I just received a 9’6" Surfboards Hawaii Stylist II from a friend who would like it restored. It is actually in pretty good shape. Biggest concerns are some big cracks in the rails and poor old repairs in the nose. Fin box and fin are in great shape.
I was thinking I should rough sand the whole thing (80 grit), patch up the glaring cracks with 4oz (nose and rails), then re-laminate the entire board with 4oz; hot coat; sand w/100; then gloss/polish.
Any tips on the best route to clean this board up (or historical antecdotes on this model) would be greatly appreciated.
I have actually faked a few tints with water colors myself - works better than pigments for the most part. Another trick I have used is to play with paint store raw pigments and mix on a palette …okay, piece of white cardboard… to get as close as I can.
Also- whenever I can, I’ll go to great lengths to save the original glass and put filler behind it. Either new style airbrush ( a thin layer of foam sandwiches the paint to the backside of the glass) or old school tints/pigments. No better color match than the original color. An X-Acto knife is your friend there, with mebbe a dentist’s pick or two besides. Then, glass over with clear resin and all’s good.
Discovered by accident that a paper cup with dried black coffee in it will make a convincing ‘brown foam’ tint. Or instant coffee dissolved in a little acetone…arguably the best use for instant coffee, far safer than drinking it.
‘Vast knowledge’? (chuckling) That’s much kinder than I deserve. I’d have to say that ‘half-vast’ is far closer to the truth.
I have to agree with Doc about color matching. Tints are hard. Sun fading,lack of original colors all add up to potential disaster. On dings and smaller discolorations I like acrylics as they can be wiped off before they dry if you don’t get the results you were looking for. Resin can be a mess.
I have an artist friend who can mix acrylic colors on her painters pallet with great success. She even did some tint matching with water colors that are more transparent. Nothing is gonna be perfect but if it’s an honest attempt all is good.
I am glad to see Doc back with his vast knowledge.
I restore antique furniture in my real life so I can dig the non-over restoration of vintage boards.
Absolutely agree - 'cos I’m one of the idiots that overdid it. On a Surfboards Hawaii, coincidentally.
In mitigation I’ll say that the board had beaucoup delams, many,many unfixed dings, a fair amount of the foam had become brown froth and more wrong with it, so I wound up grinding away glass,patching glass and matching tints…which came out surprisingly well. Mostly at the insistence of the owner. Given a choice, I’m lazy about such things.
Then, the owner took it into some shorebreak and broke it in half. Still not sure if I should feel guilty or not. I did warn him that it’d be weaker than the original.
In any event, like the gents said, do a careful repair of what dings there are, LIGHTLY sand with fairly fine paper ( I’d even go with only wet-sanding the thing - 300 grit) and regloss, only. DO NOT go wild with 60 grit or 80 grit or - god forbid - any form of router.
It’ll never look new…and it’s not, so it shouldn’t. A minimalist approach is the way to go. And you won’t have to dic# with matching too much in the way of colors and so on.
As a bit of heresy, or maybe a statement of my lack of skill, I will go with a clean repair and no tint rather than attempting to match colors and winding up with off-colored blobs which, in my opinion, look worse than no attempt to match colors. Though that’s as much my own tastes as anything else…
I remember when his boards were the hot item. Heard some funny stories about an all female boat crew or some shenanigans from Carl E. Met him once seemed like a nice guy. I saw some of his artwork real talented. Did not know he left us.
That SBH team dominated the EC for a brief time. Tabeling was on it, too. Then, Catri jumped ship and brought most of the team over to Hobie. This was when Tabeling joined up with Weber.
I got my first Surfboards Hawaii in 1963 when I lived on oahu. it was a 9’6’ shaped by Brewer. Jim Phillips and I did a white pigment job on it. We were still in high school. When i moved to the east coast I went to Dick Catri’s shop in florida and drooled over them. He had a surf team with the best surfers on the coast. Propper,sharpe.Mimi Monroe etc.
I have always liked them. the model A was a great board. Sid Madden was the primary west coast team rider. I think Jim Phillips was shaping Model A’s a few years ago. Anyway…back to the restoration board…If it’s for sale i would love to have it.
Peter St Pierre also worked at SB Hawaii might have started there around 1968. Ed Wright was a shaper there so was Al Merrick before he moved to Santa Barbra. I met Sid Madden when he was shaping at Sunset, He and Pat Flecky(RIP) shaped a lot of boards for me.
SBH were a popular board in New Jersey. I know for a while SBH were being made in Solana Beach along with The SNI Boards That would have been in The 70's That may have been when Donald Takamama was involved with SBH.
I'm not privy to the coded intials or anything but I'm pretty sure Bill Hamilton designed and shaped at least some of them. I think that model makes for a pretty good rider even today.
I hope you at least get it water tight and can take it out for a few slides.
Agreed. Don’t over-think or over do it. The board is well intact and even has an original fin. Do what you’d normally do for any dings that need attention and retain the character of the original work.
Thanks guys. I was hoping I might get some interesting back-story to this board. One of the reasons this site is so great. I’ll rough sand the board next week and see if I even get to the color, then take it from there…
Howzit Bill…so I guess I got the names reversed on the Brummets? The guy I shaped boards for had his own factory. I sold him shaped blanks that I carved in a bay at the old Del Mar racetrack. I never knew about the foam spray thing. I do remember Brummett using a lot of tints on the sanded hotcoat. He did those amazing multicolor fish designs.
Was Takayama shaping then? My memory is kinda foggy when it comes to my Leucadia days. How bout Sid Madden? Don’t mean to hijack the thread (sorry)
Because of the early FU fin and box, I'd put the board as a late 1966, or 1967 production. At that time, at SBH, color work was being sprayed by John Bredin. Now hang onto your hat..........John was spraying colored catalized lam resin on the foam, before later switching to water base acrylics. John was the pioneer of spray color and airbrush work, on surfboards. Gary Brummet had left Hansen by then, and was doing pinlines and other color work at SBH. His younger brother, Billy (RIP), was not a shadow of his brother Gary, in the talent dept. Billy was working at Hansen at that time. Gary is still around, though not in the industry. I see him once or twice per year, at various craft and flea markets, offering resin based art works.
It’s a vintage late 1960’s stick made in California. May have been a custom order and sold by an Eastern Shop or maybe sent from the factory to the owner. Acrylic paint becomes a tint if you thin it out with water. Resin tints are tricky and you can get in to trouble. I am not sure what your skil level is.
If you want to bring it down to me in Hysteric Savannah GA I will be glad to help you out.
I would probably just fix the cracks and regloss it. Try to touch up the color. I would use acrylic artist paint so it can be wiped off until you hit it right.To many people overestore these classic boards…I like to see some of the age.If you want it perfect buy a new one.
As for the tint and pinlines I am guessing it was done by Bill Brumett who was an amazing colorist and glosser that worked for Surfboards Hawaii. The deck tint was just yellow tinted gloss resin.Not that hard to do. I still do it,and yellow is a very forgiving tint color. He shot the yellow and then came back and glossed over it.
Anyone know what happened to Brumett? He was like a God to me and I tried my best to work with him in Encintas but I had no luck. I did shape a bunch of boards for his brother Gary.
Also…it may have been shaped by Donald Takayama. I think he was there around this time. I could be wrong.Others may know.
Thanks, Huck. I could be wrong but it looks like a blue resin tint on the bottom. The top is trickier. It looks like a tint, but if so, that would be some pretty incredible tint work because the center section is un-tinted with pretty small pinlines between the yellow and clear. So that would be some pretty top-notch tint-work.
I am also debating whether a new layer of 4oz all around is necessary. Perhaps just an aggressive 80-grit sand to flatten the repairs, then a hot coat sanded to 100, then a gloss coat, then 400-600-compound-polish.
for what i can see the board is in good shape so i wouldnt re laminate the board
i would just fix the cracks and old ding repair and do my best to color match it then re gloss it
if you do re laminate the board use 2 oz cloth
if you really want to go all out on the board then re laminate with 2 oz cloth with pigment to match the color and re do the pinlines and all but i dont think the board needs all that though