SHAPER'S HOTSEAT: Greg Loehr

Hot Seat
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Remember the rules for the Hotseat Threads:  You ask the questions.  The guest answers them. No exceptions. And mind your manners.  In this format Mr. Loehr is our guest.  (And shapers who might be asked to join us in the hotseat in the furture are watching. Don’t scare them away.)

Bio:  Home town, Cocoa Beach, FL now living in Tucson, AZ.  Built my first surfboard in 7th grade shop class at 12 years old in 1964. 

Became involved with Swaylocks about 15 years ago at the invitation of Jim Phillips.  Back then it was all pro builders.

Jr. member of the Dewey Weber surf team in the 1960’s, surfing and traveling with Mike Tabeling, Dewey Weber, Nat Young and Harold Iggy.  Sebastian Inlet early days were unbelievable.  Built garage boards with Tabeling and my good high school buddy Scott Busbey today of Natural Art Hatteras. Traveled with Gary Propper and Hobie surf team in 1971, East Coast and CA.  Had a model built by Hobie, Greg Loehr Seaboard shaped by Terry Martin and Mickey Munoz.  Got my first mag photo’s published, Larry Pope photos.  Placed second behind Charley Baldwin in the East Coast Championships.  Dyno surf team 1972, traveled with David Nuuhiwa, Corky Carroll, Charlie Baldwin, Mike Armstrong, Kem McNair.  Represented the US in the 72 World Contest in San Diego.

1969, worked for Morgan Yacht on the line.  First experience in production composite manufacturing. 17 years old.

Lived in Cape Hatteras for most of a year doing odd jobs (garbage man for the park service and dish washer extraordinaire) and building a few boards. 1973 Catri surf team, Traveled with Catri, East Coast, CA and Hawaii. Started board building professionally at the Catri Factory with Johnny Rice, Larry Pope, Tommy Maus, Richard Price and Fred Grosskrietz. Surfed my first winter on the North Shore and was invited to the Duke Classic.  My first heat was both Aikau brothers, Barry Kanaiapuni, Ben Aipa and a very young Shaun Tomson.  Shaun and I got schooled.  Roommates with Rick Razmussen, lots of good surf days.  Built boards with Michael Peterson that winter, MP shaped, I glassed.  Also glassed for Reno Abellira, Barry Kanaiapuni and Owl Chapman. Rode some awesome boards shaped by Owl too.

Took over shaping at Natural Art 1974 from Pete Dooley who became a very savvy business manager.  He promoted NA to the largest surfboard company in the history of the East Coast.  Won the East Coast Surfing Championships in 1974 and the IPS Lacanau Pro in 1978 while with NA.  Shaped there until 1980.

Shaped at Ocean Avenue and for their incredible surf team through the 80’s, Matt Kechele, Jeff Klugel, Jacky Grayson, Tim Briers, Bill Hartley, Lewis Graves and many more. We won every team event for 10 years and consistently had 10 of the top 12 ranked surfers in the fledgling APS Pro Tour.  Development of the first thinner, narrower, concave three fins started there with Bill Hartley and Mike Notary in about 1985.

  

Shaped at Fox Surfboards and started development of epoxy resins for surf and windsurf boards in 1981. Opened Resin Research Inc. in 1982.  

Windsurfed through most of the 80’s winning some events including the Sundek Pro. With Ed Angulo and Randy French ran the Aruba Hi Winds, a Professional Windsurfing Association tour event for three years.  

Have shaped over 35,000 surfboards.  Glassed thousands, glossed, sanded, as well.

Was inducted into the East Coast Surfing Hall of Fame in 2000.  

Built my own board brand, Loehr Design, till 2002. Retired.

Moved to AZ to concentrate on Resin Research in late 2002.  The Clark Foam closure of in December of 2005 changed the business forever, made us a production OEM supplier. And then just when we thought we were busy SUP happened.  OMG!  Our business exports to 15 countries along with our 12 US distributors.  We have manufacturing facilities in Tucson, Arizona, Guangdong, China and Melbourne, Florida.  Today we offer 48 different resin formulations and 11 hardeners. From our start in the board industry we’ve branched out into numerous other industries but I’ll always remember my roots which brings me back to Swaylocks.

OK, boys, ask away.

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OK, to get the ball rolling…  One of my favorite things about swaylocks is the pictures - would love it if you could share a few of: you surfing, hanging with the surf gang back in the day, boards you have made, and collector boards in your personal collection.

Would like to know your opinion of glassing polyurethane foam with epoxy resin - I have heard some frown on the practise.

And would like to know what your current viewpoint is of the best way to seal an eps blank for glassing?

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Is that all you got?  

Seriously, that’s one impressive resume!

One of my favorite projects of yours that I’ve seen (on Facebook) was your little wooden ‘river boat’ for shooting the canyons out west.  Care to share any details on that little beauty?

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Ditto JM !..Greg , I remember a surfmag cover shot many years ago on a yellow (?) board…always loved the look of that board…if you remember the shot , and the board , can we we have some details ?..I know it’s a longshot.

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Thanks Huck.  I’ll post some pictures from my computer at work when I get back.  I’m in FL right now, just finished Surf Expo.  Just finished development of our new Ultra resin so Sam Barker and I mixed a drum and Sam glassed a board for himself at our FL factory.  Came out nice.  Tomorrow is Golf with Ed Angulo, Don Bowers and Steve Walden, should be fun.  Tuesday I fly back to AZ.  

I still seal boards with spackling compound, always found it to be quick, easy, and cosmetically better than other methods.  I know not everyone agrees but that’s the way I do it.  

Glassing urethane foam takes a very high modulus system.  Most epoxies are a but flexible for this and the one we sell which I like best for urethane is Kwik Kick.  

 

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Love my boat.  It’s 16 feet, drift dory, beem is 4 feet at the chine and 6 feet at the shear.  All the five compartments are water tight and the rowing well is self bailing.  The chine has 100 ounces of glass outside and 80 inside. I used a combination of mat, bi axial knit fabric and plain weave in the laminate to maximize impact strength. The shear is 35 ounces of mostly unidirectional fabric for dimensional stability.  There are two sets of gunwales and upper and lower.  This is unique to this boat.  The lower gunwale supports the decks and carries dynamic loads away from areas that are not decked and the upper gunwale, along the shear, also serves to spread load. It is easily removed if damaged so replacing it is easy.  The bottom of the bow post is a solid piece of epoxy/chop strand covered with about 150 ounces of glass.  The bottom of the boat is an epoxy/graphite powder coating which offers slip when hitting rocks. The structure is semi monaque construction using four bulkheads.  The center compares are set up vertically to minimize load shift in rough water. I used Meranti plywood for the laminate cores and ash for all the structural supports. As you might guess for this I could go on and on about this baby.  Took five months to build, probably 400 hours.  Hardest project I ever did and probably the most challenging.

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Kayu, not sure if that was a cover, there was a center fold in the 1971 Surfer Photo Annual that was a yellow board so maybe that’s the one you mean.  Great board that one one of my all time favorites.  Shaped by Gene Cottrell at Oceanside Surfboards in Melbourne, FL. 6’2" X 21 X 17"N X 17" T squash.  Really it was just about the shape of a Mini Simmons although it was a single fin.  

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Aloha Greg

Had my right done last feb. and it still feels unnatural if you know what I mean,  gonna delay the left for awhile. Got a “frozen” right shoulder with a partially torn rotator but no need for surgery unfortunately everyone says recovery is one to two year process.

Sucks getting old.

Thanks for your advice and inspiration since you had both knees done t the same time.  It was hard using an HMO like Kaiser.

Question though, have you ever gotten back to where you where you were before the surgery or is it something you just have to give up trying to achieve?

Alsp any possibilty that you’ll get stocked as retail one of these days?

I know FBH stocks bio and used to stock resinX sure would be be nice to have RR as an option.

Greenroom has made a big push out here.

finally, what’s your opinion on epoxy over PU?

Is that still the strongest build you can get and more of a weight problem?

Looks like Huie’s solved the weight issue with Midget’s new pink blanks…

 

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Hey, Greg, long time… I remember the guy 25+ yrs ago in flip flops who came into the factory and wanted to know costs to custom mold blanks in eps…I quit being a plant manager back then but I’m  glad Marko got involved!!  Foam Fab is still molding custom stuff, should have jumped into the blank market, $$ lost, too bad…LOL  I am retiring from education in Feb.  Anyway, since you are kinda west coast, who, in you opinion is making the best bead (I heard BASF is no longer making bead) and molder in block in the range of 1.2 lb to 1.5 lb out here on the West Coast? Any other thoughts on West Coast EPS/Epoxy construction would be appreciated!!  Thanks, BKB

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Aloha Oneida, my knees came out great.  As you know recovery takes a while, thought I was pretty good at 6 months but was better still at one year and actually far better still at two years.  I can do pretty much anything I want accept kneel which hurts.  I’m snowboarding now and that’s great, as good as before.  Couldn’t golf until now, the twisting hurt but at two years I’m fine.  Same with running, at one year I couldn’t but now I can.  As for surfing, my geometry changed which changed my balance.  I get to snowboard enough that I’ve worked it out there but living in AZ I don’t have enough time in the water to work that out. But I always loved body surfing, nearly as much as surfing, so at the beach that’s what I do now.  

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As for FH we do sell to them but I think they focus more on selling their own brand.  They’ve never had much competition and now I hear they do and that’s where GR hooked up. Different markets take time and strategy and frankly a bit of luck.  We do our best but it’s a big world out there and frankly my attention often is on product development and strengthening our existing distribution.

As for Epoxy over PU, it takes a high modulus resin system IMHO so you choices ar limited.  What we have is Kwik Kick which works nice but I’ve never tested any system outside of ours so I don’t know.  West System would work but would look like you laminated it in root beer in about a week.  

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Hi Greg

I had some leftover innegra (2oz polypropylene weave) so I vacuum bagged it using a fresh bag and no peel ply.  Direct lamination-to-bag.  The innegra is sandwiched between 2 layers of 4oz on a 2# EPS core.   I rollered the lam prior to putting it in the bag and ran the breather on the dry side.  On the deck side I ran the lam pretty dry and ended up with a 75% fill, and on the bottom I ran it a little wetter and got a complete fill.   I was real happy with the deck side because I like a little texture on my decks, and the bottom came out with a really clean fill coat.  I don’t see any bubbles or pin air.  

Do you have any tips or suggestions or observations on this process and how to improve on it?  I was happy with the results I got but there’s always room for improvement and I know you’ve done it all.  

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As a shaper of foam, I know you have shaped some unusual projects, ie car parts, propellers, mega boards. Would you please talk about some of those?

All the best

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Hi Greg and thanks!
Which epoxy is the least viscous? For laminating tight weave cloth, regular surf epoxies are hard to wet out. I’ve tried heating it, and thinning with xylene. Do you have any recomendations?

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I also wanted to ask about mixing resin usage on a board.  I have some 2.6oz S-Glass with a really tight weave that I have been using for deckpads and fin patches.  For deck patches I’ve been laying 2 layers at opposing diagonal bias to spread the load differently from the primary lamination.    I also did a deckpatch on one board (PU core) using a 4oz hemp weave.    What’s your opinion about using a stiffer modulus resin for deckpatches in general and these two materials in particular?  

 

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Lastly, (and sorry about being greedy)

Surf epoxies branded as being eco-friendly have become quite fashionable.  You’re an acknowledged expert on resin composition so I think most people here will be interested in your opinions about the topic.  

Without mentioning any company names or other identifiers, can you give us an idea what the spread is between the cleanest vs dirtiest epoxies that get marketed for surfboard construction?  

What’s the potential for improvement on the eco-basis?

Are you aware of any positive or negative effects on performance that may be caused by eco-related differences in these epoxies when compared to the epoxies that aren’t marketed as eco-friendly?  

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Hi Greg,

Thanks so much for doing this. I’ve glassed about 50 boards with RR. Mostly Kwik Kick for the last 30 or so, and primarily over PU foam. One question and one request…

  1. Please spill the beans on this “Ultra Epoxy”. What is it?

  2. Do you have any plans to release some sort of sealer or speed finish or “secret sauce” as a final coat over epoxy? I currently use Behr concrete/tile sealer, but I think the perfect sealer would be a little bit more viscous and be able to cover up minor weave-burns and imperfections a little bit better. It would be great to be able to aggressively sand epoxy hot coats with 100 grit and then lay down a nice thin coat of something to seal it all up. Am I the only one looking for this?

Thanks!

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Hey Greg.

Like yourself, though not quite as long as yourself, I have been working with epoxy resins since early 80’s. Saw my first EPS foam blank in 1983 while working for Gary Linden. We called it Styro-foam then. Soon after we began buying extruded foam from Japan. It was called Cross-Tune blanks. I beleive it was before Dow Chemical was selling theirs. We galssed them using that dark yellow West System stuff. Quite the learning curve there.

Been glassing some lightweight PU foam with Epoxy lately. Boards seem to be really durable. Quite happy with the results. I want to try your Kwik Kick resin. It makes sense.

My question is, do you think that a post-cure process is nessesary in surfboard production? I have a heater box in my shop and have them in there for at least 1/2 hour before board leaves the shop. I know many other industries who use this type or resin do this.

Thanks, Barry Snyder

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When I sand epoxy after having only cured at room temp for 24 hours, I get a slight chemical burn on my face. But sanding after a post cure at 110 degrees for 24 hours, there is no chemical burn to my face.

Is there some bad chemical in epoxy that goes away after post curing? Am I crazy?

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“Is there some bad chemical in epoxy that goes away after post curing? Am I crazy?”

Must it be either/or?  Haha

All the best Dwight