I have a Skip Frye from 68/69, a Weber Performer, and an O’neil gun that need some work. Anyone know of a good person to contact to get them restored?
Thanks!
There are quite a few guys that can do them well, but arguably the best guy for the job is Danny Brawner, who ran Hobie’s factory for ever, and knows what he is doing. Not cheap, just good. He is in the Capo beach area, and while not the most fun guy to work for in the past is a pleasure to be around now. Try Basham’s in San Clemente to get a hold of him.
A new word came into use amongst collectors and restorers during the Nintys; "Brawnerized" If you want you boards to come back re-pigmented in odd colors not of their era, call Brawner. There's a big differance between "clean it up" and "cover it up". Whoever you get should charge you what its worth. There is always more to it then first appearances. I looked at a couple last week that were done by Steve Albin at Aloha Glass in Westminster located next to FoamEZ. They looked great. Color consistent with the era. Nice gloss and polish as well. One was a Hobie Mylar label that was done in a nice consistent Easter egg pastel yellow. Very original, but better than new. If you need Steve's # PM me.
Always known Danny to be a stand up guy, and his signicance at Hobie’s or his promoting of collectible boards can not be underestimated. But back then pigments had lead, so the colors are a bit different now as well as the developed patinas from aging. Futhermore, back then Hobie’s did every color under the sun, because they were the leader, and Danny was in charge, so a lot of stuff the average guy would never have seen. Then the average guy becomes the expert, but that is everyone when it comes to surfboards. The best boards for me are the unrestored but filled still repleat with with the war wounds and battle scars of of real usage in unreal surf, not some board that just hangs on some wall somewhere never even having felt a salt crystal formed at the edge of a weeping ding.
Since DB was so closely associated with collection craze a few years back perhaps some of the stuff you or your friends saw were from people with less talent jumping on the restoration bandwagon? Hate to hear the masters being denigrated. Really a cool guy, and other slick marketeers used his name to promote the whole thing to give it credibility. He told me he did not make anything from it.
Danny Brawner may be a "stand-up guy" and that's swell but irrelevant to my comments. I was at the very first Surfboard Auction put on by Danny himself.. Danny was there and at least 80% of the boards up for auction were Danny's. All of them were ugly , gawdy re-pigment jobs that looked like shit. The colors and combinations that he used were from another world. Certainly not the 60's West Coast,Hawaii, Florida or anywhere else in the USA for that time period. On top of that the workmanship and quality was poorer than what the average Swaylocker could do. I also went to Danny's second and final auction. Of the "Brawnerized" boards submitted for auction most were withdrawn because Danny's unrealistic reserve couldn't be met. Others went cheap. The auctioneer acted embarassed that he couln't get anything but extremely low starting bids. The truth was that most of the collecters attending the auction new that if they bought one of Brawner's boards they couldn't be sure of what they were getting. Most likly they would have to have the board sanded back down to what it was originally and start from there. A restoration of Brawner's restoration. Hardly worth the money or effort. The Greatest Re-Store work done in Calif. at the time was being done by Mike Janich(aka Dr. Ding). People who were involved and still are of course know this.
How about that other guy who ran regular auctions, and passed off damaged boards as “pristine”? When in fact they had fabric and pigment jobs to cover the damage. I know the history of one of the boards, and the buyer got seriously robbed.
Well… i’m just hoping to get these boards looking better so I can sell them. The Skip Frye, everyone tells me how valuable it is, yet i cant get a single buyer for it…
I'm not actually critisizing any of the auctions. The only auction other than Brawners' that I can think of that was put on by someone who actually restored some of the boards auctioned would be Randy Rarick on Oahu. I am certainly not accusing anyone of misrepresentation. Just saying there is a big differance between; again;--- "clean it up" and "cover it up". Allen Seymours auctions were always auctions in which boards and memorabilia were submitted by individuals. He had very little to do with any items that may have been restored for a specific auction. Remember the motto-----"Buyer Beware".