The Unsung Heroes

Industry Talk
1

Swaylocks is a terrific forum for voicing the aspirations and challenges of designing and constructing the modern day surfboard. However, much of the focus is frequently devoted to the shaping aspect of the surfboard. I created this thread to open up a broader dialogue to what I term ‘the unsung hero’.

These are the men (and yes, women) that spend a good portion of their lives ‘in the trench’ glassing, painting, hotcoating, installing fin boxes, leashcups, fin systems, and other curious attachments, long with the finish shaper aka sander. Then go on to add an optional glosser, pinliner and polisher.

Just think of all that work that goes into a beautiful piece of craftsmanship, and it is very hard not to be impressed of what comes out from the combined efforts of so many people working in unison.

To further the thought, each facet of the production of a surfboard lends considerably to the end result. If the laminator doesn’t file down those free laps properly, no matter how beautiful the gloss and polish is, a sharp eye can witness wavy reflections along the deck of a showroom board. Even worse, if the shaper didn’t shape the board with a good plane, the intersecting cuts can create the same effect regardless of how good the glasser is. You only had a toy plane eh?

Everyone relies oon everyone else in th production line. The sander can experience a living hell when boards aren’t properly glassed and hotcoated. A poor hotcoat can also diminish the intended overall design. “I can’t sand in the crisp edge if the bead isn’t there”!

Communication and experience is of paramount importance for any successful glass shop. If not, you will never be a band that can make great music together. The end result will be a product that had problems that compounded along the way. Some of this can come from one person’s inexperience in the production line, and another can come from an individual that is trying to take shortcuts to boost their income by turning over more volume quicker because they are paid by the piece (piecework).

While there are very definite shortcuts that skilled workers can learn, there are also sometimes a fine and definitive line of what is acceptable, and what is taboo. Some manufacturers even learn how to ‘cheat’ without anyone knowing better. How did you pull the cloth off the roll or how did you cut the cloth for those rails laps? How did you set those glass on fins, how much styrene did you use? Did you notice this fin box is crooked? My fin plug broke out the 3rd time out!

To be in a surfboard building environment as a hobbyist is one thing, and to be in that resin laden, dusty filled, get’em in, get 'em out but make 'em perfect everytime environment on a daily basis is quite, quite, another thing.

So this is where I invite glassers and sanders and fin layup folks and polishers and all the rest to chime in and either shares tips or frustrations about their unspotlighted position in the assembly line.

Hats off to you!

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G’day Deadshaper,

I dont want to put too serious a spin on this thread and I’m not out to upset you, but the words heroes, gurus, legends etc. really get to me. No one in this industry is saving third world kids feeding the homeless or curing cancer. We are just basically toy makers that should be given no more credit than a good artist who paints a nice picture or a builder, plumber or carpenter that is good at his/her trade.

Most of the people in the positions you mentioned who are at the top of their game are probably just happy if they receive a " beautifull job on that last bunch of boards" kind of comment or praise from a customer.

If we are honest about it these positions are messy, hot, smelly, itchy and extremely low paying. From memory, and please correct me if I’m wrong, the weekly wage in this country for a qualified laminator is somewhere around $400 per week, this will hardly attract or keep the best or most highly skilled person for the job.

The people who do these jobs either love it or use it as a stepping stone to something a little easier and higher paying.

Please dont think I’m putting down anyone in these positions, I just give them the same credit and praise that I’d give anyone for any job well done .

Cheers

Daren

3

Hey Daren, not a problem, I certainly understand what you are saying. Perhaps things are less er, romantic than they once were back in the 60’s and 70’s which was an incredibly special era.

It was a simpler time back then when we could really taste the flavor of it opposed to everything nowadays being about globalization, big corporate structures analyzing how to squeeze another 3 cents out of 30 million subscribers and so forth.

Terry Fitzgerald’s Hot Buttered Surfboards had the wild airbrushes to match his flamboyant and hard charging style. PT had his black and pink boardshorts. Quicksilver was giving all you guys trunks to take to Hawaii and they were scooped up or traded or sold to other traveling surfers to circulate worldwide and become the stuff of legend. Artist John was back in Cali airbrushing acid inspired Rainbow Surfboards, Tabeling and Propper, Loehr, Valluzi, and Flea were all building and creating a history of their own, Greenough and Yater and Bradbury and young upstarts like myself and Uncle Al were cutting our chops on sticks for Rincon.

As far as heroes…yeah, I use the term loosely for modern days and fondly for the past. I shape my fair share of boards for guys that are over forty now. In fact perhaps 50 or 60 is the new 40? I have a board on the racks that is high performance for a guy that is 61 but says “don’t cut me shy of hitting the lip”. I have more and more guys that are in that 50 to 60 year group that are still stoked on surfing.

You are totally correct that the average guy working in a surfboard factory has to be resourceful or have special circumstances to survive if they are doing it for the love of it. But there are also guys that have done it for decades that are so good that, given the volume, they can clip through with near precision and produce quality almost every time. Imagine being that good. Think about Peter Pinliner’s perfect pins, Skip’s superb 15 minute sand jobs, or Wayne’s flawless glassing. It is still out there, and it commands respect by those who aspire to emulate them.

They still deserve a nod of appreciation and respect for that level of devotion…

Things need not be homogenized to the point of sterility.

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At $400 a week they’re probably doing better than most shapers. But I feel a good finish on a surfboard requires a good finish from all hands involved, not just the sander. Which is pretty much what deadshaper said anyway. I also have a couple of tips for some of you shapers out there. Round off the tips of your swallows a little bit. Same applies with your edges through the tail. In the first instance, it will help stop the points chipping when you sit it on the showroom floor. In the second instance, glassing will be easier and the hotcoater and sander should be able to bring those edges up anyway.

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hey bruce how ya been

                                this could be a good thread

i got some stuff when i can get back to work

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Well I say " Hats of to the guy who invented the “cup”. He saved alotta balls!

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Okay, now we’re cookin’…this is the kind of stuff people can learn from. The sharp tail edge seems like something that was soooo obvious to everyone. Yeah, sure after the fact!

The truth is that it took awhile to realize that a rounded edge allows for the glass layer to be lapped to it then a resing baste is installed to allow sanding to the desired hard edge. Before that people were glassing these ridculously hard edges that only a truly skilled glasser could layup…esp. in the days when we were using 8 0z. flat weaves. Some guys shifted to twist weave for that very reason. Timing of when the catalyzed resin was going to kick also was key. But even if you were lucky enough to get that hard edge laminated, the quickly cracked thereafter.

My hard edges (machined edges, we called them) came about in around '81-'82 as we were hell bent to find a faster rail for sailboards. The vertical machined edge tail primarily came from sailboards. I rather unabashedly make this claim although there are some isolated incidents of this happening prior to that in surfboards. Maybe shapes like the G&S “Stretch” (early square nose down railed noseriders, even before Herbie’s) but they were not razor sharp edges.

Huie could probably sight some boards from Oz that had early rumblings of this. We crossed this stuff over to surfboards like the sanded bottoms. Curren came in from time to time (he had been a young team rider for my other shaper, the late Bob Krause prior to Al Metric) and he picked up on our sanding bottoms with ‘rivulets’ for better flow. Then he showed up with a sanded board citing what we had told him, and the media went crazy!

At the Underground we were VERY independent (and secretive) from everyone else in the industry. That gaves us even more mystique. We even had our own in house fin production which Kenji Webb and Seth Fullerton both participated in and both of them started coming up with some innovative stuff.

The hero thing is just harking back to a period of time when surfing and building was our primary focus and all the digital doo dads were not around to dilute our focus!

…we were somewhere along the timeline between the native that chopped down the tree and burnt out a hollow and fashioned a paddle to go out and ride waves, and the guy that keys in all the data to make Model QRC141 Ultra-Ride…

We are carrying history on our backs, be proud of the load you bear.

History does not become obsolete.

Don’t ever forget your roots!

NOTE: It has bene suggested thru a PM that this site would be better served in the general discussion section…Sway’s has been contacted and if they find that they wish to di it they will shift it over there.

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I see you’re a man of few words.

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premature clickulation on my part. Anyway, just called the guy who builds my boards and told him the suggestion. Very helpful and classic sway post.

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Yeah, and he probably replied…how is this dipsh-t guy making more work for me???

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I agree that each step in the shaping /glassing process is congruent to the next step.

I (as a shaper,lamer,hotcoater,sander,pinliner,glosser,polisher) sometimes run into

moments of …“What the %$#! happend”

I dont even know I’ve F’d up untill after the fact, thinking I did good while in the step.

I think the key to success is in the sanding process

I can do a clean short board and my longboards look good overall but I get some wavers in the finish

that I would contribute to sanding tecnique.

getting consistant results is what Im looking to achieve

Come on ,lets here it from the guru’s and give up some good tips

13

Guess nobody wants to tell ya nuttin!?

I agree that sanding is really ‘finish shaping’…many novices and even more experienced builders don’t realize how absolutely critical a good sand job is to the final dial in to a board. This is esp. true of high performance shortboards. I’m not talking about the durability here…just how they are intended to work. Obviously durability is a consideration as well.

As far as getting the ‘waves’…it’s not all sanding of the hotcoat. It has to do with the glassing and how you file your freelaps or taped lap lines. Free laps are esp. prone to having waves unless you really fair in properly. Another area is if you do glass on fins (I just did some for an old friend and customer). It is a real trick to get good flat lams around clusters of fins.

Being a handshaper I’m a freak for extensive blocking out of the planer cuts. I rarely use surfforms. Having a good sized plane to take down stringers is also key as using only a toy plane or similar rides over waves created by intersecting planer cuts.

I’ starting to incorporate tools I use for sanding hotcoats more and more into the actual shaping process. Again this is the handshaping dance…I keep harping on the same tool for both processes can net a pretty precise handshaped board. And I also keep harping on this same approach with CNC…shape and sand with CNC. I personally would love not sanding anymore. In my old factory I had the mother of all air systems and it was never a grind…you couldn’t even leave cut sandpaper on the decks of boards because feed slots directing air from each corner to the board rack was so good it would rip the sandpaper right off the deck and to the screened fan housing. I was tempted to try a cat, but I not that mean a person.

I have certain crazy man goals like producing super clean looking boards that are glassed so clean that te finished board is an unsanded hotcoat. I made boards in a day back in the 80’s I used to call “skeches” that I would do this and go ride in the afternoon…and this was before UV resin. A no frill clean taped lap cut board with an excellent hotcoat with glassed over fin system or box and glassed over leashcup. Boom, all ya gotta do is clear the cup and channels and away ya go. Clear or paint with optional pin on foam.

The same inflatable drum being used on CNC milled hotcoated blanks could be incorporated on the machined blank so I don’t even have to sand em?

14

I agree the lam job and preping for hot coat is vital

I like to do color resin work so Im working with different batches of resin and getting them to kick at the same time

can be tricky.

last board was with epoxy and my first colors started to firm up before I could do the flood color

I got a lot of hi-lo areas in the lam, they just wouldnt squeege down flat

I had to compensate in the hot coat and sanding

still got a wavy bottom and rails. but not as bad as it could have been

still looking to achieve perfection

15

just did a test today, one of my glassed boards against a pro glassers board both unsanded

sanded the pros first all the way from 80 - 240 grit

sanded like a dream took very little time to get a perfect finish

one piece for each grit sanding both sides

had a break then went at mine same process 80 - 240

noticed it straight away his hotcoats are much thicker allowing a flatter sand with no sand throughs, been asking him for a while to show me how and he laughs

he also does not use tape on his hotcoats the rails are perfect before sanding

took twice as many sheets of paper and twice as long to sand

shame he doesn’t do tints as he would be doing all my glassing

gotta say well worth the money to get them glassed.

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woulnt be mick by any chance would it? he does great work with a roller or squeegee. im suprised you even used 80 grit…

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Quote:

I was tempted to try a cat, but I not that mean a person.

The same inflatable drum being used on CNC milled hotcoated blanks could be incorporated on the machined blank so I don’t even have to sand em?

Just make sure there’s enough room to swing it as it makes enough noise as it is.

I believe Greg Loehr has mentioned inflatable sanding drums for CNC sanding before. Along with laser cutting for the blank (have to be stringerless I’d say), shrinkwrapped epoxy prepeg, and 30 second hot melt epoxy for the fin boxes. Personally, I give it five years before it becomes a reality.

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Just doing all this for myself, myself - my $.02 is, the sanding, as I once read, “The sander can subtly re-shape the board.” is a peak step. When I’ve painstakingly sanded -esp. w/the after lam edges I put on (RR and filler) - the bottom, and edge contours to be just as I want them/envisioned them from before shaping, I’ve realized what the quoted shaper meant - if a sander didn’t know exactly what I wanted, then it could come out different enough to ride noticeably different.

Anyway - to those of you who make your living at this/these different stages… keep up the fine work, and keep the integrity. I was hanging out at a “factory”/production shop in Huntington Beach ages ago, and the shaper was fixing a sand through on a six channel bottom - one little piece of 4oz, just to cover the whole, feather the edges, call it good… “I hate these fucking channels man…” Hmm, made me wonder. Probably helped me go in the direction of making my own… Quality I control… Ha!

19

Well those Hamish Graham six channels were a chore to work on. We can thank Byrne for influencing Hamish, then landing him on our shores. I just remember having to repair broken glass on tri’s that came into The Underground. Hamish had his shop in SB back then before heading south. People had mixed feelings on those channels but there were guys that rode them at Rincon and raved about them. HG is a fine craftsman with no lack of confidence in what he makes.

Those deep sharp channels were a sander’s nightmare. It was bad enough to put a broken fin back on. You had to extensively layup cloth thru the channel area and make sure cloth came up and over the rail so the repair didn’t split.

It was not fun and I recall doing one for a guy I know that questioned it costing $50 instead of the usual $35 we charged. He was a very down to earth guy but his famous grandma had died and left something like $300 million and he was now weirded out how everyone looked at him. I couldn’t have given a shit other than the fact that he was acting like I was taking advantage of him for fixing the friggin thing. I figured he would probably end up like the mega wealthy woman I met out in Santa Fe that carefully rinsed her paper towels out then patted them flat for reuse as many times as possible.

I say, get a board, ride te board, ding the board and go from there. Some surfers don’t take care of them and some dote all over with them. I think if everyone built indestructible surfboards, we would have such a glut that the whole thing would come crashing down. It’s the new feeling of a new ride that keeps you stoked on surfing. You get a new board and all of a sudden you can’t get in the water enough. I currently have two guys of different ages (1 is 30, the other 50) and they both got Retro Fishes from me. Same formula one foot length’s difference. between them…5’7" & 6’7". They are both stoked and sound like little kid’s again…that’s my pay off.

Both have abstract resin work ala Jackson Pollack or whatever. One I did a base color by foam tiinting the whole thing then did the accent colors on the glass…extensive ones. The other I just did all abstracts over white foam onto the cloth, but a ton of color so their isn’t any white (except on the decks on both)…they both have fat black retro pinlines…

Another way to vary this is to spray the body color then do you pigments and tints on the cloth. I even did abstract colors when I filled around the leashcup. You could do an abstractpinline…the possiblities are endless, and that’s what makes it fun!

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That sounds like Greg…he has always been way ahead of the curve. I love American ingenuity. I need to PM him and get the scoop on his newest epoxy that he has formulated for both EPS and PU…have you tried it?