I’m looking for a little help with a board restoration that I am debating. I picked up a Weber longboard from a guy who claimed to have found it under someone’s porch in the 80s and had kept it in his shed ever since. The board had a blunt nose (not original, but poorly repaired), glassed on reddish brown hatchet fin, and was painted blue over the glass. The first five feet of the stringer were rotted because of the poor nose repair. That being said, I felt obligated to help the relic, so I bought it and since then have stripped the glass to see what was underneath. Seems like Walker Foam (hopefully) that is in really good shape — fin had been routed in and cutlaps had been pushed into the foam. Double glass and could not find a number or signature anywhere. In addition, I have had a ton of trouble finding the logo anywhere else. If anyone has any insight, it is much appreciated! I just dont want to accidentally restore a copy! More pictures to come…
You may want to post more pics of the board including a close up of the fin. I had a 1968 that had a ghost lam ( just the border with nothing inside of it ). I found the lam on your board on stoked-n-board with the date unknown. Post pics and you may get some help dating the board.
The lam is 100% authentic. Just a variation on the standard Weber logo. You won’t find a signature because no one signed boards back then. Initials or a symbol were sometimes used, but even that was not common.
With five feet of the stringer rotted I don’t know if I’d even bother trying to put much time or money into the board. That’s more than half the stringer. Major surgery required.
Thanks for the help thus far everyone — more pictures just uploaded… The stringer issue is definitely frustrating. All thanks to the poor repair job done at the nose…
It’s a basket case, for sure. I hope it was free, as it is worth pretty much nothing. The chopped nose is bad enough. But. it looks like a home made copy of a hatchet fin and then there’s the stringer rot. I would leave it as is and maybe just make it water tight for use on really crowded days when you know there will be collisions, anyway.
Around 1965-66, Weber sold more boards on the East Coast than anyone else. There are tons of beat up, stock Webers along with thousands of Perfomers sitting in sheds and garages right now. An old Weber is not rare and must be really clean or unique to be worth anything.
You now own a Weber. Maybe you had one before, maybe not. You do now, and that (to me) is cool. Everybody is probably right that it might not be worth much monetarily, but if you are stoked on it, then it doesn’t matter if it’s even worth 1 cent. Sand it down, fix the nose, glass it up, and ride it. And check out the last board on this site if you really want to see a messed up stringer, and how good it can look: http://classicbingsurfboards.com/bing-surfboards/classic-bing-restorations/
Others have already told you its a basket-case. In any rational sense, Samy is right - water tight and ride on crowded days. Though I think the fin is probably a re-set original.
But… I used to love basket-cases! Pain in the arse, sure. Rediculous time to monetary value ratio? Sure. But pretty salvagable. Either as a beater/rider like Samy suggested. Or… as a completely non-collectible (still beater) resto projet in which you get some balsa milled to width (or plane it yourself) and replace the damaged stringer (references on line, not without precedent), get an off-cut nose from a shaper and reshape your nose using a period-correct template, clean up your misc. crap and you’re good to go. Give yourself a year, work on it when you feel like it, and you’ll have a rider with some history and learn a lot in the process.
Do it as a thread and you’ll get a lot (I hope) of constructive feedback and encouragement.
I’m currently down to a couple of clean vintage riders. But as a kid I spent a ton of summers between PB and La Jolla riding salvaged beaters that would’ve been scrapped otherwise. Liked the history. Liked saving the board. Liked what I was learning in the process, like making and setting fins and color-matching. Okay, my color-matching skills sucked.
The fin is too rounded and slender to be an original. The early Weber hatchet fins had sharper corners and more area, over all. It also looks like it’s made from mat rather than cloth. Those could be scratches on the surface but they look very much like fibers showing through from glass mat. Glass Weber fins were made from cloth, exclusively.
Sammy, wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been wrong, but the leading edge looks makes it look like a regular glass lay-up to me. I’m going with a heavily scratched and weathered surface on a worn original rather than mat. Agreed on the originals being standard lay-ups.
Thank you to everyone for the variety of responses. My main issue was making sure it wasn’t a fake and in turn, trying to pin down a decade for the board. I definitely have some thinking to do… Could be a good project to work over a longer period of time. I’ll keep you all posted if I end up getting it up and running!
