There’s a bloke round here who’s made about 600 boards. That doesn’t sound a lot by some shaper’s standards, but he shaped, glassed, sanded and finished every one of those 600. When you think about it that way it’s a lot of boards.
I’m curious to know who has made more. Remember I’m talking about taking a blank, shaping it by hand, glassing, sanding and finishing with no help from anybody else.
That isn’t a lot…I stopped counting over a few thousand , but at least half were designed and shaped by others…does it really matter to anyone apart from a mathematician ?..I mean , how many boards has George Greenough shaped , compared to Geoff McCoy or Lance Carson ?..how do you rate Surftech in the numbers game ?..the backbone of the global surf industry has always been the production shapers , laminators , sanders and finish coaters…and they were surfers , all busy making good surfboards…then came the machine…and the overall quality dropped through the floorboards.
I make no judgements. I’m just curious. There are shapers out there who sand the ridges off a machine shaped blank and count it as a board shaped. There are also those who do every step of the process themselves from shaping to finish sanding the gloss coat. Both are equally valid in my my book.
In answer to your question Kayu, I’m interested in how many boards an indivdual has made from start to finish. As far as I’m aware a lot of famous shapers only shape and don’t do much else, so possibly someone like Geoff McCoy hasn’t actually made that many boards from start to finish. (Let me emphasise again that I make no value judgement here.) The reason it matters to me is because I was thinking about how much effort goes into making one surfboard if you’re doing the whole thing. 600 seems like a lot to me. Is there someone out there who’s made thousands? For example by my calculations 3000 boards would be two a week for thirty years. That’s a lot of shaping, glassing and sanding!
Thanks for the Marc Andrenini link zacoopman. He’s a real gentleman. We are blessed to have these guys who were there at the start still actively making boards, and willing to share their experience with us.
I think StoneBurnner has made more surfboards than anyone…
Ah heck, it is nothing to knock out 20 surfboards per day (8/7/365 since 1929) – homemade blank to gloss coat. Hand shaped with a saw, sanding block, single-edged razor blade and chisel. Shortboards, longboards, makes no difference. Still cannot keep up with the demand.
Made the first thruster in 1945, first quad in 1947.
But my ability pales in comparison with your splint method for repairing broken surfboards DingRay.