I just acquired a “totally rad” late 1980’s 7’0 Corky Cool Sticks (Corky Carroll) and would like to know if anyone out there has more information on these boards aside from what I’ve found via a google search.
So far, I believe they were produced b/t 1986-1989 in New Smyrna Beach, Florida and possibly shaped by East Coast legend Charlie Baldwin.
The dim’s are approx (7’0, 21", 3" …square tail, single wing, with 4" glassed side fins and a trailing center box).
The neon airbrush is totally the most vivid I’ve ever seen. Glass on skegs are in perfect condition and there’s some rail shatters and minor bumps and bruises from being stored in this guys shed for 20 years. Otherwise, the thick glass has kept this board in really great shape.
I’m going to clean it up today and take some more photos but would definitely like to sell it to someone who appreciates these boards. Please post any more info. you may have about these boards.
This is hilarious; someone posts a pic of an old board and we all go off down memeory lane. Lots of ''history'' theads start like this. It's too bad we don't have some way to group them all together cuz there's a wealth of stories on this site. Data-mining will take care of it for us someday...
Thanks for mentioning my first two blanks I did for Clark. I started working on the 6'7'' about 3 years before it was introduced. The first try at plug was rejected, but they liked the idea enough to let me have another go at it. Then the ''gassing problem'' came along, delaying all new molds. By the time it came out I was afraid it would be obselete. It turned out to be way more successful than I could have ever imagined. The old beak-nosed, thicker blanks were on the way out. Yes, I get some of the blame for the ''close-tolerance'' blank.
The flip-tip design on Kelly's board actually came from the guy who shaped most of the Kech boards, but didn't sign them. His name is Kirk Brasington.
That board was built at the Channin factory in Encinitas CA around that time frame.
Channin had the contract to build those for Sundeck. They also built Dewey Webers, Bradshaw Hawaii, and for a short time Herbie Flectcher, Gary Propper and Kechele.
Bill Yerkes who posts here as Balsa Bill was running Sundeck then. He might be able to add to this.
The paint job on the board was done by me. I’m surprised how well the Fluorescent paint has held up. The board must of not spent too much time out in the sun.
That paint was re-bottled DayGlo poster paint. Once the suppliers RevChem and Ashland figured that out they cut out the middleman and put Magic Touch out of business.
Flourescents may be bright but they don’t stay that way for very long. I’m suprised that a lot shops still use them.
Atomized. I am sure Polyester Chemical was not bought out by Ashland yet then. And Jim, “I will be there tomorrow”, was still driving. Jim by never showing up when he said he would then destroyed Polychem so much it opened it up for RevChem. Not that it matters. Your work is still superb, and appreciatiated.
That’s 100% correct. Except Sundek is spelled without the “c”. lol.
These were some of the most beautiful boards built around that time frame. '85-'88. The shapes were great and the boards were marketed to the “older” surfer (thirties on up) that wanted to catch more waves but didn’t want to ride a longboard. I had a 7’2. Corky rode a 7’0 or a 7’2". The glass jobs by Channin were precision and perfect. The shop always had a reputation for some of the best glass work in the business. And the color work. Ahhhhh. Second to none. Absolutely beautiful.Very eighties but at the same time also classic and timeless.
The paint job on that board was iconic for the brand. Corky’s looked like that.
We also did an “egg” shape but Corky preferred the oversized thruster. We also made a longboard prototype with three small glass ons. We didn’t really promote the longboard because we were promoting Dewey’s Performer to that market.
We had a lot of fun designing and marketing boards with that group of legends. And it was a pleasure to work with the crew at Channin because I never had to worry about the quality.
"We also did an “egg” shape but Corky preferred the oversized thruster"
****The Corky Funstick. Remember the Funstick ad with Corky and his girlfriend in bed that Surfer almost didn’t publish because they thought it was too racy. Pretty tame by todays standards.
The years that we built for Sundek at Channin was great time.
I remember meeting two very young brothers who where Kechele team riders back then. Tony said that you told him the youngest was going to be next big surf star. Boy were you right!!
Rick shaped all of the Bradshaws and Kecheles and some of the Corkys. Jim Hovde shaped the Webers and some of Corkys. Mike Diffenderffer also did a few of the Corkys when he was around.
Kech had shaped the board they brought along, Florida especially, had gotten into/onto the sander enhanced nose flip, this was what they wanted Hammon to reproduce, he shaped what he felt would work, Kelly hated it, so Rick did another, like he wanted, not what Kelly wanted, Sean and Kelly went to Channel Island after that, the rest is major history.
Mike Daniel was the first shaper to get Clark to do 2 plugs with the flip tip built in, the 6’7"d and the 7’1"d, extremely popular blanks during the time frame
I remember that board that Kelly brought. The thing was really a peek into the future of what short boards would all look like. Years later, I spotted that same board stashed upstair at Channin all covered with dust. I wonder what eventually happened to that thing. That thing belongs in a museum.
Like a lot of boards that were in the loft, Tony took them out and broke them over the edge of the dumpster, I guess he never heard of the Boy’s and Girl’s club of San Diego, one of Pavel’s was saved by Tracy , Tony could not break it, it was Brewer tow in.
He finally left back for Mex., used our toilet, pissed in it twice and never bothered to lift the lid, just left his dripping’s for us to clean up, thanks.
Went into my shaping room and walked off with my 2" tape, electrical tape, broke a bunch of my drill bits and put them back, spilled resins on my chop saw, dropped every piece of scrap right where it fell, cut up 2x4’s that were mine, what an excuse
I saw the Slater Kechele’s that Al would refer to when he was still shaping by hand. It was in the same rack as the '86 Curren magic board. that he would refer to when doing Tommy’s. But I also saw Kechele’s tube ride in the '87 EXCEL PRO first hand at Sunset, we talked about it at Bradshaw’s compound later that day, and the guy was pumped. Rawson was still shaping at Ken’s house then, and it being so close to Sunset, was a great place to hang out. Kechele was pumped! I bet if you asked him about that wave he still remembers it. He said it was the best wave of his life up to that point…
Al never did a plug for Clark because, he didn’t want everyone copying his stuff, like they were trying. Most all of his blank’s were “R” series with additional rocker, because they were generally thinner than Rawson’s “A” series, which were used for the thicker boards. Got to say it was Kechele in front of the pack, but I have to thank him because that trend he started, made it much easier for me to catch waves with my more moderately sized boards. '87 was the year a shaven Bradshaw first had Quicksilver screened on his ass…
Balsa, I hope the last part makes you laugh, I respect your eye for talent…
I was at the Inlet on afternoon and Kech was out in his usual form, it was about 4-5 feet and Kech was dropping late and waiting for the lip to start to throw. He’s a goofyfooter and backside jamming off the bottom to meet the lip and sort of Olly up onto it for a floater re-entry. Now I’ve broken 2 short boards at the inlet hitting the lip, it will F you up if you are not on it.
But Kech must have nabbed 20 waves and repeated that move on each one.
I used to glass his older brother’s boards at my Cocoa Beach factory, Matt was just a little skinny kid at Apollo Building riding Greg’s shapes for Ocean Avenue. Just another one of the guy’s Kelly looked to for guidance
The way the Corky Cool Stick came about: Corky and I were talking about boards and I asked him what size board he was riding. He said he was riding a 7’2 shaped by Brian Clark. That is was a “blown up version of what the kids were riding”. I ordered one for myself and I really liked it.
Then we were at a show and we were asking older guys (we were in our mid thirties at the time) what they were riding. Bill Andrews said he was riding something in the 7-7’6 range. We started talking about buiding and marketing a board to “older surfers” that didn’t want to ride a long board but wanted to float better and catch more waves.
As we were talking about it Tony Channin and Randy Wong walked up. Tony was just gearing up the glassing shop again after being in the boat business. We told him what we were thinking but we weren’t real serious about it until Tony and Randy looked at each other and then Tony said, “Well, we’re in”. So here I was with Corky for a rider and Channin to build the boards.
We had the basic prototype and Tony wanted to see it so Corky went down to Encinitas to “the hill”, He never even took the board off the car, he just walked into the factory, walked up to a rack of finished boards, grabbed one, took it out and looked at it and said, “This looks good”. And that was it. I asked him about it and he said he never knew the “numbers” on his boards. He just took what Munoz or Phil Edwards shaped for him and rode them.
At that time there were hardly any surfboard ads in Surfer magazine.Certainly no full page color. So we launched it with full page color ads in Surfer and went to our best Sundek dealers and offered it to them with credit terms. We went to Hawaii and had Warren Boster shoot some water shots for the ads.
The first ads broke during Surf Expo and we made a big splash. We started with the Corky Cool Sticks, Bradshaw, Kechle and Gary Propper. Then Dewey Weber came to me and showed some interest in getting involved. That was a thrill too. He’d been struggling with some issues I won’t go into here but I was glad to bring his legendary status and personality into the program. He went down to Channin’s and shaped me a Performer from a Clark Super light blank and “atomized” did an airbrush just like the first Performer in the ad in Surfer in the Sixties. Actually I’m not sure who shaped it. It was a really cool board. Wish I still had it.
