Summer Sessions by Eric Knutson

Bullet Hulls

Here is the finless Moth all finished. Check out the different rocker lines on the wings.

The toe slicer

A couple new pieces for Surf Garage

This board was in a fire fight for the new season of Hawaii 5-0

6 0z E cloth is not Kevlar.

A new Hull and Quadini for Daniel Jones. Yes that board is barely bigger than a box of hats

The Hull

Resin Art

Were working on making a website to show some of the recent works, here is a video of the process.

WOW

Wow. It has been a big week, or is it weeks now?
It seems like it has been a nonstop adventure since... well... I guess it always is. Carl showed up on the fourth of July, we got Skip his Coors board and headed straight to the factory to bust out a couple boards for the tv show Hawaii 5-0. After that we headed to the Bay for a party on Joels boat. Party, girls, booze, boats.
This was the first night we lost Carl.
Somehow the week went on like this. We managed to find our way to the shop everyday and power out. Carl shaped 23 boards this trip. Wow. I think it his record. All kinds of boards. Hulls, minis, single fins, logs, fishes. We even got to revamp Daniel Jones' Quadini.
With all the work going on we seemed to celebrate every night. Botched town missions to Margarita's and black outs.
We have to keep ourselves out of jail, so we can't really post everything on the blog. But it has been harmless fun for everyone. Well Carl might not of had too much fun when we left him up the top of snake road at 2:30 am wasted. Nothing like a 4.5 mile sobering hike to the factory to sleeping on the floor.
Good times.
This was the first time Carl extended his ticket. There was too much work to get done. And we get easily distracted when Heather Brown, Yusuke Hanai, Hi- Dutch and Clark Takashima are calling to BBQ on a sunday afternoon. Definitely an inspiring crew.
After barley making it to the airport, Carl was sent off with boards for Long Beach Surf Shop... and my wallet. Somehow he manage to leave me behind with nothing. literally nothing. Lucky he put enough gas for me to get the van home. Eric met me in town and we went to check out the Hawaii 5-0 set where we had a couple boards in the scene. It was pretty crazy. Jane the prop master took us to the weapons guys and showed us all the guns. I felt like a little kid, so stoked. These things dwarfed the pellet gun at home. A good day. Time to celebrate. Again.
Back to work.
Eric and Matt have been playing around in the shop, getting their fingers in the resin and learning the craft. It sure doesn't keep the beers from going down. The whole vib can go from a mellow night to crashing weddings in about 3 sec.
Loose.
The factory has been bustling even though the nights seem to be longer than the days. Shirts, hats and stickers are in stock. Boards and art are moving through the shop. Somehow were managing to get boards done, party, and even sneak in a body surf or two. I wouldn't change this for the world.
-n








If we had a couple of these at the shop, getting deposits would not be a problem :)

Eric looks pretty comfortable with that gun. Just add the van and a mask.

Look at that smile on my face. For someone who has never shot a real gun, I sure do like them. Don't know why. Always a fan of action movies. Here Alex is giving me the lowdown on the weapon. Everyone was so friendly on the set. It was cool seeing the production of it all. So professional. The opposite of board building.

Some paintings...

A little Single fin for Malibu's Surf Shop employee

A Hull for Malibu's

Some art in the process

A blurry picture of some boards getting laminated. Its full rush time. We got 20 boards were trying to get done before the Crowlifornia trip.

floatilla, Coors, 4th of July

A few great pictures came in from our buddy Eric... Floatilla celebration on the south shore. Rad 

Nice work dude

Sweet

Coors board came out great

A few single fin mellows minus the wings, sleek. Nice mannequin

More more more....

Two Crows And Coors: A Coorlaboration

Here is the Coors and Two Crows Coorlaboration board, all ready to get some technical resin work done. We do a lot of Freestyle work here in the shop, but sometimes it is good to get out of your box and do something different. This board we are working on is for Skip the Coors Distributer. We came up with an idea that would look good with the coors logos. This is the groundwork for it. Full Freestyle with the Coors Banquet colors. Today we added the Coors logo in resin. No easy task.  We love coors so we wanted to make a board that showed some craftmanship and practicality. Much like our beer. 

These photos  are the process in which the logo was applied.

Here the deck is sanded to 320 grt (minimize bleeding of the resin) and ready for some tape.

The board covered in tape. Keep it clean

An entire roll. Barely made it. Ouch. Next time something more efficient.

Covering the back of the printed logo with graphite for transfer.

After the back is covered the logo was fliped and taped to the deck. Then traced. luckley not to much coffee today.

Next was to cut out all the first color, White. 

After applying white pigment and  resin to the boards, it was time to peel the tape. Good thin Charlie Walker and Third Stone Steve were there for the critique :)

Cleaning up the edges.

After a few clean ups it was time for the blue. We re covered the area and started cutting again with a razor blade. 

and by this time it was beer thirty. All part of the job.

The blue came out perfect. So stoked. Matt and I peeled the tape on our way out the door. More pics tomorrow.-n

Chuns on film

Eric scored a sweet little waterproof re-useable film camera at longs for 10 bucks. Here is a few pictures taken out at Chuns this last week during those lovely June swells. -n

Eric up on the nose. I don't know who took the shot. 

 no rush to get out there, plenty of waves to go around

I think Eric took this picture of Kamile cross stepping to the nose. Women can be way more gracefull then men on longboards... in my opinion.

see what I mean :)

The crew. Ant, me, Eric and Rawdawg.  Kamile took this shot, thanks, this will be worth more than gold in 20 years.

Adventures in Mannequinland

"Yah, me too, mellow for a while"

"At least a couple of days... Soooo hungover"

This is the end of the conversation Rawdawg and I were having about 20 min before Eric came down to the shop.

"What's the plans for tomorrow (friday)?" Eric asks.

"Not sure, probably keep it mellow" one of us reply

"There is a party in Chinatown with open bar Brook can get us into"

"What! open bar lets do this!"

"Ill drive one way"

"We should just get a hotel"

Just like that we were back into it. Party time. Cash was getting slim again so Friday morning was polishing out a new Midrange for Surf Garage. We got in the van by 1:30 and headed for Nordstroms.

They had a few mannequins for sale and our shop really needed them. Well not really but they are pretty funny to have around.

The three of us land at the Ala Moana mall. Not the most comfortable place for three surfer guys. We all somehow manage to loose each other in the first 3 sec of getting out of the van. Tina the mannequin seller spots us walking into the store right away and somehow knows we are here for the plastic people. We tried working a deal and ended up walking out of there with 3. Two guys and a sitting girl. Score. We load up the van and head for Surf Garage then the hotel before a surf out in Waikiki. The night has just begun.

Buffing out a nice one for Surf Garage

"Hi my name is Nick, nice to meet you..."

"Get in the van!"

It looked like we were a group of Jeffrey Dahmer apprentices. There were body parts everywhere. Needless to say we got a lot of funny looks driving around town. Here is Eric getting wired while matt moves some body parts to find a place to sit.

Made it to the hotel. Right across the street from Queens. 

A little sailors jerry for the kids...

Free Drinks! Nothing more fun than that. Here Matt and Eric drinking some Chimey. 9$ a bottle. Kinda bubbly. We soon went back to everything else. The G-shock party was going off with food and drinks. It was a smorgasbord of drinks, luckly were pretty good at drinking. The night was just starting. Sometimes it's best to keep the cameras turned off.

The aftermath

We managed a little surf out at a secret spot Eric has been talking about the entire time. Perfect hangover cure and we were back on the road heading to home base at the Sugar Mill. Eric thought this was a good idea to lock his keys in the car so we could all hang out a bit longer.

Birdwatchers

The mannequins made it home into the glassing room. She looks pretty comfortable up on that resin drum.

It wasnt long before the spray paint came out

Fry stopped by and had to get in on the action.

A pretty crazy 24 hours. A couple of incriminating pictures left out, but you can only imagine.
-n