That’s because collectively, we’re way past the time when businesses should be making sustainability and environmental impact a part of their daily thinking about everything they do. “Green is the new whatever” as our friend Ralph G. once said. Not something special, but something integral. Not just a product line, but a process. Not to appeal to a certain customer, but to make the right moves to serve everybody’s interests.

So part of that for us has turned out to be a deep satisfaction in finding ways to use every scrap of wood that is off-cut from another. These offcuts are now found in Grain-Plane hand planes, Sea Sled bodyboards, and Grain Skateboards. As a way to keep us focused on the importance of wise and conservative resource use, we’ve dubbed our penchant for re-use “The Offcuts Initiative”. Look for The Offcuts Initiative logo on product pages to know when you’re joining us in celebrating thoughtful product development that helps you combine your passion for street-surfing or body-surfing with caring for the planet.

After a dismal late winter there was finally a hint of relief in the form of 2-3′ wind swell on the charts. Normally I wouldn’t jump at the chance to drive 14 hours roundtrip to shoot these waves.
By the morning of March 25th, I was in the car with the new 9’6 Grain Cutwater, enroute to NYC to meet up with Mikey DeTemple and Alek Parker(who flew from Florida for this “swell”). After a quick rain soaked 2′ session in Long Beach, we were on our way out East. Our first look at the Atlantic at dawn revealed nothing more than what we surfed the night previous. Mikey was now a bit nervous. Lucky for him the Bake Shoppe had just opened for the season. Coffee and egg sandwiches in hand and we were off, driving down the beach looking for some magical peak to show it’s face.

By 7:30 AM we had found our home for the day. Parked safely above the high tide line we unloaded boards and cameras. Not another soul in sight. For the next 6 hours, Mikey and Alek traded off boards and waves under varying weather conditions. The swell peaked by mid morning, the wind blew offshore behind the passing front and all was well on a Tuesday in Montauk.

When it arrived at our doorstep, the glass had been removed, leaving a rough, weathered surface. There was also substantial rot in the tail as well as along one seam on the deck. To fix the tail, we considered splicing in some new balsa, filling the void with resin, etc, but in the end we decided it would be best to remove the bad wood, re-shape the tail and keep the board as original as possible.

Here are some images of the process. Hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

The day it arrived at Grain, from the tail.

And from the nose.

We did our best to remove the rotten wood at the tail, shortening the board by 4″ or so, while maintaining the original tail shape.

After re-shaping and sanding, we spritzed the board down with water to remove salt and dirt. Then we gave it a light coat of shellac to bring out the original tones in the wood.

The balsa was really dry after all these years so it just kept soaking up the epoxy sealer coats. It would look great when you brushed it on, then you’d return 20 minutes later and it would be dry as a bone.

After the lam and hot coats, we glassed what was the original fin back on the board.

A couple gloss coats and a polish and she’ll be good as new.

We decided to go with a satin finish which we felt was more time period appropriate than a full polish.

We cringe when the words wall hanger and wooden boards are used in the same sentence, it just makes our skin crawl. But after 60 years, what the hell, this board deserves a comfortable resting place, and we are thrilled to have been able to give her one last facelift.

Enjoy the season!

We’re totally pumped to introduce you all to Fyne Boat Kits, our new manufacturing partner in the U.K. Through them, we’re taking “locally grown” to the Eurozone. Part of our slowly expanding efforts in sustainability, this partnership will allow European customers to buy surfboard kits produced with responsibly managed woods grown in their own neighborhood, and help us to avoid thousands of miles of shipping-related emissions. Oh yeah – plus local, duty-free shipping rates for U.K. customers.

That’s because Fyne is based in the northern part of Great Britain – just below the wilds of Scotland – where they’ve been providing DIY wooden boat kits since 1998. But they’ll be taking orders from customers anywhere in Europe, significantly shortening the distance between source and surf.

Just as with Cape Boatworks (AU) before them, the guys at Fyne are totally embracing the values and standards we’ve been applying here in our corner of Maine from day one. Every Home Grown Surfboard Kit – whether it’s packed here, at Fyne or at Cape Boatworks – is backed by all the usual advice and technical support that have helped over a thousand surfers to build their own at home.

We’re so honored that craftsmen like those at Fyne want to join with us in helping surfers with new ways to share the craft of board-building along with the simple environmental act of making things that last.

For a limited time, Grain Home Grown Surfboard Kits produced by Fyne Boat Kits are 10% off. Get on it!

We broke them down into teams of two, with each duo building a different shape including a 5’10″ Waka, 6’5″ Seed and 9′ Root. By the end, after sharing a lot of laughs and even more lobsters, the teams came together and created some seriously beautiful boards. But a picture (and video) speaks a thousand words.

Tait – from a local New England family – made the Van’s trip happen. Only seems right to give him the first photo.

Day two, three teams.

Installing hardware in a hollow board requires precise measurements. Get it wrong now, and you’ll pay later.

Johnny’s a natural born teacher.

There’s time to joke around and then there’s time to focus. Here’s a few shots of the class getting all zen on us.

Renee and Liam and their 5’10″.

Tait and Mike with their 6’5″.

Sean and Chase with their 9′,

Van’s Off the Wall Was Here: foot-print of Van’s sole dipped in black stain.

A special Van’s-checkerboard tailblock for the Root.

A FLY ON THE WALL from Joe Carter.

A big thanks go to Joe Carter from Get in the Van for coming out and filming the madness.

Embracing their tagline “Off Centered Ales for Off Center People”, we decided to do something we’ve never done before, an off center, slanted band made up of spanish red and northern white cedar. In addition the DFH crew sent us up a small chunk of Palo Santo, the wood that their giant tanks are made from that give that famous flavor to their Palo Santo beer, which we built into the boards tailblock.

We chose to have our good friend Randy G. burn words and DFH logo on the board to make it even more special. We think it was worth every wrist ache and numbing finger he must have felt.

While this board will live in their Rehoboth Beach Pub for all to see, it has a second more important life. DFH chose the Steamer because it is universally loved by all who surf it. Why is this so important? Any one of their employes can take the board at any time for some fun in the sun. Not a bad company perk.

The basic shape is designed like any other computer-modeled board, flowing together the rocker, outline, rails, and tapering thicknesses into a perfect surface of compound curves. But that’s only the beginning. From there, we take that shape and create a framework that represents the internal space of the board. The challenges of how to support and then build that structure has required us to develop a whole host of construction variations for our advanced shapes that most people never see.

Because of our attention to these details, and with all of the other things we try to get done on a daily basis, we’re somewhat limited in the number of new shapes that we can design in a year. We have a long list in mind, many of which we are really itching to build and surf, but one that finally reached the top is a new noserider we fondly refer to as the Cutwater.

The experience of building our first noserider about a year ago for a customer here on the east coast got us thinking about a few new techniques we could employ. Back on the drawing board, we stretched it to 9’6″, re-engineered the rail construction, added a super-cool beveled chine on the rail-bottom extending back from the nose, and while we were there, made a few changes to the outline that appealed to us.

The result is the board Brad’s been dreaming of designing for years. We kept the deep single-concave under the nose – naturally running out to a flat near the middle, and sweeping up to a hippy, super soft tail. The bevel we added under the rail is designed to make the board responsive from the nose, granting additional control during tip-time that some noseriders are too stable to permit.

With a few boards in customer’s hands and our own demo here in the shop for anyone to try, we’re proud to add this beauty to the lineup. Too complicated to offer as a kit, this board will be available as a custom board or to anyone interested in building it in a Fantasy Class.

Unlike most businesses, Grain was not formed after years of due-diligence, marketing analysis and financial planning… and maybe we’re a little worse for wear because of that. At the same time, our ability to remain flexible has lead us down some amazing roads. It’s given us the opportunity to follow our passions, to meet people from all over the world who share our values, to create a workshop that is constantly buzzing with energy and excitement and enthusiasm for the things that we’re creating, and those things seem to be expanding. We’re not building products based on pure profit margins, we’re working with our hands to create things that we’re passionate about, and we’re helping other people to do the same. We’re thankful to our customers and friends who allow us to come here everyday and follow our dreams.

Happy New Year to you all. Hope to see you in 2012, the door is always open.

We have so much fun hosting classes and we’re proud to have helped nearly 100 people fulfill their dreams of building a board with their own hands.

With all the perfectly paved roads around the shop, we’ve dreamed of making skateboards for years. Thanks to our friend Courtney, we’re now skating our own boards, made with SFI certified maple, cedar scraps from our board building process and Entropy bio-resin.

We’re passionate about board designs and we love working with customers to create shapes that they’ve been dreaming of. Here’s a sneak peak of our new 9’6″ Noserider called the Cutwater.

Think we’re gonna need a bigger backdrop.

In the fall of 2011, we held the first of hopefully many Surf Re-Evolution events. It topped all of the potlucks and movie premieres we’ve had in the past and we’re looking to make it a two day fest for 2012.

Our friend Randy has been doing some unreal wood burnings for us and some of our customers recently. This one is a tribute to a beautiful chocolate lab named Lambert who spent one of his final weeks here at the shop with his dad building this 10′.

Our love of Paipo’s is growing and this summer we built more then ever before. The Discovery Channel even decided to get in on the action.

Here’s wishing you a warm winter filled with good friends and great waves.

So with a big thank you to my brother Vince, his partners and their company Instrument, we’re happy to announce that March 4th to the 10th, we’re holding a weeklong class in Portland Oregon, the place where young people go to retire. In terms of venues, we set the bar pretty high last September with Jay and Piper’s 100 year-old firehouse in San Francisco, but we think this won’t be too shabby.

This class will be held Instrument’s warehouse, literally a renovated World War II ship building factory, alongside the creative geniuses whose clients include Nike, Google, and Livestrong. We’ll have our own space in their warehouse, some room normally dedicated to bleeding off the excess creative energy of the staff in things like tee-pee building and motorcycle repair. So if you’re from the Northwest and have been dreaming of building a board but can’t bring yourself to Maine, we hope to see you in Portland.