A moment that changed my view of what a "master" shaper was.

Close to 20 years ago I worked for Hawaiian Island Creations on Oahu. My shaping room was upstairs next to Eric Arakawa which was in a factory called Laminations Hawaii.  One day I was eating my lunch and watched Eric carry what looked like 4 blanks to the finish rack all the way downstars to the glass room.  Eric stood his blanks in the rack and stepped back and just stood there looking at the nose rocker.  Something caught his eye and he grabbed one of the blanks and carried it all the way back upstairs to his shaping room to fix whatever he saw that wasn’t right.  I thought to myself, if a “Master” like Eric Arakawa (who had more orders than he could shape) had the time to do things right then I better make sure that I do everything that I can to strive for perfection.  That vision has NEVER left my mind and has made one of the biggest impacts on my shaping career.

I think I better double check my blank to! Because I am scrambling to setup my first outside shaping spot in my friends backyard here soon. I’m making my “Morphed non-fish” model - 0n fish blank. Thanks for your tip about rocker!

A global brand hand shaper walked into his showroom in the late 80’s and checked every one of the 150 boards. He wasn’t happy with bubbles in the fin rovings and about 1/ 3 of the boards were put aside.

 I asked him why and he said " Its all about quality ".

 The next month his long term glasser was replaced.

This says to me that he valued accuracy so much that he couldn’t let his shaping be compromised by inferior glassing, even in an almost microscopic way.

neat freak ? Anal compulsive ?

Or just a good businessman and provider of quality surfboards ?

 

Different lighting changes how boards appear.  Boards look different inside and outside the shaping room, so its important to check them outside the room too.  That’s shaping 101.  

if they were only ‘minute bubbles’ then that owner of co sounds like a -nutjob! Did it ever occur to him that it’s NOT A PERFECT WORLD?! It isnt. If it was, we would all be born rich, we would never have problems. But that’s not reality. Every one will have problems - unless they are 6’ under…sounds like the guy was a dick.

I bought a custom board once, and I did notice a few tiny bubbles…who cares! I bought it, and I figured it’s not a big deal. I suppose if bubbles were all over the friggin deck, or big open bubbles all over thee place-I’d find another glasser. But tiny bubbles…lol

Also, a lot of blame could also be blamed on him for not watching his glasser doing the work… if he did, he could have stopped him in his tracks! And say hey! This is no good, let’s do better work. And if the glasser sucked - then fire him. Just my .02

Good advice and a bit of wisdom by all.  Thanks.

You know, board’s are an art form. I doubt very many are perfect anyhow. I do recall a friend bought a board from a shaper who accidentally gouged into her board… she bought it, and after glass it was not very noticeable. But in cases like this, I think, the co should offer a discount, or at least fill the void with red devil light weight spackle.nuff said.

While I’m a mere master scrubber/Grubber, recently I have been eyeing my blank to see how I want to shape it…

What I have noticed is: blanks (if you choose correct one), you won’t have to do many if any mods to alter a rocker… but I agree with Kazuma’s account of seeing the master shaper fixing a mishapen blank. One definitely should be as accurate as possible. But there comes a time I’ve noticed during a shape that you should call it a draw. Otherwise, you will be having a 1.75" thick sliver to surf on ! :stuck_out_tongue:

The master sees the flaw and fixes it. The rest don’t see the flaw, or don’t care. The master doesn’t mess things up to the point of no return. One reason why so many top surfers in Hawaii would only ride Eric’s customs. One day while surfing years ago, I asked my friend and classmate from school, Cheri Gross, about her board. She showed me what she was riding and told me she would only ride Eric’s boards. I heard Derek Ho felt the same way. Cheri grew up in Mokuleia and was a pro surfer on the women’s tour in the late 70’s and 80’s. I haven’t seen her since that day we were surfing at Big Lefts sometime in the 90’s.

Same for guys who ride Aipa’s, they’ll only ride Ben’s boards. Greg Griffin is pretty fanatic about his boards and get’s really pissed when they don’t get finished right. Caused a lot of issues with some of the people he has worked with, but it shows how much he cares. I’m sure Jim Phillips is just the same.