Visiting Paul Gravelle and Co in South Australia near Cactus
Visiting Paul Gravelle and Co in South Australia near Cactus: we are going more international with this episode that takes us all the way to bloody Cactus mate.
Over to Bruce as he introduces Paul Gravelle…for those that don’t know!
Hi, this is something I meant to do last year, but didn’t get around to it. To celebrate the 40th anniversary of our boards being made in the factory. But anyway, better late than never. So, we’re now celebrating the 41st birthday. And that’s the old historical building. And in case you haven’t been here before, this is the metropolis of Penang.
The New Hall, the pub, the roadhouse, the general store,
and the main street of Penang. And if you drive out that way, heading east, on Highway 1, you would go right around Australia and eventually come back in, coming west. Let’s go inside and have a look. So, the building was built in 1901. Here’s a nice little reference with the history of the place. Might be too quick for you to read, but you can pause it and read it.
It’s definitely worth a read.
So, this is the front room. Oh, here’s a couple of Harry Bryant saw fins. Any ready to go into a quad? There’s a couple of new boards. Mirror finish on this one, look at that.
There’s some guns ready to go up to raid up at the bluff. If anyone can carry a one or two boards up, just let us know. A few second handies and a few of our boards, a few weddings, a few works of art on the walls,
your hoodies,
one of Speedy’s. Paintings. You can come out there. Alright. The
door. Yeah. We’ve got straight out doors.
Desks. A few big boys in the corner. There’s all our bins. And all those drawers. Your board covers. Accessories.
And now we’ll, oh, a cup of tea. Definitely. No Gravel circuit ever gets made without a cup of tea. Or three. And a couple of MG shaped Stepdeck 9. 6 guns. For the bommie, being laminated at the moment. Couple of boards in
the curing box. A few boards shaped and packed and bagged. For Michael to take down to his glassing room at Streaky Bay. And there’s an old gravel up the top. Shaped in single fin shape. Hand shaped. In spring 1975. Just doing a bit of renovated work on that. Few blanks future film boxes getting set in.
All
the boxes. Sounds like Leo
and Rose. Oh, Leo’s at kindy. Hello, look at you. Yeah, and that’s Coco. Hello Coco, you’re talking. And you’re walking, look. And Rose, look, oh yeah, you’re running, aren’t you? Right? We’re going to go and see what daddy’s doing?
This is the spraying room where we do all our spray colors. The resinite happens in the glassing room. Come through here, check out a few of the big boys standing in the corner. Those big ones are 12 0s and 10 8 BOMMY GUNS Shaping bay,
where all the boards are shaped, obviously. Sanding room and a sanded board. A couple waiting to be finished. All the masking tape and wet and dry shelves.
Toilet, shower. That’s our little bathroom. This used to be the stage. And I’ll just come back and show you something quickly that I missed. This is where they used to show the movies. And in this room, before we built the shaping bay. So this room is called the supper room. And here’s the projectionists. It’s where the projector used to show through.
And show the movies out. And there’s a bit of graffiti. They can’t help themselves. This is Alice. There’s a few names up there.
And this is that lean to. This is where we do our wet rubbing. Board ready to be wet rubbed or polished. This is where we do, Matt does ding repairs.
And the shed.
And the grapevine. Flowers in autumn, when the flowers are white. Another surf.
More blanks, more blanks in the box. Michael takes the boards down in. Couple of shape boards. MG working really hard.
And, the machine, cutting a wire.
Mind your ears, we’re just taking you for a quick look. He’s designing a new shape on
the board. So 3D program
in our little wombat.
There you go. So that’s the factory. It’s been 41 great years of making many boards. People have asked me how many boards we’ve made and I actually honestly have no idea. The only thing I could say is that there’s been over 10, 000 custom hand shapes come out and hopefully they’ll still keep coming out for the foreseeable future.
Thanks. Bye.
Affiliated YouTube Channels
https://youtube.com/@Brucifire – highly entertaining surf reporting
https://youtube.com/@thesardinenews – neva miss a single sardine
https://youtube.com/@mydotackletalk – highly technical sport fishing
https://youtube.com/@surflaunchingsouthernafrica – getting out there safely
https://youtube.com/@waterwoes – complain here
Affiliated websites
https://umzimkulu.co.za – self-catering right on the Umzimkulu River
https://umzimkuluadrenalin.co.za – sardine run coming up
https://thesardine.co.za – never miss a single sardine
https://masterwatermen.co.za – news from deep down
https://brucifire.co.za – surf and conditions reporting
https://fishbazaruto.com – your dreams are out there
https://mydofishinglures.co.za – technical sport fishing
