Making handplanes for fun and money
Noa Duke Frank with a handplane that he made and his sister painted. Photo Noa Duke Frank, 12, isn’t a big surfer. But he likes the ocean. “Definitely the one thing I love most is going in the water,” he said at his family’s north Manhattan Beach home last week. But bodysurfing, he found, was “a pain in the booty.” The Manhattan Beach Middle School seventh grader wanted a handplane to help him lift his torso out of the water while riding a wave. “You go so much faster and do more stuff,” he said. He could only find cheap plastic ones or really expensive wooden ones, so he “went on YouTube and figured out how to make one.” Using a jigsaw, he cut out a piece of wood about a foot long. It was crude, but it worked. “I was using it, and my friends said, ‘Dude, that’s sick. Can you make me one?’” He did. And then he made another. About a year and a half later, he estimates that he’s made 150 to 200. He works on them in his free time and sells them through his website, NoakaiDesigns.com, and at several stores including Spyder Surf, Tyler Surfboards in El Segundo and as of just recently, Rider Shack in Culver City. At Spyder, Luke Jarvis said they’ve sold around 40 or 45 since they…
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