Roger Hall on wooden boards

"My day job is I'm a surfboard shaper and I've been doing that since I was thirteen years old so I basically shape boards out of foam.  17 years ago I went to the Oxbow longboard contest in Hawaii, and I decided to make a state-of-the-art high performance super lightweight progressive longboard to go and see what I could do.  And I didn't do very well in the contest but the board was the best board I've ever made, and was my favorite board, and just a fantastic board, and that was 1993. 

"And I had this idea of making a wooden board for quite a long time, and I'd been collecing agave stalks for quite a while, and had a little bit of a stash and I thought, well ok, I'm gonna make this wooden board and just as a little bit of an experiment and to give the project a bit of duration I decided to copy this super-lightweight foam board (that I really liked) out of agave wood  and I really put a lot of effort into making a very faithful copy.  And I was actually blown away that this wooden board could be so much heavier than - it was relatively light for a wooden board - but it was a lot heavier than this superlight high performance longboard I'd been riding, and I was actually blown away at how well the board went. 

"In so many ways it surprised me - in ways I never ever dreamt.  The first thing was I didn't even really know if it was gonna float and so i took it to the beach - wood floats but hey - it did float, and it paddled great.  The first thing I noticed was it duck dived better than my foam board and I kinda thought well  maybe thats just a quirky flukey thing y'know  it just seemed every time I went under a wave it duck dived better than my foam board and I thought, whats going on here?  I put it down to fact that it didn't have the same corky points as a polyurethane foam blank.  It just seemed to sit under the wave out of the turbulence for just a little bit longer and then it popped up.  So that was something I never would have dreamed.  The next thing I noticed paddling into the waves the board just seemed to have more motor - it had this really nice sure-footed feel to it as you dropped down into the waves, and it was always there for you at the bottom.

"So right from paddling the board to my first takeoff I was discovering things just bang bang bang - and it really surprised me, and I found out all kind of things, and I rode that board for two years nonstop and then you know I just had to get off it because as a shaper I wasn't experimenting any more - its kinda like Oh I don't need another board y'know so I had to stop riding it.  The other thing I did at that time was I was so intrigued by the weight and how could this board be so fast and lively compared to the foam one I copied.  So the next board I made I deliberately made it considerably heavier  what I did was I made it out of balsa wood but what I did was I put hardwood rails on it, really heavy hard wood rails, and the board was heavy, but it was a very progressive shape, lot of rocker in it,

"Something I found you know, you drop into a wave you lay it on rail to do your bottom turn, and what the board did was it just flipped onto its rail really quickly, because the weight was in the rail - and then it held a really nice line, when you you wanted to come out of the turn and go onto the other rail it flipped onto that rail - I use the word flip but its really smoothe but really quick - so from that time on I never bothered about making another lightweight surboard again.  Even when I make my foam boards I always say to my glasser, don't worry about making it light.  I've already predetermined theyre not gonna be light.  I either put hardwood stringers or a big piece of wood or mulitple stringers - and when I say multiple I don't mean 3 or 4, I like to put 7 or 8 or 9 - get lots of wood in there!  Or what I'll do is I'll put wood rails on the board so even my foam boards are kind of almost wood boards.

"So what Ive found is that weight is really a powerful design ingredient.  I think it started disappearing from surfboards in the 50's, and we've pretty much been on this one way track of getting the weight out of surfboards and out of surfing, and we've had to bring it back for tow boards, and for recreating old school noseriders and stuff.   But apart from that, its really one way - not in every situation, I mean  light is right - but I've found that weight is a very very potent design element and I think the road ahead is going to see weight come back into surfing, and this wooden board thing that's happening is going to really help to turn a lot of people on to that."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KeiSV2nxM4

So true.

I was disappointed when i made my board and it was around 5kgs for a 5’9" i was lead to believe that the best weight for a board like it was around 3kgs. But as Roger said it is all forgotten once in the water. And yes every one picks it up and says little bit heavy for my liking or gee it has some weight in it. But they are excused for they have not felt it motor though wind chop at pace or locked it in on rail and felt that you may out run the wave. The only time i feel the weight is at times because the board is small paddling can feel a little dragging but that is paddling out once you have a wave or two under your belt it is normal.

Thanks for the post or thread Huck it is a very interesting topic

While I was in OZ last year, Roger came and stayed where I was staying…

He is as nice a guy as you will ever meet…

We talked a lot…About the nature of the business, the media, life’s realities…

We also shared our experiences with the evolutionary process to make what we do, again with similarities of experience although we were on different paths…

The weight of boards and more to the point,where those weights are stategically place were a conversation that should have been recorded…Roger knows his stuff…

I regard Roger as the best chambered wood board builder out there…Five years ahead of whoever else is next…

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Thanks for the post or thread Huck it is a very interesting topic

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Crex - thank you.  There is more to transcribe, with some more interesting insights.  When I get time I'll type it up and post. 

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Paul - that must have been some meeting - Mr. Hollow Wood Surfboard and Mr. Chambered Surfboard deep in coversation LOL!  Its a new path for me, but I'm enjoying it to the hilt! 

I've long been a fan of Roger Hall's.  Check the website and see some of the stunning work he's done...

http://www.surfline.co.nz/index2.htm