We have a new guy at work that was telling me about an air curtain set-up that he helped install on Magnolia St.(?) in Cocoa.I thought it was an interesting idea. Any pictures/details of the set-up?
Thanks
What’s the air curtain for?
Jim will have to catch this, I didn't see anything like that when I was working with Jim (from 80 to 85).
Sounds like a fart barrier...........
whats a “Slinkie/s”
[IMG]http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s225/SURFFOILS/SURFFOILS%202011/slinky1.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s225/SURFFOILS/SURFFOILS%202011/slinky2.jpg[/IMG]
ha, i see ha ha 
Howzit art, I think you should ask the guy who told you about it instead of us guys here on Sways. After he tells you the answer you can tell us or maybe it's what you hide your air guitar behind. Aloha,Kokua
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Sounds like a fart barrier...........
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We might have needed that a few times, after lunch down at ''What's Cookin' ''. You must know Jim Phillips. Or his reputation has preceded him...
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Howzit art, I think you should ask the guy who told you about it instead of us guys here on Sways. After he tells you the answer you can tell us or maybe it's what you hide your air guitar behind. Aloha,Kokua
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ha ha ha, good one Kokua
I’m kinda’ at a loss, one who is this telling you, but I had gotten a discarded (read dumpster dive) vertical divider made of heavy vinyl over lapping panels to keep sanding room dust from making it to the lam room and hold back fumes from the rest of the factory.
Mike can tell you why I reserved the fumes and fin foiling dust for the occupants of my parking lot.
Off topic, one day my house started stinking in the kitchen, I looked every where, garbage disposal, refrig’, but the smell was around the refrig’,but nothing inside was the culprit.
After about an hour of trying to locate the source, I was lying on my side to see if something was under the refrig’, no dead rats or such, but I noticed the drip collection pan underneath, but it was stuck and wouldn’t move. Upon closer inspection, it had at one time been put in backwards and a bolt head was stopping it from being removed. With a little prying I got it to slip by the bolt, oh my God, it was filled to them brim with every thing that had spilled in the refrig’ for tears, the defrosted roast, the glass of milk, you name it.
It was so disgusting that I started dry heaving just from seeing it and it was so full that I was afraid to move it, I opened the front door and like I was carrying nuclear waste, got it to the front yard without dumping it into my carpet. What little that had gotten on my fingers was putrid and I grabbed a bottle of vodka out of the freezer to was my hands with.
I got an empty mayo jar and poured the contents in to it after getting gloves and my respirator and capped it tightly. The drip tray got a good scrubbing and replaced correctly, now I had in my possession a secret weapon.
My parking lot was the place to park to go to the likker’ sto’ next do’ and I did get my lights punched out once for asking one of the “bros” to move his welfare Caddilac.
No more Mr. nice guy, park in my lot and you get a dose of Mr. Jim’s secret elixir in your floor mats, 105 Stone St., gateway to two worlds and the turn you make better be east, don’t cross dem’ rail road tracks
I remember the divider but that's not quite what I pictured given the term ''air curtain''.
I can still picture the devious little grin you'd get when you were about to exact retribution on parking offenders. Remember what the first of the month would be like? When the checks came in, it was party time. We couldn't get in or out of our own parking lot; and the loading dock of the factory would be dice game city, complete with colorful expressions (Luke and I learned new words and phrases by listening from inside the lam room when we should have been working). Remember when we found what we thought was a dead body behind the building? Turned out to be just another comatose drunk...
Oh my God, the back steps to the glassing room, what we saw from there, June Bug’s daughter, bent over at the waist, dress tossed over her head, Leroy plowing the west 40, so she could get a 40.
One day as the temps rose, it was time to open the lam room up, I lifted the garage doors and there was a Chrysler LeBaron convertible with 3 white girls in it in front of the loading dock.
When I opened the back door, Rufus was slipping off his cut off bib overalls so the guy with the 200 dollar razor hair cut, shirt unbuttoned to the waist and tied in a knot at the bottom, gold razor blade, spoon, straw, Italian horn and Jewish star dangling from his neck.
I wasn’t interrupting the fact that Barberino was about to oral service Rufus for the crack rocks he was going to smoke with the 3 chicks in the car.
Every day was the ultimate eye opener for the white boys that had moved into lovely down town negro world, this in the end would spell total disaster for my company when my manager fell into the spell of unlimited freak sex with the “local” girls and the glut of cheap crack after the doors closed for the night. He bled the checking acct. until the unpaid bills were greater than what could ever be paid off and the Cocoa police had him under surveillance for the late night activities.
I were informed by someone inside the police dept. what was coming down, he bolted in the night, not to be seen again, the financial situation came to the surface, as he had been cooking the books for about a year. I held on for about a year or slightly more, but could not break the chains of disaster that I was in.
Like most small companies, even with flawless credit, it is next to impossible to borrow money from the banks , get deposits, buy 3 blanks cash, build the 3 boards by myself, get the money and fight off the wolves at the door, buy 3 more blanks, it was a never see the light of day.
Summer of '93 the US championships were at Oceanside, I scraped up enough money for my next wife and I to go, between events I shaped customs for pals at Channin’s, Randy Wong said to me that what they really needed was a shaper of my caliber.
Surf expo was the following January, I asked Bahne, Channin if they had my old job shaping for them available again, the answer was a flat out no.
But in the end of March I got a call from Channin, South Coast was buried in custom orders and needed another shaper who could handle the load, they reccomened me to Robin Prodonovich. I put my tools in Ed Clapps V Dub campmoblie and came to Encinitas for 3 months. I banked every penny I made, shaping by day, foiling fins til’ 3 in the morning next door at Fins Unlimited.
In May I flew my to be wife out, we rented a house, we flew back, cleaned out the factory, rented the biggest Uhaul truck and pointed it west, I hit town with 300 bucks to my name, started a revival of my label and shaped my ass off for everyone that would bring me foam, 3rd string rookies to the top 16 hero’s.
It was a long term struggle, but if you do not lose sight of the light at the end of the tunnel, there will be a reward for hard work and all of you that have used my services, thank you very much, you put food on the table for my family.
Don’t do drugs
Jesus jim, interesting story, good on you for holding your line through all the shit!
Fortunately for my memories of Magnolia St., crack had not yet arrived when I left and set up my shaping room in Indian Harbour Beach. It was just the liquor store madness. While there were some horribly intoxicated people, it was generally all in fun.
That guy who embezzled you out of everything you had was a scumbag. He always made me nervous. He sure had everyone fooled right up until the point where the power got cut off and his whole scheme unraveled. You sure as hell didn't deserve any of the sh%t that got heaped on you.
It almost follows the tale of the fall of the Roman empire, from the late 70’s to the late 80’s, Florida was boom town, every surfer knew someone who knew someone who had a boat, plane, deep water dock, abandoned/unwatched air strip.
The Miami boy were the patrons of the art, to speak, ordering huge quivers, cash, all with Benjamin’s, everyone knew how they got their fortunes, but who cared when they spent the money with you and it was that way for ALL the builders.
All the local shops grew rapidly, like the bubble that just killed the world, but I was facing a triple edged sword, 2 divorces in a row and then the crack ruination, this was to be combined with the DEA putting up the Fat Albert radar blimps across the south Atlantic and gulf of Mexico. Miami saw an over night drop in the economy by 20 %, car, boat, luxury item outlets closed up over night. The recession of the late eighties was underway in full effect, I lost my house, got my Jeep repo’ed, was in court weekly with my divorces and child support issues.
NASA layed off 3,000, MacDonald Douglas layed off 6,000, money had dried up and the court system had their unending hands out, I would almost weekly be arrested for not being able to come up with support, eventually being arrested at 4:30 in the morning, with the local TV station, news paper reporters and 3 cars of sheriffs leading me away in hand cuffs.
The TV station TGL, “The Good Life”, a Christian station, ran me as a feature story, “Surfboard builder, dead beat dad, nabbed in child support round up”.
The Gannett new service put me front page on the Florida Today, then ran it in USA Today, from there Hard Copy did a special “America’s most wanted dead beat dad’s”, it ran the night before Surf Expo opened, so as I walked into the convention center, I was greeted first by Dick Catri, “hey, you were on TV last night”.
It was not what I had planned on, I had always worked hard, put nearly every penny away, only to have the people who were the closest to me be my undoing, et te Butus
Jim, I have never met you that I know of, but I have seen you as you mention above in the paper and on the tv. I have fondled a few of your boards here, and they are nice. Having grown up around similar circumstances one county north, I can only say that the places that surfboards are created here have some interesting ambiance. A friend who I grew up with, now glasses at Larry’s, formerly at the Spectrum factory, and we used to trip on what wobbled by looking for who knows what. NASA is back to layoffs again.
A life of adventure and intrigue !!
Yep, south Melbourne on US 1, rail road tracks right behind them too, you know who lives on the other side of the tracks in Florida, Aurora Rd., Eau Gallie, it’s the same from Miami to Jaxonville
Jim,
I remember the “kiln” you built in the parking lot to dry out the balsa wood: Resin drums welded together painted black if I remember correctly.
Remember when we went to Costa Rica for the Greg Noll reuinion in '92? We flew into Miami, picked up my car and drove back to Brevard. We missed Hurricane Andrew hitting Miami by just a few hours.