So my mom calls me up the other day asking me to clear out the rafters in her garage. I get there and there’s all kind of stuff piled up there. I start pulling stuff down and then I found these- a couple of boards I made in high school (between 1975-1979). I made alot of boards in high school- first I made a couple for myself (because I had no money to buy a shop boards…over 30 years later that’s still my main reason for making my own boards) and then all my friends started asking for them. It cost about $100 in materials back then and I charged $20 a board. For a sixteen year old back then that was bank. I could fill up the tank of the family’s Buick station wagon a few times and travel up and down the coast. Back then I had that “Surfing California” book and wanted to surf as many of the ‘A’ spots listed as I could.
Board #1- This one’s about 6’-6" x 20". I remember seeing footage of Rabbit Bartholomew riding these wide, square tailed boards and ended making a few for myself and friends. You can see “the shadows” left by the rafters. The board’s actually in good condition considering that it gets like 120 degrees right under the roof.
As you can see I was already obsessed with making a wood veneered surfboard. A friend on mine had one of Gary Young’s “Wooden Surfboards” from Santa Cruz, which I lusted after. So I tried to do one myself.
An early attempt at dual concaves? Not intentionally. Back then there was no internet. I had no access to professional board builders. All I had was that spiral bound book “Surfboard Design and Construction.” I had no idea how to get wood on the board, so I used what I thought you used to get veneer onto any other backer- contact cement. Well, when I applied the contact cement to the blank it melted the foam into two nice concaves. I think the slow bake under the rafters has deepened them.
I’ve always had an artistic bent. In fact I trace the beginnings of my artistic career to these drawing I did on almost every board I made. My “company’s” name was “Morninglass.” In this drawing it looks like it says “more ass.” I was really into the Rolling Stones back then and this was concocted from a photo of Keith Richards.
Board #2- This one had snapped. I left it around for awhile and then much later, while I was working for Dennis Choate, I tried a repair with some scraps of kevlar that I picked up from the shop. I didn’t realize that you couldn’t sand kevlar very well. I’m surprised the duct tape is still on the board after 30 years. I remember it was to cover the ragged (unsandable) edges of the kevlar on the rails.
I made a lot of these double wing pin tails. They were modeled after Robbie DIck’s Natural Progression “Pro Series.” I remember they had “scoop tails” which was just a kick in the tail rocker in the last 6 inches. Back when gas was 64 cents a gallon or whatever it was back then I’d go to Malibu a few times a week all summer long, and J. Riddle was the man back then. I wanted to ride the same kind of board he did.
As usual, I had artwork on my boards. This was a Roger Dean influenced ninja. What you can’t see under the kevlar was the cheater five he was doing. The body position was taken from a photo of J. Riddle.
What can I say? Looking at these boards all I can say is “once a hack always a hack.” But over 30 years later I still love making boards.