The Essentials: 5 tools of Ryan Lovelace Surfcraft

:slight_smile: warm n fuzzy enuff?

I think you are looking at this all wrong. You can sometimes learn from those younger and less superior to your shaping skills. Never met him and first heard of him  nov 2013 when I vac bagged a board he shaped while visiting hawaii.  sounds like you know him well and have a beef with him.  I just understand that a shaper that can travel to the best surf and have his family(as you describe girlfriend) travel with him, shape for brewer or better rates while traveling is a pretty good accomplishment for a shaper. Shaping skills aside, he seems to be a very clever man with the niche he has established in the surfing industry. He also seems happy and is enjoying life. So he doesn’t glass all his own boards like the 99.5% of all the other shapers in the world. It might mean he is busy shaping?  But the world is his shaping room which very few can claim that.  That’s just my impression and I could be totally wrong.  

A customer that a fellow sway member sent to me. He had the board shaped and I corecorked it.   CORKER V(roman numeral 5) MACHINE

 

 

Thanks McDing. I have a Kinoshita profile coming in February. I was able to meet Timpone but he was on his way out the door but he was really nice. I’ve got to look into the Gramp’s place…sounds awesome.

i appreciated you taking the time to talk to me a while when i called today Deadshaper - good to clear some of the air.

I didnt reply here yet because I had no idea this bullshit was here.  I dont check forums anymore unless someone tells me I need to check something out…which I got this morning.

Im gonna try to write the most unemotional response possible, while in a titally furious state of mind:

facts:

I do not have a trust fund.  I wish I did!

I fly standby via board trades to an airline employee friend.

My boards only cost that much in other countries, where that is the going rate for anything.  An 8’ v.bowls in the US with full color (cut laps, mind you) and a sanded gloss finish is $875, seven days a week. 

I send out the glassing that I can’t do when I’m too busy.

Its not hard to find my contact information if you want to get the facts correct, or continue making assumptions and enjoy your life.  I’m enjoying mine, thank you. 

 

…more warm n fuzzy… :slight_smile:

Holy Mackeral! What happened on this thread?? Enough of the Peyton Place crap. None of that is important anyway.

Good of you to clear the decks on this Bruce. We should be blowing up the thread with Surffoils’ side bites and most other things he is working on. This guy isn’t just outside the box, I don’t think there are boxes in his house. We may not agree with him but he’s ALWAYS innovating. Onya Surffoils.

 

“Sticks and stones may break my bones…”

ps. What happened to all our hard earned points anyway?? Shoots, I was gonna cash 'em in on a Baby Ruth bar. Shoots.

Yes, enuff soap!

 

interesting debate but in the scheme of things   does it matter

check this little guy his very first surfboard’’   do you think he cares who made it

and keep in mind the board is only 5’2’’

thats what it is all about

cheers huie

 

 

I’ve been away a few years, so I don’t know he may have retired.  Next door to Timpone’s shaping room.  Next to Gott Glassing.  Richard(Gramps) was from mendocino County.  I first met him when he was working the counter at Hauts in the mid  '80’s.  He started doing ding repair at Haut’s because there wasn’t anyone interested in doing it at the time.  Then on to Maui where he has over the years become the ding repair maestro.  Timpone is one of the best shapers there is or ever will be.  Matt kinoshita is a master and runs his business like a well oiled machine.   lowel   

Indisputable truth. That IS what it’s all about.

Every wave is overhead for him. What fun.

…almost a wrecked train, but managed to keep it tracked on the rails; only in Swaylock s.

My questions were fair and still without answers. Please check comment #11. Have nothing related to negativity or even curiosity; more in the field of understanding; understanding what I/you do wrong and try to change it or see, besides the hard work, the dose of luck that some people can manage for the better. --To clarify, most boards that I saw in Japan at too much price, were not flawless and so incredible; included some “positional boards” shaped (I do not know the glasser) by Stussy at 2500-3500 Dollars (short boards and mid lengths); then I had a talk with couple of the guys that bring most of the Californian boards there, and I did not understood the WHY s the HOW s, etc so my questions in numeral 11.

 

—by the way doing a retro shape that is proved that does not perform any better than a HPSB, or competent modern variants and enhanced retro platforms is not thinking outside the box.
The only way we can change the design is try possible new materials, and different techniques, so far the designs SHOULD be change due to the EINSTEIN s quote DS put.
HOWEVER, you can do ANYTHING on a wave with a modern board, the problem are the G force, the fatigue of the materials and the lack of training in most surfers.

…I tried to edit but the system put a double comment

 Yeah I don’t know why you aren’t selling boards for $2500 or three grand either. Unless it’s because you’ve got no reputation other than what you claim here on Sways. 

What is a “positional board”?

…hey Mcding, you hit the nail; that is one of my questions: how these shapers build their “international status” if many do not get clean lines, like DS observed or sell obsolete designs, like McCallum.

 

Hello DS, I referred to those boards that are made (like cars, bikes, etc) to establish a position in the marketing to sell clothes and lifestyle.

By the way I asked many surfers there and those prices are over the top even in Tokyo. Only 8 - 10 boards in the racks.

I had the boards in Saturday s…that s a fashionable place too, but better prices. They had a DS shape, couple of Mc Callum, one Kohei Chiba (shaper from Japan), 3 more and about 5 machined longboards that half sported a 10 Dan glassing work.

verb,

I took a later look at this, it suffers from too much information.

I have edited it down to what’s important:  ____________________________________.

 

…the Stussy boards are only in his shop, I stayed few blocks from there; now seems he opened a new one in other city but I do not know if he s got boards there. So he can put the price he wants (to make a “positional mark” to sell the other stuff; no matter if those 10 boards do not sell)

All those boards have pigmented laminations; of course did not made by him. The shapes are all retro designs with no enhancements.

Surfers do not pay those prices for an off the rack one there.

 

I went and talk with H. Yahagi in his shop near Tokyo. He s TOTALLY sold to Californian boards…I tell ya no matter other shapers or even that many boards he s got are not so incredible…

Yes, H Koji, that s the Saturday s guy, told me about he s got their boards from him, except the K Chiba s and they are a bit reluctant to use another way…

 

I went to a lot of shops; some only carry the machined CI, …lost, etc; others have everything, other s only dedicated to longboards (all from California) and others are like Saturday s. There s one that have the McCoys and Sunovas, good guy too.

 

-I still maintain what I said in other comment about if Lovelace or one of the other “hot” guys were from whatever other place (you know, France, Spain, Brazil, Mexico, etc) they cannot obtained such International reputation.

You know, not only the “California surfing lifestyle” is what the promoters of those boards are trying to sell, is all the package; I mean, Some shoot videos, other friends are the hot surfers, others are the shapers, others play rock music, etc, so you check a video and are all the same type of Hipster that even ride British motorcycles right now! couple years ago they never rode a bike and now old Brits are cool…check for example the king of the marketing that s C Christensen. Now he s trying to sell that Brit bike hipster image too… I do not like too much these things because I ride and rebuild these types of motorcycles and have been (are) my daily ride (I do not have a car) for long long time.

So all these “just add water” things are ok until you reach one of these distributors or traders that do not understand these points and think that they are the real thing and that is what they have been doing in the last 30 years…

 

I know that is a small market for these boards if you compare with the machined HPSBs, but the main problem is that the marketing still insist that you should purchase few names only shapes; so you divide the market in the kids that only want the clear HPSB from CI and others and a small niche that wants these trendy shapes. However, no place for all.

What if I wanted to sell them squared boards like the Thompson s ? probably they laughed on me, right? but you see those boards in some shops…at high prices with bad (gobs of bubbles) glass works; and of course machined shapes…

So here the “package” worked good too; the clips with D Thompson radical tricks, the image, etc. All things that we know about marketing, but happens that seems that are all “friends” and start a trend doing these things, but no way you can try that if you are from other places, because of the “perception”… “if these guys that are from the birthplace of the surf culture do that possibly is cool…”

The Brazil market that is huge, may be the biggest, however they are “followers” they love to follow not create a trend, etc, so I remember when in late 90s we started to see rocket fish boards and then in mid 2000s retro fish and some modern fish, then these guys started to build those…yes, after the Californians…why did not started previously?

They do not have enough “force” to produce a global trend. Even a small group of people from California (video edition, boards, designers, bikes, mags, etc) have (had in fact) more power to do that (read: new hipsters-surf-bikes-skate-neo “natural” thingy), then all the others follow.

 

 

its all over reverb’’  yorkys proposal was a good one for anyone that new there stuff

the machine has taken the shapers place unfortunately.       and the old glassers are worn out  and the newbs refused to listen

a good glass er doing color work  should make reasonable money if he can do the lot he should be in demand

the hippster trend has been around since the beginning except for drifts and and changes here and there

the  so called short-board revolution was much the same as this hipstadoufus shit going on now’’

do you actually think that young or Spencer or any of there little gypsy caravan lot, were  true production shapers.

or grennough when did he ever shape in a production manner? for christ sake it was just a bloody fin sooner or latter someone would have used a template much the same

**films produced in those times were all off that caravan crew.   ever stop to think that others surfed as well if not better **

the boards that are being produced today called hulls are  wrong they need to do there research.  look what Spencer  butch coony and latter Peterson were riding?    then apply some design knowledge learn t from the last 5 or six yrs and bingo

oh and fuck the spell check

 

 cheers huie

 

**Reverb, Deadshaper and Tblank you guys slay me!!! best tread in a while thought it was goin' to the "sin bin".  Loved the Zappa, and speaking of mothers of invention, my inital reaction to the beginning of tread was to chime in with somesorta tool crap, however by the time i got to the end i forgot! LOL**

**Aloha! **