Oh yeah, Brewer- good luck! Aloha…RH
Surftechs will progress with time, especially once there is some competing companies. When there is a few different companies bringing out the newest shape, the new flex model, new materials etc etc.and they are fighting for the market, there will be progress. Like any other industry, people will want to buy the new improved model. Think how much it costs to totally change a car, yet car companies keep changing the models so they have a market advantage. I don’t think the surf tech type boards will go stagnant, they are just as likely to make changes even if a board is perfect, just to say it is new and improved. It will certainly progress down avenues that wouldn’t be gone down by your average pu/pe builder. They have a long way to go. I don’t ride one but I’m stoked they are out there, excited to see where they will go.
I keep hearing people saying that they are super buoyant. If the board is molded from the perfect pu/pe, it will have equal volume to the pu/pe. If it weighs a couple pounds less then it’s only going to be a couple pounds more buoyant than the original pu/pe would have been… not super buoyant.
Dubstar
a 7’6" true brewer minigun is a classic big wave board. Something like that knows no fear and neither will you if you ride it in big stuff say 8-10 hawaiian scale. It’s amazing what you can do when you have all that control and horsepower under your feet in some critical stuff. Rawson, BK, Brewer and maybe a Bushman 7’6" are all around monster hunters… Pipe, Sunset, Haole-iwa and anywhere else you’ll be in control after the drop. I know it’s not waimea stuff but who the heck surfs that everyday anyway…hell more people are towing nowadays
I know this is mean but kind of like these crapola Buddy Dumphy’s going for thousands. When and if Brewer kicks the bucket (he’s in his 60’s now) those boards in mint condition if hand made will fetch you a nice car.
Otherwise I’d keep it as a lifesaver to chase those big ones when they come along and they will if you’re around long enough… I know guys who waited 18 months to 2 years to get a custom handshaped by brewer and glassed by Jack Reeves. But there’s alot of imitations around so be careful.
Of the 5 projects I’m wrapping up
2 came courtesy from CMP; one a hand roughed out 3 stringered 2lb EPS northshore gun I added balsa rails to and a CNC cut fun PU fun shape I bamboo’d/balsa lammed. I also am restoring a 10’ Jim Turnbull(now dead) bonzer’d longboard with 1/64" Makore and finishing up a stringerless 6’0 heavily rockered and curved modern fish and a copy of my 7’4" Parmenter Stubb-Vector copied in .75 Homedepot styrofoam with wood rails. I shaped both the fish and vector using a belt sander and drywall screen block on the street in front of the house in the hot hawaiian sun. Both have bamboo horizontal stringers between 1" and 2" styrofoam with the 1" on the bottom and .75 to 1.5 inch thick balsa rails. Right now this is all a learning experience, how to set up your vacuum, how to make your bags, how to do the rails and how to do the laps. You do spend alot of your time though learning how to scrape off epoxied blue tape, patch sand throughs and holes left by cracked deck rail wraps, how to cut your glass correctly and how to do a lap nicely… But mostly it’s sand sand sand cough cough cough… especially shaping with a belt sander and assorted sanding blocks. It’s all a learning experience for me at this stage making more mistakes than successes but somehow it’s all very enlightening and fun. Especially working with wood.
Waiting for me when I get done with these is another Vector, a flyer(Merrick), a waterskate(ala Grant Miller) and a retro fish (ala Mandala) .
This is an old surfer’s rule of thumb.
If you buy enough boards lets say 50-100 in your surf experience you’ll eventually know what’ll work what looks good and what doesn’t. There’s nothing like picking up something carressing it checking it out from all angles and carrying it under your arm to tell you about a board. Poly or Pop-out you should be able to feel and see a good board from a bad one. So when you find something that you just know was meant for you… don’t waste any time buy it wax it up and get it out in the surf, you’ll never regret it like you do anxiously waiting 6 months just to be dissapointed a little or alot when you finally get your custom. That’s what’s nice about riding your own stuff… you only have your self to blame and you’ll at least try todo better the next time around…
Polys, epoxys, woodies, softies, mats, speedos with duckfeet and a waterpolo cap it’s all the same crap you just learn to ride’um no matter what it is and enjoy it in the process. Hopefully that what all this is about not who’s getting the money and who’s not…that’s not Sways to me
hey oneula,
thanks for the info on the brewer, I’m definitley going to take it from my friend, as I said before, it was authenticated in the islands a number of years ago, think it was shaped right before the pre-plumeria era legal troubles brewer had…
don’t quite understand the good luck comment up above about brewer, if that was directed at me, I could understand if i was saying it was brand new board hand shaped last week by brewer…but like i said it’s several years old and sourced to brewer himself…
if it’s about surftech, aren’t there brewer surftechs availble right now? maybe they are just using his name…
http://www.surftech.com/shortboards.php?shaper=50
7’5 sunset gun
by the way, i’ve got a 6’4 5 fin diamond tail bonzer from malcolm campbell, a 6’8 pavel quad, and a 5’5 twin keel lis on order…it’s gonna be a long wait 
just looking at the franchise agreements now …
look out burgerking , here comes the sandwich king …
regards
BERT
o and once custom sandwich start hitting the open market …
this argument is dead …along with p/u p/e
if crew are prefering moulded sandwich with a few things they have to live with , over custom urethane , whats gonna happen when its all out custom advanced composite sandwich ???
yea maybe some surftechs do break as does anything in the wrong place , but when you can ride a light high performance board for 10 years and it shows no signs of age or even a dent on the deck , how can you compare that to a heavy lifeless p/u , so you can ride that for 10 years to maybe ? i know which one i would rather ride …
having had both …
honestly , i see masses of naysayers just slowly sinking into the background …
in fact ive even seen some on surftechs lately …
understand what your rejecting …
compare a moulded urethane to a custom urethane …
there is no comparison , the moulded version is heavier , and restricted in shape , flex, and has obvious weak spots …
compare moulded sandwich to custom sandwich …
how come its so obvious to so many , yet there still exists those that resist and dont want to see the benifits …
think about it , randy doesnt have to give hundreds of boards to pro surfers to sell his brand …
what would happen if ks or ai rode sandwich boards tommorrow ???
youd have a stack of board builders standing around saying , yea we knew it was gonna happen sooner or later …
but are you guys ready to start building them ??
great white north is ready and hes not even a board builder …
i usually finish off with a smart comment or a cliche of some sort , maybe even something cryptic , like a riddle …
but in this case i wont bother testing the wit of anyone who cant even see the black and white of using advanced materials that are lighter and stronger …
Hey bert, that’s the point, we are not talking about something better, we are talking about surftechs…you see a lot of perfect condition 10 year old surf-techs out in the water in your area, huh? that’s funny, because even though the technology has been around since 1992, I’d say 90% of the surf-techs I’ve seen at home and in my travels are less than 2 years old…comparing surf-techs current mode of production to custom expoxy and / or sandwich construction is apples and oranges as far as I’m concerned.
let’s face, most surfers are recreational amateurs, and surftechs are perceived as an easy no-thought no-consequence surfboard for the majority of those who buy them…hang around a busy surf shop one summer weekend if you doubt it.
I don’t really equate what you are doing with surftech…nor do I think Randy French is in the business of offering custom foiled wood fins.
Sunova Surfboards,
Mandurah WA.
Owner/Shaper Bert Berger.
Balsa covered foam boards, (Mals and shortboards).
The balsa laminate is vacuumed onto a shaped polysterene blank and set with epoxy resin
Reported, with thanks, Brook and Fenella December 2003.
“Designed and hand shaped by Bert Burger”
Berts exactly right. In the 60’s the popout died because the technology they were using was the same as the custom board of the day. The customs were light years ahead. Today Surftech has a technological advantage over the status quo custom p/e p/u board. Not so when we make CUSTOM epoxy sandwich boards. Folks are gonna find out real quick that custom is still where it’s at when the technology is equal.
i have to admit when i started seeing the first surtechs and then the salomons , i freaked …
my main concern was , when i saw how they were built , i thought , oh no these things are going to give epoxy sandwich a bad name…
but that was from my perspective knowing what could go wrong …
and fair enough it has gone wrong and the market has been polarised , those having had the bad experiences and those having the good …
but the one thing good that has come out of it , is way more people have been exposed to the concept of the sandwich and would get a custom version tommorow if they could , those having had the good experiences …
those who have had bad , may take some more convincing , but once they realise the gulf between good and bad and that not all eps sandwich is alike then there just as likely to turn around in there attitudes …
surftech have definatly done the hard sell …
and i reckon thats always dangerous , coz if the product doesnt stand up to the claims people feel ripped , but if the board is even better than stated in the marketing , crew are stoked and tell the world …
problem is people believe what they read and sprout the marketing slogans as if they were fact …
but no one can really deny that the construction principal is superior and gives a lighter stronger board …
now put that into custom form , with graffix and shape of your choice with curves and dimensions suited to the materials and youve got something pretty good …
i do apologise if i was abrupt on the last post …
ive got to the stage where ive just lost patients with what i percieve to be the naysayers …
when you get flogged daily for years and years coz of standing out of the crowd and hearing every pathetic argument against improving board construction and design knowing full well that the crew making assumptions actually have no real concept of what they are condeming , i guess its easy to get on the back foot a little to quick …
i think things are slowly changing and attitudes are shifting , i think had the attitudes of today been around 15 years ago , surftech wouldnt exist and we would still have a surfboard industry to call our own …
so theres an added sense of frustration at the shortsightedness of the status quo industry …
could you imagine no epoxy sandwich , just urethane and polyester and thats it …
what do you think would happen if the surfboard industry , who built the custom urethane surfboard as we know it , was then confronted with a moulded urethane board , and those boards were introduced into shops , 1000 of the same thing , all with identical graffix …
lets be honest , youd laugh at them , why would anyone even contemplate buying a pop out when they could have the shape and colour of there choice …
i was just looking through some old newspaper articles today , there was one from the early nineties and i make the claim that this construction is the future of surfboards …
people scoffed at such a concept , and now between surftech , kinetic , board works and others , youve got hundreds of thousands of sandwich boards entering the market place …
how is it possible that a handfull of mass production style pop out board builders , saw a gap that an entire industry just dismissed …
i think that was me making excuses as to why i come in hard sometimes …
anyway dubstar , thanks for the plug there , i dont really need it , id rather someone put there hand up to make them not buy them …
and yea greg is only to aware of everything ive just said , and i would have to agree with the sentiment about moulded verses custom …
regards
BERT
I care less about who buys the products. That takes care of itself over time. But, to say ST claims indestructibility is somewhat of a slanted, slanderous statement. Ignorant surfshop owners spew what they want to. I’ve never read anything by surftech on indestructibility. The black/ white, good vs. evil argument has shown more middle ground.
I’ve seen them break, I’ve seen the auto paint chip, and I’ve seen plenty of people just scrape the wax off after years of use, and they look new.
Dozens of new builders have taken up the task of building their own thanks to Sways.
I’ve always stood on middle ground on this subject. While I feel for the core board manufacturers being affected by the assembly line pop outs, I may also go and buy a pop out if it rode good. I’ve ridden one so far, a Merrick 7’0" and I was amazed at how comfortable I felt riding it, like I had ridden it for years. There have been some shapes that have caught my eye, a G&S fish, a couple of M10s, and a few others. Basically the market will dictate whether the pop out will survive or die…at the moment it appears like they’re more than surviving. If it feels good ride it…poly or epoxy. Nothing will beat the feel of a good board that you shaped yourself though.