the dark, and in a bad mood from not being able to sleep in those army stretchers. Thanks to Eastern Mountain Sports I slept like a baby with the uber comfy extra wide (to cover the wooden sides of the stretcher) sleeping pads and sleeping bags. The fork/spoon/knife utensils were clutch, as were the headlamps (especially when the lighting battery had been run down). Finally, the tent was nice for allowing Chris and I to sleep separately after we spent all day long together. Anyone interested in mountain-oriented action sports (or music or conservation) make sure to check out the Nor’Easter festival put on by Eastern Mountain Sports in September.

WaveTribe for the hemp boardbags and socks, recycled leashes, and cork traction pads. It feels good to be doing less harm to the environment while protecting the boards!

Drift Surfing for following the tour on their rad e-mag site.

MAS Epoxies for the financial assistance that allowed us to keep the Pug rolling.

And of course not forgetting all the people who helped to get the Pug road-worthy: Power Mike, “Bonzer” Bob, Tom Behr and the guys at Grain.

Editor’s Note: Nolan met so many people that helped him on his ramble, that we had to put the rest of his shout-outs in the Board Stories pages. Good to have him back though, and if you’ve been waiting for a kit while he’s been on the road, you’ve not much longer to wait!

It’s funny to think this is my first time writing anything for Grain. Being apart of such a special place for three years and having countless chances, whether it’s building your own board and seeing the grain sparkle in the water for the first time, watching students/friends finish a workshop with such self-satisfaction or just having the daily enjoyment of going to a place where you truly love to work, you would have thought something would have put a spark in me to write. But my inspiration didn’t come from the shop nor from the water but instead from a day with my four year old Silas and his classmates.

A few weeks ago, I took the morning off and went to my sons class to teach them a little about surfing. With a dozen little surfboard key chains made from cedar scraps, some sand paper and a great book to share with them, I was headed back to Pre-k hoping to inspire the next set of groms.

Family means everything to me and watching my son teaching his little buddies how to wax a board and try to explain the construction of a hollow board how it is similar to the “you know skeleton thingy in your body” was the best. I love knowing that he really gets it though he is only four. They all loved feeling and looking at this big beautiful shiny work of art. We read Way Of The Bird by Andrew Kidman and Andy Davis which could inspire any kid from ages 1 through 92. The kid’s eyes were fixated on the beautiful illustrations and photographs within the book and after finishing the story it was a perfect time to give them their sandpaper and surfboard key chains to finish shaping. It was great watching their expressions as they worked on their boards. And seeing them play with them as if they were a bird flying on a wave just like the boy in the story.

Finally heading back to work I got to the shop only to find that I had missed a morning session on the water which hasn’t been around too often these days. But I’ve got to say my session with those kids was one of the best days of surfing I’ve ever had – not necessarily in the water, but certainly as a whole.

Thanks Silas.

If your in the Annapolis MD area today, don’t forget to go by Chesapeake Light Craft from 3- 7pm for Nolan’s last official visit before heading back to Maine. Brad joined up with Nolan in the OBX to help him make the long drive home, and the two of them will be putting the finishing touches on the 5′4″ before the top planks go on tonight at CLC. If your interested in checking out the process be sure to be there before the lid goes on.
We’ve been working with CLC for a few years now and we really like what they do. Cedar strip or stitch and glue, sailboats, rowing boats, kayaks, canoes or paddle boards, CLC has something for every woodworking waterman. Check out their site here.

After 5 weeks of driving, meandering around just about every nook and cranny of coastline from Maine to Cape Hatteras, Nolan is finally on his way home. Join us this Sunday June 20th, International Surfing Day, from 12 – 4pm here at our shop and help us welcome Nolan home. We’ll have the grill going and some drinks on hand, but feel to bring your favorite dish or drink as well. We hope to have a little slide show with images and stories from the road.

Come on by for a mellow gathering, lively conversation and a deep sigh of relief as a trip, short-in-the-making, comes to a close.

Another installment from Nolan as he wanders around in the wilds of America’s Eastern Seaboard. Part I here. More to follow.

You can find Nolan’s current whereabouts here, or get an RSS feed of his scheduled stops
For up-to-date dispatches and schedule changes: &

Part of the reason that Nolan’s got the Pug on the road is so that he can have some well deserved, kicked-back travel after slogging through sixteen long years of Maine education. But we suspect that he’s been having even more fun than may be seemly for a Maine-er.

But recently, we started getting a flood of thoughts and reflections that sound like they’re coming from his journal and hint at deep-running waters. They start at the beginning of his trip… thought we’d share.

You can find Nolan’s current whereabouts here, or get an RSS feed of his scheduled stops
For up-to-date dispatches and schedule changes: &

“I’ve been doing work with Grain on one level or another for about five years. I’ve always been enamored with their commitment to their beliefs and their creativity. To actually spend eight days learning from and working with them was even better than I thought.”

Johnny can’t pass up an opportunity to shape someone else’s rails. The spokeshave is just too addicting.

“I know the weather in Maine can be kind of rough – even more so than New Jersey. But that week, everything just came together. You juxtapose fun waves with the green Maine countryside, throw in genuine, conscious, motivated people, add 19 hours of daylight and wrap it all in flannel.

I’m also amazed at the group dynamic. You take six people from all over the world and they come together to build a wooden surfboard. There’s something very organic about the experience.

Some of the highlights:

• Camped on a lake in Berwick
• Rode the demo model of the board I was building a few miles from the shop
• Johnny made us listen to the Dead
• Canoed the Mousam River
• Bombed hills through the Maine countryside
• Sat by a fire with great friends”

Randy and Nick and the first Striper of the season.

A room with a view.

Another room with a view.

Matty with his own 5′10″.

The Lobster Roll.