Now this is a fish

Here is an 11 foot keel fish shaped by Rich Pavel for Steve Schirmacher

Fins by John Cherry

Steve's ride report ," Rode it at a little corner at Trestles today and this board is beyond words..."

More big fish

Skip Frye the master with a board to glide the point and slide the bay.

John Cherry shapes a great board and the finest fins to go with them.

It would be great to have both of these gentlemen join us at the Fry one year. They sure have inspired me over the years.

John Cherry , master craftsman.

These beautiful wooden fins are for a 11ft x 23 1/2" chambered Balsa and Redwood glider John is building.

All clamped up and ready to finish shape. A big job ahead of him, but what a great looking board.

Chambering all the pieces is a delicate operation at any time.



I showed John my wooden version of the Alley Slider and how it turned out. He then sent me these shots of one of his favorite boards " I didn’t want to beat up my Phil Edwards model, but I still wanted to ride it. So I built and shaped this chambered balsa for myself (with Phil’s blessing)."
It is also interesting to see how two boards with the same dimentions feeel when built from different materials .

John Cherry, forever building beautiful things in wood.

Handcrafted works of art.

Curly Koa wood D fin getting the finishing touches
John with great friend and shaper Terry Martin with chambered 9ft 6" longboard and a 9ft Bob Simmons reproduction , both in balsa wood. John and Terry built and shaped the boards the beautiful inlay work was done by Ric Allison a noted Pennsylvania artist and professor of furniture design at the University of Pennssylvania.

John Cherry and the 7ft 2" Simm 21, plus the 10ft 10" swallow tail glider.

John Cherry builds another great board

John Cherry has just finished another great board. " I’ve done a lot of stunning wooden boards over the last several years. None quite compare to this one. I’m not even going to try to put its in-person visual impression into words. But the board is absaolutely PERFECT! It will be dropping jaws for decades to come.

I’m so elated to know I will have your special board as the center piece for my space at The Sacred Craft exhibition."

So guys if you are able to make it to the Sacred Craft Expo then check it out.

John Cherry and Terry Martin team up again

Here are some shots sent to me by master wood craftsmen John Cherry and shaper Terry Martin.It's a 9ft Simmons in chambered Balsa. A labour of love where the guys have turned a 60lb close to shape blank into a 24lb board after chambering. As you can see there is a lot of work involved in this process , but the result is an amazing tribute to the legacy that is Bob Simmons. Thanks for sharing guys. Check out John at his sites.

www.johncherrywoodcraft.com www.woodenshipsbyjcherry.blogspot.com

All great wooden boards need a great fin

When you build a great looking wooden board , don't forget to finish it off with a great wooden fin. There are not many better at it than John Cherry. Beautiful woods and a great craftsmanship to create this art.

No excuses now with this sort of inspiration. www.johncherrywoodcraft.com

John Cherry and Terry Martin building a 10ft stringerless chambered balsa single fin nose rider.

John Cherry doing the chambering






Terry Martin, just eyeballing his handy work
Racked and ready to glass at Moonlight Glassing. 6oz both sides

" These photo’s start with the square  (heavy) lumber.  They show the processes of cutting and gluing rocker into the lumber, cutting out the rocker templates, the first glue up, with every other section spot-glued to take apart after the first shaping by Terry Martin, marking and cutting chambers and drilling out the rail sections on the drill press, the second and final glue-up after chambering and Terry doing the finish shaping.  Wood source: Tropical Exotic Hardwoods of Latin America "
 
"Templated blank before 1st shaping; 40lbs.  Blank after 1st shaping 33lbs.  
Finished board, after chambering, before glassing; just under 17lbs. (Yes, really)"

Owner:  Francesco DiTommaso, Bari Italy.

Thanks to John and Terry for sharing these shots with us and showing the whole process. If you want a board like this these guys can build you one. Or maybe this has inspired you to have a go yourself.