does anybody know who won the shape off??
They decided not to make it a competition and instead just shaped some great replicas.
LOL !!!
mitchfromoz LOL you lost me? about what? ozzie humor??
**Mitch has another thread going here. He’s looking for a sales rep to distribute his Chinese made PU boards. It’s a rather heated debate over on that thread. **
I think the point he is making here is that Sacred Craft is an expo dedicated to the surfboard builders, and here they are copying an original of someone’s work which he is getting raked over. Historically SC has had a friendly competition aka “Shape Off” where talented shapers shape a replica in tribute to a fallen shaping comrade.
This year was Santa Barbaran John Bradbury who died of a rare form of leukemia in 1999. I know you probably already know all this stuff, so I’m merely restating it for other readers here.
I think the point that Mitch wants to make is that copying one of JB’s boards is hypocritical to laud or hold in high regard at “SC”, when he has received so much heat for copying shaper’s designs while using Chinese labor. Mitch has openly stated how he goes about doing his business, including the copying of ‘popular shaper’s designs’.
**The difference is that none of these shapers (I was initiially contacted for the shape off) are replicating the original design for profit; they only did this as a tribute to a friend and a fallen comrade that they admired. All the participating shapers either live or lived in the Santa Barbara area (Randy Cone nowlives in Half Moon Bay, and Mark Andreini is still in San Mateo that I know of). Ultimately Josh (John’s son) decided who he wanted for the shape off, so my feelings of working in a fish bowl became irrelevant. **
I know of at least one Bradbury that was scanned for CNC reproduction and I know the guy who arranged and paid for it. I believe he told me he okayed it with Josh, and he showed me the board that was made from it. This same guy , Dave, got JB stoked up enough to shape the board when he knew he only had a short ime to live. The whole event rejuvenated John enough to get out in the surf at El Capitan;one of his favorite breaks, before his condition worsened and he passed away. I believe Dave told me he okayed it with Josh to get the board scanned so he could have future boards. I don’t know if some form of compensation goes to Josh, but I was told the expense of scanning and cutting was incurred by Dave.
I was very close to John first as a young team rider, then later on as a teen ager. I got into glassing and faithfully reproduced his style of glassing his shaped blanks. I did the rail tapeoffs, pinlines, logo placement, deck patches, fin box…everything just as John would do. At one point he told me I was glassing 8 out of 10 shaped blanks he was doing for people. John asked me to just come down to his shop and be his glasser, but I was only 17 at the time and was still in high school. John tried to glass as few of his own boards as possible as he had a defective spleen since childhood, and was warned about being exposed to resin fumes. He told me as a kid, the lightest poke from a friend would result in a jet black bruise.
**The irony of Mitch’s chiming in here, is that as a team rider for W.A.V.E. Hollow, (a company owned by Karl Pope in the 70’s_I was the one who convinced John to shape a 7’6" semi gun to add to their line. I made suggestions to John about what they needed as I was a team rider and had ridden all their boards on a free basis and had a good knowledge of what was lacking in their offering. Since I was required to ride the hollow boards, I figured I may as well get someone’s boards in there that I wanted to ride. **
I told John the plug needed to be thinner than usual because the boards are hollow and therefore too floaty if made as usual. He adjusted for that and the board turned out to ride really well for what they were. He gave me the plug and I went over it and did some final sanding before delivering it to Pope.
The W.A.V.E. Hollow product was a truly hollow board that incorporated nylon honeycomb being inlaid into the two molded skins. I initially rode a 7’0" Yater AT (arc tail) and it rode pretty well. The board weight was aroun 8 lbs. and I pushed for a lighter board. Karl made me another one using aluminum honeycomb and the board dropped down in the 6 lb. range. This board offered up an epic performance one day at Lefts and Rights. However, with the aluminum, the deck dented.
There were inherent problems with the early day hollows though. One large swell at Rincon Indicator early in the season (which frequently is plagued with the south bump) the board’s bottom skin was flexing all over the place and it was a nightmare. I also managed to split the rail seam on another board on a grinding day at The Pit. And yet another day, once the 7’6" model had been made, I put my knee through the deck while wearing a springsuit and getting drilled at the bottom of an El Capitan wave. Yeah, I sunk that one!
I laughed when people came out with the carbon hollow boards this time round…everything goes around and comes around. Kids think something is new, and I just have to laugh. Even the Water Apparatus Vehicular Engineering (aka W.A.V.E.) boards…they were way later than the early day ‘cigar boxes’ made in the 40’s or therabouts.
Anyway, Mitch is gonna do what he is gonna do. I agree there is a degree of hypocrisy in the industry…always has been. But the Sacred Shape off doesn’t quite apply to the issues in his thread.
Long May You Ride
DS
I sincerly apologise if anyone thought I was laughing at someones death.
Especially a freind of someone here.
At the time of writing “LOL” I Honestly had NO idea that this years shape off was a mermorandum to a fallen freind.
(deadshaper understood what I was grinning about, thanks bro for not setting anymore wolves onto me)
.
Mitch,
No harm no foul
The elaborate answer was to provide some history in regards to JB and in reference to the Sacred Craft event. Plus some context and info regarding your other thread.
As an after thought I’m going to suggest that the founder of Sacred Craft, Scott Bass, think about modifying the shape off aspect of copying someone else’s original work. I understand that as a competition he had to have some criteria that set a standard for judging, but maybe it doesn’t send the best message to the public.
It may be better just to have shapers come in and do some great shaping for people to watch. Some guys could just do their thing and take an hour or two while another guy might want to come in and production shape a board in 12 to 15 minutes. Both really cool but with a different kinda wow factor.
I could just see myself power sanding foam in one of those fish bowls!!! LOL…choke!
Thanks for filling us in on some surfing history.
Getting shapers to ‘compete’ is pretty silly really, especially if the invited shapers are known for and specialists in their own designs. Do any of them really need to compete to prove they can replicate someone elses design? It’s sort of contradictory, particularly when it’s being done at an organised event solely based on the ‘sacred craft’.
If the ‘sacred craft’ show intentionally puts people together to compete at doing the same designs, then the organisers are just as bad as any other mass producer, no matter where they are. But I guess they have to get people in the door. It’s a commercial venture after all, so they need the attraction of a circus ring that everyone can gather around to see the star performers. But compete? Not really necessary.
Personally the sacred craft is the pleasure of doing your own thing, your own design. If I ever get to the show I would definitely like to watch different people shape their own designs, see their approach, their techniques, and given the chance, get some explanation of their finished designs and how they arrived there. More the essence of why they do it, and why they started to do it in the first place.
Looks to me like they ALL won!
Greg, you’d have loved being there. I’ve never seen as many new ideas and as much thinking outside the box as this years. Lots of props to the SB/Ventura board building establishment for a great showing.
I’m from Florida and moved out to cali this past year, It was incredible for me to be able to shake hands and exchange words with a few of my hero’s. Lots of builders there with a lot of different ways, all chasing that fluid feel that surfers dream about at night. THANK YOU SACRED CRAFT. The only bad thing is now I want to order about five new boards, so many board so little time and money…