Strictly economics. I could afford $35 dollars to build a balsa board, but not $75 dollars to buy one. There was no used board market at the time.
Because I wanted to be like my hero Ghettorat
I was 7 when my dad took me out to catch my first wave on an old Tom Blake paddleboard with an added on balsa fin. I was hooked. I was 16 or 17, don’t remember exactly, when I snuck out of the house to see a surf movie about some guy at Rincon with a camera on his back. That was my first attempt at shaping a Velo Spoon. Surfboards went from 9’ to 8’ to less almost over-night, and since I was a poor kid, couldn’t keep up with the rich Pasadena brats so I made my own. I cringe (even today) at the classic boards we cut down back then. My best board I shaped back then was a 6’ beak nose down-rail diamond tail (state of the art…then) that I watched go up on the rocks at the jetty of my local rivermouth break. I guess the fact that it didn’t break in two, or suffer serious harm, kept me shaping another, and another, and well… just my 2c…
PS: the fact I got to hang out at the Harbour shop, sweep & watch Rich & crew during college (before I got drafted, another story) didn’t hurt either.
PPS: thanks Curt if you ever read this!