Dora Lives...
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
Friday, October 18, 2013
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
JOE CUPS at PICTURE FARM
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Starring Barry McGee, Kunle Martins, Alex Olson, the Brothers Marshall, Malibu Charlie Smith, Andy Lyons, Joel Tudor and New York's very own - Phat Sam!
Music by Eric Copeland, Jimmy Hey, Avey Tare, Arch M and Ariel Pink.
24 page full color Zine and t-shirt to accompany the film, limited # of DVD's for sale!
Free beer from Bluepoint*
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Monday, September 9, 2013
PJ Manchild in Curren Pants
AK and TC Australian morning...
Manchild w/ channel-bottom single and New York Fish Fry(e) t-shirt designed by Jef "Wolfy" Scharf...
photos by Michelle Lockwood*
Thursday, August 29, 2013
King of Shred
Kidman replica of Simon Anderson's original 1981 thruster. Flat bottom up front for easy entry with a panel vee out the back for maximum rail to rail shred action.
(ak foto*)
Friday, August 23, 2013
One Board Quiver
The Single Splice
6’7” x 19 3/8 x 2 ¾
"This board was shaped with Wayne Lynch and Dave Parmenter using their templates. It’s the best single fin I’ve ever ridden. It’s a ‘magic board’ - no wonder considering its’ pedigree. Replicating this would be hard, but worth attempting. Works all the time in any kind of wave."
-AK
Kidman's single fins reference the classic Hawaiian downrail guns that Parrish and Brewer made in the 70's. Channel the era even further and use it as a one board quiver, he makes them up to 7'6. Good for knee high windwell or macking Nor'easters.
-AK
Kidman's single fins reference the classic Hawaiian downrail guns that Parrish and Brewer made in the 70's. Channel the era even further and use it as a one board quiver, he makes them up to 7'6. Good for knee high windwell or macking Nor'easters.
Kidman's Keel Action
Fish
(Paul Whibley photo)
A 5'10 Kidman fish alongside the one Skip Frye shaped for him 13 years ago. Steve Lis gave Skip the original fish template in the late 60's which he still uses. Andrew's fish are a combination of the two with his own contemporary spin.
(Kidman photo)
Dream but don't sleep
Dreamboard
5’10” x 21 ½ x 2 3/8
Traditional Skip Frye fish outline and rocker, Vee bottom with eight channels and modern box rail. Wooden keel template taken from a late 40’s/early 50’s Bob Simmons design.
"Works best in hollow waves from one to eight feet," says AK which sorta sounds like New York. The best parts of a Simmons planing hull mixed with performance enhancing Pollard channels to maximize shred outcome.
Australian power styling from AK
(All images courtesy of Andrew Kidman)
Widow Maker Style
The Crush
-Flat bottom running into six channels, Andrew's version of the Parmenter Widow Maker.
"Works best in overhead barrels" says AK but at almost 20" wide and 3" thick it pretty much works in all conditions.
Original Dave Parmenter widow maker which 'The Crush' pays homage.
An interview AK did with the late Alan Byrne (RIP) on fellow Australian shaper Jim Pollard and channel bottom pioneer.
Last year I took a trip up to Currumbin to visit Alan Byrne and talk to him about the influence Jim Pollard had on his life. Alan still shapes out of the old Hot Stuff factory - with the original sign. Alan made some of the great Hot Stuff boards in the late 70’s and early 80’s for the likes of Rabbit, Chappy and Kong. Most of Alan’s work from this period featured the Clinker Channel. When I walked in off the street Alan was taking a break, reading the paper and listening to the radio. There was a hand painted sign up on the back wall that read: Surfboards up to 6’11” - $650 - channels $700 up to 7’11” - $700 - channels $750.” His shaping bay had about six foot of foam dust piled up in each corner, “I still shape them all out of the blank mate,” he told me. “That’s just a reminder to people I sill use a planer.” I talked to him about Pollard for a while, ordered a board from him (a period 1980 single fin, double flyer swallow, channel bottom) and left him to his business. Legend.
Andrew Kidman: In your opinion was Jim a masterful shaper? Because the foil of the orange board is just beautiful, for the period it’s very modern.
Alan Byrne: I think he was. To conceptually come up with something like that and then to apply it and to make it work as well as it did. The boards just looked beautiful, you know how there’s boards down the beach and you’ll notice them from 200 metres away and you go “Whoa, look at that one.” Jim’s boards had that. I think he was a brilliant shaper. It’s sad that he didn’t step it up and take it further because obviously mentally his brain worked right, he was just one of those people that was outside the whole fucken loop.
It’s weird because I stood in the shaping room with him and he talked to me about the concept and I swear I’ve never heard anything of him ever again. I’ve never managed to contact him ever again. I never saw those boards evolve into anything else. They got to the one third back from the nose phase and “Bang” he was gone. It’s a mystery in a way what happened to him. He was a skinny little eccentric surfboard maker - you could almost mistake Chris Garret for him…(laughs)
When he lit up on the theory and application of them it was just mesmerising.
AK: Did he have a theory?
AB: Oh yeah, he knew everything about what he was talking about, there was no confusion with him. He was saying that utilising the nose to tail and the flow of water that would run down the board. he was explaining how water approached the front of the board and proposing where the water is going as it travels under the board and how do you store some of the energy and release it. If you start thinking about the way the water would run through the bottom of that orange board you can see there that he is effectively taking water from the front and then squeezing it Venturi Style and doing it over a three barrelled setup so there’s not a concentration of too much water building up, squeezing it fractionally and then letting it run out through the tail. He was analysing the flow over the whole bottom and then he put the dome between the middle of your feet where the action was and that gave the board the rolly-polly feel and then he’d stored all this energy in the channels and was squirting it out through the tail.
The thing that is frozen in my mind is the dome: it’s easier to visualise it than to put it into words. It makes complete sense, when he told me this light just came on, his explanation was brilliant, to this day everything in the bottom of what I do is applying those same principles with a different process.
He said that surfboards aren’t like any other thing in the ocean: they don’t have a motor, they don’t have a sail, they are not driven by any other thing other than the fact that you rise and fall on the face of a wave, so it was brilliant the way he developed a way to use all that water running down a surfboard and to not waste it. He was just so enthralled by what he was doing and no-one wanted to listen very much.
He was so convinced that he was right that he went to the Naval Institute in Tasmania to talk to these people about it. He spoke to an admiral there and he told them this is a concept applicable to global ocean going vessels because there’s always swell running, and that those boats should be able to utilise the power of a running swell and use the surfing aspect of it to save fuel. He told them that this idea will enable a hull to utilise the speed of a swell. The admiral said he’d never seen anything like it, that it was totally revolutionary and that they’d look into it and low and behold Jim disappeared.
AK: How important has his influence been on your shaping?
AB: That moment where he explained it to me, that was one of those moments in my life where I was at the crossroads and he made me turn and follow a different direction away from everyone else.
AK: Have you got any idea where he got the idea from?
AB: I think it was just a flash of intuitive brilliance. The fact was that Smitty just blew people’s minds in Hawaii, but I think people struggled with what Jim was doing and it was too left of centre, like “That’s pretty weird man” even with the clinker channels there has always been naysayers like, “Why don’t the pros ride them?”
AK: Anything else?
AB: If he’s still alive tell him fucken thank you. He was one of those bright stars that flitted through the night sky and disappeared again. He changed my world.
(All images courtesy of Andrew Kidman)
6’6” x 19 ¾ x 2 5/8
"Works best in overhead barrels" says AK but at almost 20" wide and 3" thick it pretty much works in all conditions.
Original Dave Parmenter widow maker which 'The Crush' pays homage.
Manchild widow making...
(Matt Johnson photo)
An interview AK did with the late Alan Byrne (RIP) on fellow Australian shaper Jim Pollard and channel bottom pioneer.
Last year I took a trip up to Currumbin to visit Alan Byrne and talk to him about the influence Jim Pollard had on his life. Alan still shapes out of the old Hot Stuff factory - with the original sign. Alan made some of the great Hot Stuff boards in the late 70’s and early 80’s for the likes of Rabbit, Chappy and Kong. Most of Alan’s work from this period featured the Clinker Channel. When I walked in off the street Alan was taking a break, reading the paper and listening to the radio. There was a hand painted sign up on the back wall that read: Surfboards up to 6’11” - $650 - channels $700 up to 7’11” - $700 - channels $750.” His shaping bay had about six foot of foam dust piled up in each corner, “I still shape them all out of the blank mate,” he told me. “That’s just a reminder to people I sill use a planer.” I talked to him about Pollard for a while, ordered a board from him (a period 1980 single fin, double flyer swallow, channel bottom) and left him to his business. Legend.
Andrew Kidman: In your opinion was Jim a masterful shaper? Because the foil of the orange board is just beautiful, for the period it’s very modern.
Alan Byrne: I think he was. To conceptually come up with something like that and then to apply it and to make it work as well as it did. The boards just looked beautiful, you know how there’s boards down the beach and you’ll notice them from 200 metres away and you go “Whoa, look at that one.” Jim’s boards had that. I think he was a brilliant shaper. It’s sad that he didn’t step it up and take it further because obviously mentally his brain worked right, he was just one of those people that was outside the whole fucken loop.
It’s weird because I stood in the shaping room with him and he talked to me about the concept and I swear I’ve never heard anything of him ever again. I’ve never managed to contact him ever again. I never saw those boards evolve into anything else. They got to the one third back from the nose phase and “Bang” he was gone. It’s a mystery in a way what happened to him. He was a skinny little eccentric surfboard maker - you could almost mistake Chris Garret for him…(laughs)
When he lit up on the theory and application of them it was just mesmerising.
AK: Did he have a theory?
AB: Oh yeah, he knew everything about what he was talking about, there was no confusion with him. He was saying that utilising the nose to tail and the flow of water that would run down the board. he was explaining how water approached the front of the board and proposing where the water is going as it travels under the board and how do you store some of the energy and release it. If you start thinking about the way the water would run through the bottom of that orange board you can see there that he is effectively taking water from the front and then squeezing it Venturi Style and doing it over a three barrelled setup so there’s not a concentration of too much water building up, squeezing it fractionally and then letting it run out through the tail. He was analysing the flow over the whole bottom and then he put the dome between the middle of your feet where the action was and that gave the board the rolly-polly feel and then he’d stored all this energy in the channels and was squirting it out through the tail.
The thing that is frozen in my mind is the dome: it’s easier to visualise it than to put it into words. It makes complete sense, when he told me this light just came on, his explanation was brilliant, to this day everything in the bottom of what I do is applying those same principles with a different process.
He said that surfboards aren’t like any other thing in the ocean: they don’t have a motor, they don’t have a sail, they are not driven by any other thing other than the fact that you rise and fall on the face of a wave, so it was brilliant the way he developed a way to use all that water running down a surfboard and to not waste it. He was just so enthralled by what he was doing and no-one wanted to listen very much.
He was so convinced that he was right that he went to the Naval Institute in Tasmania to talk to these people about it. He spoke to an admiral there and he told them this is a concept applicable to global ocean going vessels because there’s always swell running, and that those boats should be able to utilise the power of a running swell and use the surfing aspect of it to save fuel. He told them that this idea will enable a hull to utilise the speed of a swell. The admiral said he’d never seen anything like it, that it was totally revolutionary and that they’d look into it and low and behold Jim disappeared.
AK: How important has his influence been on your shaping?
AB: That moment where he explained it to me, that was one of those moments in my life where I was at the crossroads and he made me turn and follow a different direction away from everyone else.
AK: Have you got any idea where he got the idea from?
AB: I think it was just a flash of intuitive brilliance. The fact was that Smitty just blew people’s minds in Hawaii, but I think people struggled with what Jim was doing and it was too left of centre, like “That’s pretty weird man” even with the clinker channels there has always been naysayers like, “Why don’t the pros ride them?”
AK: Anything else?
AB: If he’s still alive tell him fucken thank you. He was one of those bright stars that flitted through the night sky and disappeared again. He changed my world.
(All images courtesy of Andrew Kidman)
Andrew Kidman in New York
Andrew will be in town this September hand-shaping ten surfboards. A champion of thruster alternatives without sacrficing performance, he's known for his 'models' which are based off magic boards he's acquired as well as significant designs in the evolution of the surfboard. Designs like Dave Parmenter's channel-bottom widow maker, Steve Lis/Skip Frye twin keels and long fish, classic single fins like the ones made by Tom Parrish and Wayne Lynch in the 70's and lately his "Dreamboard" which blends elements of Bob Simmon's 1950's planing hulls and Jim Pollard's channel-bottoms for a next level shredding experience.
Andrew's shaping philosophy-
I shape boards that I’m interested in riding. Be it channel bottoms, single fins, traditional fish or prototypes that are combinations of these designs.
I believe in customizing equipment for the individual. I grew up with access to this kind of one-on- one experience, for me it has been one of the most enjoyable parts of the surfing journey. I’d like to continue to make that experience available for other surfers.
Shaping surfboards is a craft. It takes years and years to develop ones skills. I am still learning my craft being taught by such masters as Pat Curren, Skip Frye, Terry Fitzgerald, Wayne Lynch, Simon Anderson, Dave Parmenter, Wayne Deane, and Michael Mackie along the way. All these shapers have dedicated their lives to making equipment for themselves so they can surf the way they want to surf. Sometimes this translates for other surfers, sometimes it doesn’t. This is the beauty of one on one custom shaping - the shaper is able to talk about and consider what the client wants before applying his skills and experience to the task.
I don’t believe in making cheap, replicated surfboards.
Boards will be glassed by Mark Petrocelli of Faktion Surfboards. For orders and inqueries contact nachtville@gmail.com
(Patrick Trefz photo)
Andrew's shaping philosophy-
I shape boards that I’m interested in riding. Be it channel bottoms, single fins, traditional fish or prototypes that are combinations of these designs.
I believe in customizing equipment for the individual. I grew up with access to this kind of one-on- one experience, for me it has been one of the most enjoyable parts of the surfing journey. I’d like to continue to make that experience available for other surfers.
Shaping surfboards is a craft. It takes years and years to develop ones skills. I am still learning my craft being taught by such masters as Pat Curren, Skip Frye, Terry Fitzgerald, Wayne Lynch, Simon Anderson, Dave Parmenter, Wayne Deane, and Michael Mackie along the way. All these shapers have dedicated their lives to making equipment for themselves so they can surf the way they want to surf. Sometimes this translates for other surfers, sometimes it doesn’t. This is the beauty of one on one custom shaping - the shaper is able to talk about and consider what the client wants before applying his skills and experience to the task.
I don’t believe in making cheap, replicated surfboards.
Boards will be glassed by Mark Petrocelli of Faktion Surfboards. For orders and inqueries contact nachtville@gmail.com
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