Date my Weber

General Discussion
1

I got this Weber in NJ in 1992 for 90$.  Finless and very dirty with tar, and paint and all sorts of other drippings all over it.

 

I bought it to ride, not hang.  So I cleaned it up a bit, bought  a Fins Unlimited hatchet fin, and glassed it in with crude fiberglass skills, and spent hours and hours in blissful trim over the next few years on it, in all sorts of conditions, many of which were, “why am I riding a longboard in this?”.

 

It is IIRC, 9’4" and 24.5 wide.  2 inch wide balsa Stringer.

 

In 1997 or so, I was surfing it in  Carlsbad, and Donald Takayama approached me, fondled it, said there was a good chance he had shaped it.

 

My other L boards have been in dry dock for repairs, so I busted this out and have ridden it a few times in the last few weeks.  It seemed happy to be gliding again after sitting unused for a year or two, since the last drydocking. 

 

Lots of people were approaching me asking how old it is.  I’m  just guessing 1968.

 

Still in pretty good condition.  The worst ding was where it had gotten run over well before my ownership, a skeg right across the laminate on the deck.  By the time I noticed the delam around the deck laminate, and stripped the wax, I saw that the stringer had broken.  By this time my fiberglass skills had improved. I inlaid some roving into the stringer, got a new laminate and glassed it back in.

 

Other damages were above the finbox in the tail.  the balsa got wet, and did what balsa does, Turned to mush.  This was back in 1992 or 3, and I wound up scraping out the soft balsa and filled it with resin. I think I remember something being written on the stringer in this location.  Numbers.  I think.  Long gone.

 

Anyway, and Ideas when this board was made?

 

 

2

I think late 67 or early 68.  The logo with that coloring was at the same time as waveset boxes so I’m guessing that board originally had a waveset?

3

I agree with Gene. Two tone “Performer” lam? A very late version of that model and it most likely did have a WAVESET

 

4

Thanks!

  It had the same finbox that housed an original hatchet fin, on a different Weber I’d owned at a later date.  Was there more than one fin box used in that era on Weber?

 

Were longboards still being shipped in mass to the East Coast even after the SB revolution was taking hold?  The place was a goldmine of classic boards stuffed under houses in the mid/ late 80’s. My Mom was a garage sale junkie, called me up saying there was a board for 8 dollars.  It was a Greg Noll. It was in excellent condition.  That board taught me how to longboard.  Sadly it delamed badly, and I broke the nose off at one point.  I resurrected it but it got close to 40lbs.  Hurricane Sandy snapped it in half, at least that’s what I was told.

 

I cannot remember which Lam on the deck the Weber originally came with.

 

I think it was this one:

 

I know it was significantly smaller than the one I replaced it with. I was lucky to get another laminate so I was not complaining.

 I probably still have the original tucked away somewhere.  But it has a fin gash across it and a bad repair. 

5

Oh, right. You mentioned that you replaced the lam, so that is no help in guessing a date.

So, what you indicate is that it had the old style Weber fin system with the wonderbolt. Weber did adopt WAVESET fins before boards began to shrink. The Weber hatchet was one of the first group of fins made by WAVESET. Any Weber longboard with a removable fin will have the wonderbolt style up to around mid 67, and WAVESET thereafter. I beilieve the earliest WAVESET ad I’ve found is from the Fall of '67.

And, yes, longboards were still being sold on the EC in '67. I don’t recall exactly when, but it seems we didn’t see any shorter boards until the Summer of '68.

 

6

Well looking at pics of waveset boxes, I cannot remember whether the box was for a wonderbolt or a waveset.  I just recalled that the fin box was very wide, but the pics show that both waveset and wonderbolt were about the same width. 

It was 22 years ago when I glassed the FU hatchet fin in and cameras were not my thing back then.

Can the super wide outline  be an indicator of date?.  It is by far the widest Nose I have ever seen on any longboard, and I can just barely get the tip of my middle finger around the rail when carrying it under my arm, and standing on the nose, feels like standing on the end of  picnic table.

 

I’ve had the notion of grinding off my poorly done glassing around the base of the fin and redoing it.  I wonder if getting down to the original box would be an indicator which box it came with.

7

The first photo is what Gene and SammyA say late 67.

This was the last of the “performer”  typically had a 2" balsa and the flowers and fabrics were in with some folk.  That board had a W.A.V.E. SET box.

The second photo is the “Prior” model that had typically 2 - 1/4" redwood stringers, early boards had a prefabbed box and the fin was molded (I assume they dobbed the box with resin and stuck it in), the “wonder bolt” came on next. 

“Iggy” was Weber’s performer shaper. DT rode for Weber way back in the “pig” days…

Oh one more thing yeah with the SB revolution being some what muted, da guys unloaded their inventory.

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8

Awesome Info, Thank you kindly.

 

Not really seeing a color match to any of those listed above, but those boards with the 2 inch balsa stringers  have the same nose outline.

 

Was there any special meaning to the giant red lettering or was it kind of a 'slap a few flowers on it, and some giant lettering,  and ship it East" type situation?

 

While I love the board, I am taking a different view on possessions, and would consider offers, but the glassed in hatchet and deck delam are probably value killers.  I got too many surfboards worth more to me than to others…

9

Giant lettering on the bottom became somewhat popular around that time. Early on, you’d only see it on team boards. But those usually had “team” written somewhere, as well.

As to value? Well, the Performer was probably the biggest selling single design on the East Coast in the Sixties. Weber sold thousands of them through his extensive network of dealers. For a couple of years, the East was such an important part of his business that he’d pack up his team and do a North to South EC run every Summer. I surfed 1st Beach in Newport, RI one day with Dewey and a half dozen of his guys (it was humbling).

So, Perfomers only hold real value in the collectors’ market if they are unique, and really clean (near mint). Yours is unique, but in poor condition.

10

Good info, thanks for sharing.  Looks like I’ll just keep it and bust it out on occassion to remind myself of My good old days, or when I need to menace a lineup.