you should all read this if you care about custom boards!!!!

General Discussion
61

A old friend of mine, Richo, used to get sick of all the hype surrounding this time of year, so we decided to stick to ‘seasons greetings’. It covers everything, so ‘seasons greetings’ to all.

Richo, and just about every other surfer I’ve met, had some opinion on board weight. General opinion is that light is weak, and for most part that’s true. Bert proves that a board can be made light and strong.

If you enjoy the feeling of throwing around a big pendulum, then that’s fine. I know I like a bit of weight when my light frame can’t paddle down the face in a strong ofshore.

But I used to surf a lot, in all conditions, and most of the time that was in waves head high and under, and most of the time not perfect by any stretch of the imagination.

It is in these conditions, which I think most people surf most of the time, that light weight boards are most appreciated.

Quick response to a quick reaction was what I wanted. Lighter boards allow that. The magic that some of those boards had, could be directly attributed to weight.

As for the durabilty aspect, the fact a board lasts longer has nothing to do with how long you keep it. You keep it because it’s a good board. If you outgrow the performance then you are progressing and it’s time for a new board.

If you are sentimental, keep the old board in the rafters if you want. But we all know a good board in good condition is worth more than one in bad condition, either to re-use or re-sell.

I can’t believe I’m hearing so much negative comment concerning positive advancements in the very field this forum is here to discuss.

62

“Quick response to a quick reaction was what I wanted. Lighter boards allow that. The magic that some of those boards had, could be directly attributed to weight.”

Jumping back in here. I agree with the above statement, to a point. I certainly don’t take my longboard out in quick, dumpy shorebreak; I need a board that will react to split second adjustments I have to make. I believe that the fish hybrid board I ride in such conditions accomplishes this, although it would certainly not be considered superlight with respect to other boards of its ilk. That being said, at my age I have to consider that I’m not as spry and quick reflexed as I used to be, so too quick, or too light a board holds little benefit to me. I simply can’t “react” in time with such boards.

Try this analogy: As a soccer coach I often preach to my players (especially goalkeepers) that they should not rely so much on reflex and reaction but more on anticipation and their abilities to read the play. The best players see the game three or four moves ahead of where it’s at at the moment. (Car drivers and cyclists as well must plan ahead; reacting to the current situation often leads to disaster). That’s why the best goalkeepers make it look so easy; they’re almost always in position and the ball comes to them as if a magnet were imbedded in their chest. A fan might enjoy the diving, leaping, reaction save, but as a coach, I value the attributes of the positional keeper far more. As a surfer, I enjoy the challenge of trying to read the wave and anticipate a few moves ahead rather than simply flick my board around willy-nilly with no particular rhythm or flow. Sadly, much of the surfing I see these days, both in person and through various media, is devoid of any long term thought process or flow. Leaving me to lament the truth of the old adage that “youth is wasted on the young.”

Considering the last point made, about negativity, I don’t consider any of what I’ve said to be negative, just a differing point of view. I truly wish Bert success with his ideas and philosophies, even if I don’t completely agree with all of his arguments.

As for my sarcasm regarding various PC greetings and salutations with regard to the the current, “holidays,” being Christian, and celebrating the birth of Christ is what the term “Merry Christmas” is all about. It is not a, “season,” at least not to those of faith. I also feel that even those of marginal or no faith, who wish to partake in the merriment and nostalgia of a fat, ruddy cheeked, altruist who helms a team of flying reindeer about the globe, dispensing gifts and goodies to little boys and girls, should not be made to feel self-conscious, or worse, insensitive, by offering such greetings to those around them. For those who profess or feign offense at being greeted thusly, I would offer the wisdom of the immortal words of a certain, Sgt. Hulka: “Lighten up, Francis.”

For now I will say, not, “Happy Holidays,” or “Season’s Greetings” but more emphatically, “MERRY CHRISTMAS!”

For the secularists, atheists, and those of other faiths, I hope the sentiment, if not the words, are understood to include best wishes for them as well.

lobster

63

theres many myths regarding lightness …

one is glide …

thats one area that most old skool longboarders zero in on …

a number of years back i asked the question regarding glide in longboards …

is it weight or design ???

i did a series of experiments making duplicate boards of different designs using 2 different construction techniques …

at that time i was working closely with an ex pat hawaiin surfer who was in his 50s , amazingly good longboarder i learnt so much from him , john geyer was his name …

anyway at the end of it all we concluded that design had the biggest influence to glide and control not weight …

most longboarders will say " o you need a heavy board to be a good nose rider , it needs to be heavy to feel like a longboard …"

so once we nutted out the design i made john a 4.5 kg longboard …

for 6 of the last 7 years hes won the over 50s division of a yearly competition we have over here on the west coast …

hes now 58 ,surfs as smoothe as ever , but also manages to throw in a reo and tight controlled hack under the lip, because his board is light and easy to throw around , combined with features of design that give a smoothe ride and the ability to hold a high line on the nose and hug the face …

58 years old , he pulls helicopters , nose spinners , and walks back towards the tail stepping forward after a hangten … no one else in his division can even hangten and yet he does it on a board half the weight of his competitors…

i have a lot to thank john for , locally he has silenced the critics …

im not knocking a heavy board tho , a heavier board has its place when you dont need to change direction …once you get over 10 ft and its bumpy yea a heavier board can be reassuring , but why not have a heavier board that is bullet proof as well …

what i make is light and durable but if i double the outer glass job , it comes in near the weight of a normal board , only difference is its bulletproof …

ive had glass boards that felt totally out of control in larger surf due to bad design …

i also owned a 2.4 kg 7’-8" pintail gun that was the best bigwave board i ever owned gave me about 9 or 10 years of magic big wave surfing , before someone begged me to sell it to them …

look at the logic … im a surfer , obviously i would ride the best i can make myself …

if making a polyester board over a polyurethane blank was the best i could do then i would do it that way…

its only normal to make the best board you possibly could with what you have at your disposal …

the best i can make doesnt include using p/u or p/e for someone else it would …

im not forcing anyone to change what they ride …

im encouraging crew to think outside the box and not be steered by conventional wisdom into thinking that without a clark blank under your feet it cant be taken seriously …

who was it that said " theres more than one way to skin a cat " once you catch it of coarse…

the proverbial cat seems to be linked to many of our recent discussions …

cat for lobster bait , has worked before ???

anyway lobster …

its all fun and interesting , do the best you can with what you have , if you get a chance to try something different , give it a go …

the worst that can happen is , youll learn something new …

regards

BERT

64
Quote:
Quote:

Lightness is key if you want quick reponse. Super Lightness is propably not the holy grail for the average Joe Surfer. But discarding it as a ‘myth’ is just ignorant.

regards,

Håvard

I own a Mercedes. It weighs 6500lbs and will go o - 60 in about 7 seconds and still rides heavy and smooth.

Lightness is not the only key Havard. You take a 3 pound pointed nose shortboard and straighten out the rails and make it as flat as an ironing board and it will be stiff in small surf. You take a heavier board and make it round in the outline, it will respond quickly, but not have as much forward drive. I am talking about balance here. Some of the people here advocating light as being the answer to our surfing are advocating a myth. I am not disgarding lightness, but simply putting it as another aspect of surfing not THE aspect of surfing. I don’t like heavy boards, but I do like boards with more heft than your average pointed nose overated under floated shortboard. I guess I am ignorant.

A surfers talent has more to do with surfing than any surfboard.

65
Quote:

……Lightness is key if you want quick reponse……

Well–technically speaking–one-half the key to quick response is a minimal moment of inertia about the axes of rotation involved in a maneuver (the other half being the ability to apply a large torque about those axes). The moment of inertia is a combination of the mass of the object and the spatial distribution of that mass about the relevant axes of rotation (i.e. pitch, roll, and yaw). Hence the moment of inertia can be reduced not only by reducing the mass (or, equivalently, weight), but also by reducing the spatial distribution of that mass (e.g. shortboard vs longboard of the same weight) about those axes, or both.

For example, the HYPO (HYdrofoil paiPO) board is intended to maximize maneuverability and maneuvers are primarily executed by banking the board (like an aircraft). Hence the preferred riding position is prone to (among other factors) minimize the moment of inertia about the roll axis (thereby enhancing roll rate) when compared with the rider kneeling or standing (analogous to an aerobatic or fighter aircraft, versus a cargo transport plane).

However, seldom is anything free and in this case the prone rider position maximizes the moments of inertia about the pitch and yaw axes, making the craft potentially less responsive to rotations about these axes.

But, unless one desires to make skidding (or slipping) turns, most maneuvers only involve substantial rates of rotation about the roll and pitch axes–and in the latter case, the well-forward and hydrodynamically powerful canard foil can provide a large torque to drive rotations about the pitch axis (in comparison with the torques typically associated with the change in the center-of-hydrodynamic effort achieved by a rider shifting his weight). This is especially evident in the case of a bodyboarder–but it is also generally true in comparison with a kneeboarder, or a stand-up surfer. Hence the “rigid” hydrodynamic response in pitch of the design compensates to a large degree for the large moment of inertia about the pitch axis.

mtb

66

Although, lightness may be the most glamorous reason to build a sandwich board, there are many others. For me, it’s not just about lightness either. All my magic boards had flex. The problem with polyurethane foam, is after awhile all the flexing breaks down the foam and then the magic is gone. EPS and other foams don’t do that. You can test it yourself by taking a piece of polyurethane foam and flexing it. It will eventually turn to powder. It’s the same situation for pressure dings. Polyurethane foam has no memory because it breaks down. EPS and other foams flex along with the fiberglass.

An interesting attribute about polyurethane blanks is their mass distribution. The foam comes out denser in the extremeties. For example, most shapers keep as much foam as possible on the deck because it is more dense (and more durable) than it is a few more millimeters deeper. This is the same thing that is done with sandwich construction. But you can dial in exactly how much durability you want instead of being at the mercy of the blank. The other interesting attribute of the polyurethane blank is the higher density foam on the rails. If you’ve ever seen them pour a blank, you would see that they pour the chemicals down the middle of the mold. So the foam ends up less dense in the center and more dense on the rails. Besides giving rail durability, this makes a board more stable. This is what Greg is doing with his blank, and Bert with his balsa rails. Sandwich construction allows you to dial in the amount of stability you want and still have a light board. You could use a heavier density foam or even a solid hardwood. If you have choppy conditions, this might be the way to go.

So the moral of the story is don’t think sandwich just to go lighter, as there are many other reasons that are just as important. Here is list of areas that can be dialed in using sandwich construction (off the top of my head, please add on to the list if I’ve left anything out):

Durability

Amount of flex

Type of flex

Weight

Weight distribution

Mass distribution

67

It seems to me that a lot of people seem to think that a heavier board catches waves better than a lighter one. Well - in longboards - I think there’s some truth in this (just a feeling no experimental evidence) with shortboards, however, I’ve always felt that really lightweight boards seem to take off a little earlier - again no experimental evidence just what I’ve felt. But an important factor that’s ignored here is speed of flex return - the sharper this happens, the better a board catches waves.

With Bert’s approach - it seems you can build heavy boards or really lght boards, control your flex and make something beautiful. The only downsides - tricker to build and more expensive. What puzzles me though is why the top surfers from Bert’s area ride standard pu boards - Why? Isn’t Taj from your neck of the woods, seems like his surfing style would def benefit from a balsa sandwich style board.

Nadolig llawen.

68

For me on shortboards ease of takeoff had everything to do with rocker (particularly nose and entry rocker) and little to do with weight.

69

A picture is worth a thousand words…

70

yea silverback i agree there …

but there is a number of issues that arise …

1 i have a very long waiting list …pros want boards yesterday …

2 coz i only build a handful of boards a week , any exposure a pro surfer would generate would be pointless , i already have a years waiting list …

3 if you build a few boards for pros its a waste of time , someone on taj’s level or any other top 20 for that matter , needs close attention …

it would be a full time job shaping for 2 or 3 pros …

in my current production capacity i would need 2000 a board to compensate for the extra time involved in studying every new board ridden for the first time , keeping exact records of every fine measurement , the time its takes to talk through design options , planning for upcoming comps , by having purpose boards built for various locations… on top of that if i wasnt familiar with some of the contest locations , i would need to surf them myself before i felt confident of exactly what board would suit those locations …

a formula 1 driver needs a team of specialists to support him , a pro surfer is no different …

ive built stuff for taj in the past , and even at the reduced price it was still 4 times what he would get boards for else where …i cant work for free , neither would i have time to build the boards from extra sales generated …

i dont like doing half a job … building boards for pro surfers is full commitment … if the circumstances dont allow full commitment , then you could end up doing more harm to your reputation as a shaper …

how long does it take to fine tune boards for your self , let alone someone else …

so even tho i fully agree that taj could benifit from riding a lighter more durable board that out perfomed anything else …until i get a production back in place its a pointless exercise …

while on the subject of team boards , check out this trade in ,i got today …

i built this board late 97 , originally it was for a team guy , so it was built hell light , this team guy was also the manager of a retail outlet down the coast that sold boards for me as well , so he just on sold his board via the shop …

so today this young guy about 20 rolls in with this board said he got it when he was 15 , its been an amazing board for him , while all his friends have just churned through boards he kept riding this one , i said " are you sure its been ridden (tongue in cheek ) " he then says " what the hell im out there everyday , look i got this ding here when i was in indo , i got that scrape on the nose at margrets" , he then starts rattling a list of locations and waves he frequently surfs ,… i said “only joking”

he said there was no way he would buy another board, even if he had to wait a year , hed seen first hand the value of this one …luckily i had a board that was close to what would suit him (hed outgrown this one ) so we did a deal , he put in an order , so now hes got something slightly more suited while hes waiting …

i gave him 450 as a trade … i then asked afterwards how much he paid for it , yep you guessed it 450 …

it cost him zero to ride a board for 5 years , because the price of new boards had gone up it also increased the value of secondhand boards …

theres not one mark on the deck of this board , a small mark on one rail on the bottom with a quick fix , and a small graze near the nose …

check out the pics …as traded a few hours ago …

this is the door that the major industry players have been trying to keep closed …

this is the door that the surf media have been ignoring for the last 15 years , and probably longer after i read gary young’s story …unless you have serious money to throw at media , your story never gets told …

i know i may have been responsible for encouraging a few of you in this direction , and to be honest your probably gonna end up with some major disasters …

ive worked out a way of pretreating the timber so it becomes bullet proof …

so if you dont get results, its because i havent said everything …

these pics show whats possible tho …

i personally think , the fact that no industry big players have ever got behind this shows clearly the reasons they build boards …profit not passion …

even tho theres more profit in this anyway , they just cant see it …

greg said to me recently something along these lines , " many of the big names seem to think that if there not involved then nothing will change " …

the bottom line is things can change right underneath them , when back yarders and small producers are building stuff that lasts 20 times longer than the major labels and is 30% lighter than what the pros are riding …

thats pretty much gonna show where the cutting edge delvelopment is happening …

so going back to daves statements … yea its the small producers that are leading the way …

forget polyurethane and polyester resin …

absolute garbage , outdated junk …

is that just my opinion …???

like lobster said , should we listen to bert coz hes made so many sandwich boards and conventional boards ,

Quote:

He supports his position based on the fact that he has more experience (than his supposed detractors whom he presumes have only dabbled in epoxy/eps/vacuum bagged construction) with both methods. We are asked simply to take him at his word because he has made thousands of these boards and he ought to know.

see the pics … theres another 3000 stories just like it …

until the surf media starts doing articles based on real life stuff , instead of just creating hype , advertorials , and doing stories that feature the teamriders of there highest paying advertisers …

then the guy off the street will just keep believing all the crap that gets spewed in the magazines as truth …

so many surfers look to the surf media for guidance …

someone showed me a surf mag yesterday , with a cut away section of 3 boards , a p/u , a surftech and a salomon …

how is it that a company like salomon who has spent 12 million in R&D to make 650 boards which they gave away anyway , has a picture of one of there boards cut in half in a surf mag ??? with a caption about the latest technologies ??

would it have anything to do with the amount of advertizing money they may have handed over ???

thats my passionate response for another day …

have fun , i know i do …

regards

BERT

520×837 85.9 KB


71

Bert,

Nice boards. What do you think of the bamboo? Also, one of my shapers did a bamboo vacume bagged cheater that looked ureal. Do you vacume bag on these?

72

I have been following with interest the original article on the future of custom surfboards by Dave Parmenter with the many replies from interested surfers.

As a result of all the misinformation, rumor, distortions, ego driven bias, incorrect conclusions, and downright B.S…I finally decided to post my thoughts based on my 50 years of being in the water and…my 40 years of making “composite” surfboards first in partnership with Tom Morey as Morey-Pope from 1964 to 1971 , then as W.A.V.E. (Water Apparatus and Vehicular Engineering ) from 1971 to 1974, and finally as Pope Bisect from 1995 to the present.

First let’s clear up the word “composite”. All surfboards (after the solid wood era) are “composites”. All the word means is “constructed from different materials”. Hobie’s glass & polyester balsa core boards were just as “composite” as Surftech/Cobra’s EPS & epoxies.

Next, let’s keep in mind that all sports from pole vaulting to skiing, tennis, sailing, and golf have made the transition from wood to glass (or carbon fiber) reinforced with polyester or epoxy. These materials are simply improvements on the strength to weight ratio of previous materials which if engineered and applied properly result in a lighter, stronger, more flexible (or more rigid), damage tolerant product which meets the needs of the user.

Polyurethane foam was one of these improvements back in the late 50’s. Foam blanks could be molded, density could be controlled and shaping foam was a lot easier than balsa to shape due to the uniform density and lack of “grain”.

After Hobie blew out the wall of his Dana Point shop in about 1958 when one of his concrete molds blew up when he poured too much mix in it, his worker bee, a young guy named Gordon “Grubby” Clark (we called him “Grubby” because he frequently slept under his car on surf trips) told Hobie he wanted to experiment some more with this “foam stuff” after Hobie threw up his hands in disgust. The rest is history. Clark foam was suddenly the only producer of blanks. (In the very beginning, Foss & Walker did some great development work not to mention Dave Sweet with his “hard shell” form blanks that were molded net. No shaping needed.)

What resulted was a simple, low entry business where a surfer/shaper could buy a blank from one of the above, buy a W.A.V.E Set fin and box from Morey and me, purchase a power planer from the hardware store, get some “flimsies” silk-screened, and start a “surfboard business” as garage.com!

What resulted was hundreds of ego driven “board makers” producing exactly the same surfboard designs competing against each other for price. With the possibility of Larry Gordon, no one ever made any consistent money selling surfboards except…Gordon Clark, who, for the last forty years has been the surfboard business.

Grubby did it via engineering, process control, knowledge of the sport, and a growing demand for easy to shape blanks by hundreds of backyard shapers and a handful of 60’s major production brands like Bing, Rick, Hobie, Dewey, G&S, Morey-Pope, Yater, Con, and a few others. By investing capital to groom his process, he eventually would produce a superior blank at competitive price forcing the other blank makers out. It’s simply the American way. What Grubby did was open the door for design innovation by surfer shapers. As a result, shapes and ideas for surfboard design changed daily (because they could.) The snub, the v-bottom, concaves, hard rails in the tail, and other “trial and error” designs, produced models like the 50/50/, the Water skate, the Camel Caravan, the Snub, the Penetrator, the Yater Spoon, the Weber Performer, and the Brewer mini gun. Tails had names. The small square, the pin, the rounded in, and the swallow were all subtle performance differences. Then, finally, the only real change in surfboard design occurred…the short board.

During that rapidly changing design era (1971-1974) Bob Johnson and I decided to use aerospace materials (such as aluminum honeycomb and epoxy prepregs) to mold a hollow surfboard that was lighter, stronger, and had new and better performance qualities. We called it the “Hollow W.A.V.E.”.

Even though we sold over 10,000 of them from 6’2" Brewers to our 8’6” Morey Waterskate, (with Mike Purpus competing with the board in major events), they were expensive to manufacture, difficult to decorate, and had a perimeter seam which was cosmetically a problem. Plus, as backyard shapes were changing daily, making molds to stay abreast of popular designs was a daunting challenge.

So, in 1954 we simply got tired of saying “cowabunga" and “surfs up!” We had and good offer from a group of unsophisticated investors (guys with short sleeve shirts and thin ties with fleur-de-lis’s on them), so we sold W.A.V.E. and retired to go surfing. A year later, the new owners scuttled the company.

The point is that molded, composite surfboards have been around a long time and are now the wave of the future (no pun intended). Now that Cobra and Randy have figured out the economics to make a stronger, lighter surfboard at a competitive price, the surfboard business as we have known it changed forever. There will always be a market for shaped boards because (like a dog that licks his balls) it’s easy to do it. But now, as the shapes of modern surfboards have matured (and the designers are aging and like the “mailbox money” from royalties) the molded “composite” surfboard is here to stay.

So, here’s what the future holds, in my opinion (which I respect).

  1. Shapers and shaped core, wet glassed; surfboards will be around for a while. But only as long as Clark feels that his declining volume is still worth it. He will make molded blanks available as long as it makes money or until the EPA shuts down all the remaining glass shops or simply makes it so expensive to stay open it’s not worth it. If Grubby decides to retire (he’s over 70) or turn the biz over to his subordinates, the price for blanks will go up and the quality will go down. This plays right into the hands of Cobra & Randy with their low labor costs and no EPA to deal with.

  2. In the meantime, Cobra (Randy or some other middle man) will continue to increase their market share with various versions of molded epoxy sandwich skin/EPS core surfboards sold through dealers. (Don’t kid yourself. Molded epoxy sandwich skin surfboards are stronger for the same weight as poly/glass hand shaped boards. They’re also cheaper to make.)

  3. Pope Bisect will be there too with our molded hollow Travelboard made from carbon fiber (or glass and epoxy prepregs) and…one piece molded boards from our new factory in Mexico (Edgecore). We’ll have more and more of a market share of our own over time.

Sorry troops, but the days of the hand shaped production surfboard…are over.

As for me and my son Thane, we believe that traveling surfers want a hollow, seamless, molded, all carbon fiber two piece Travelboard and…all surfers want a lighter, stronger more durable surfboard. The molded “composite” epoxy sandwich structure is the answer.

That’s my opinion and… I’m sticking with it!

Keep on surfing!

Karl Pope

73

Are you H. Bank?

74

easy for you to say Karl,

without molded board your son would be out of business…

is he not owner of a molded board factory in mexico???

shaped boards are still the way to go for me.

bert’s boards are still handshape and to me this is the way, CUSTOM!!!

molded generic boards sound quite sad to me and i am sure other people feel the same.

75

Wow, those boards sound fantastic! I was just down at the shop the other day checking them out, and I think I’m ready! I saw one I liked, the “ratboy” collins model…could I get one of those, but just a little wider in the tail, a hair less nose flip, and two inches longer? the waves around here (norcal) are a little different, and board designs need to be adapted to conditions, as the local shapers have known for ages…

No?

well, how about a model with a nice single to double concave, with a little vee out the tail, and lokbox boxes so I can experiment with my fin placement…

No?

Well, how about that funky 70’s fish I saw Machado riding at pipe, but with a modern rail and some toe-in and cant to the keels so it doesn’t track…

No?

You don’t do customs?

How about that surfer-shaper relationship where you take in your old beloved stick, discuss what works and what doesn’t, and improve on a design with subtle tweaks?

No? can’t do that either?

Too bad, you almost had me.

I take issue with a few assumptions you make here:

  1. that shaped boards will decline with the fall of clark foam.

What about EPS? you can get a big old block of that stuff and shape it into any configuration you want, without being limited to clark’s standard shapes and rockers.

  1. that surfboard evolution has “matured”.

Are you blind? never before have so many different shapes and designs been out in the water. People are riding fish, postmodern fish, eggs, teardrops, mals, funguns, chips, logs, and hybrids, and are experimenting with mixing different elements of each. Are you on the cutting edge there? I think not. It is entertaining to see the factories try to dash around, looking for the next fad to become big enough to justify a new “model” only to retool, sink big bucks into the change, and see it become passe in the wink of an eye. what do you do with all of those moulds when they go out of style anyway? does your factory have a big “mould graveyard”, with benches and flowers and stuff?

See, it’s a problem of motive in your case. You would make the most profit if your factories had only one model to produce. Easy, repeatable, no money to sink into retooling and changing your giant production lines.

But that is completely and utterly soulless. It reeks of a world of hypnotized lazy drones, who can’t think enough for themselves to innovate and experiment.

Fortunately for you, that type of surfer exists. but I think there are far too many of us who don’t think that way to make it possible for your canned shapes to become the dominant market share. You will always sell to the sniveling stupid punk (popouts) and the rich weekend warrior pseudo-surfer who wants to spend a chunk on “new technology”($1200 carbon-fiber and nomex bisect), but you will never get close to the spirit of innovation and experimentation, that human touch, which backyard and local hand-shapers have enjoyed and thrived under for years.

Even your technological edge is being eroded, as Bert has shown, because people can easily make custom sandwich boards. I’m going to try one myself, soon.

The big company paradigm and mass production environment just doesn’t work for surfboards. You should consider switching to something more profitable, such as plastic car-bumpers.

Wells

76

I have a Bisect. Custom, hand-shaped, from when Patagonia & Bisect were working together.

When Fletch finished shaping it, he called me up and said, gee, this came out really nice. Are you absolutely, positively, sure you want me to let them cut it in half? He was really hesitant. I should have listened.

None of the pop-outs of any kind - Surftech, Boardworks, Bisect, HydroEpic - are anywhere near what I want out of a board. I’m 220 lb but a strong paddler. All the molded companies seem to believe that anyone over about 185 lb is a fat carp who is willing to give up (lots of) performance in favor of paddling ease. Couldn’t be more wrong.

And yeah, I got sick of stripped bolts, cracks around the glass, and flexing under my feet. So I ground the glass down to the weave, put the board back together as if it had broken, and glassed it up nice.

Know what? Now I actually surf it.

77

Good one Wells.

When a few more American jobs are lost to overseas production, our goverment is going to be forced by public pressure (votes) to put a protective tarriff on this type of thing. This will happen before the tree huggers get blanks and resine outlawed.

The popouts force surfers to deal with surf shop owners or dept. store/surf shops. Traditionally only the kuks shop at these places for long. Surfing has always come and gone in popularity and when it ebbs to the lower end there are not as many kuks to buy the latest greatest. Instead, people who have a real interest go to a shaper with some knowledge to make them a custom. Popouts take the social interaction between the surfer and shaper out of the process. Heck thats half the fun. Not saying there are not good shops out there. There certainly are some, but they are becoming fewer and fewer. Just like well made handcrafted surfboards from shaping masters. There are few young shapers today that will be in the business long enough to become masters at what they do because many of them have bought into the build as many as you can mentality of Lost, Rusty, and Channel Islands.

I really have nothing against the popout tech. as long as it’s sold for what it is, not as some messiah of the industry or as a superior new product. Also, When the shapers find out how many of their boards are selling vs. how many they are actually getting paid for, something is bound to hit the fan. Also, when some of these shapers start seeing their shapes with other names on them, it might get a little uncomfortable as well.

78

Well said Wells!

I predict:

  1. That the molded boards may gain in popularity on a short term due to marketing hype, and then find themselves on the shelfs of toy stores and Kmarts until the fad dies our entirely.

  2. Machine shaping will become inexpensively available to everyone through service bureaus, but some will continue to hand shape for various reasons.

  3. Clark blanks will still be used 20 years from now…even the polyurethane ones.

  4. There will be more experimentation from surfboard builders in materials and design.

What’s interesting is that almost everyone has had a favorite board. The boards we have today are good enough. The problem is that they don’t last long enough. So that’s where the new technology will help, as well as showing us that our favorite boards could be even better than we ever imagined.

79
Quote:

What’s interesting is that almost everyone has had a favorite board. The boards we have today are good enough. The problem is that they don’t last long enough. So that’s where the new technology will help, as well as showing us that our favorite boards could be even better than we ever imagined.

I just can’t see someone saying, “wow that magic popout.” I guess it’s possible.

I hear about boards not lasting today, but if you look at many of the boards of the seventies, they are in good shape today because they were glassed properly. The problem is many surfers today have been brainwashed that lighter is better, when in fact a little weight does not hurt performance for most surfing moves. A board with a good glass job will last if it’s taken care of. Also many surfers today are so hung up on one move, Air, Noseride etc. that they don’t become good at their basic surfing skills. The modern thruster is designed to do tail slides and airs because thats what the mags have been pushing for a few years.

80

Awwww, back just long enough to teach your son how to set up a business plan, get some suckers - er I mean investors - to throw down some bucks, get that business crankin out the product, then sell to some more guys with the skinny ties while your son goes and surfs on that private surf trip/island. Don’t worry, we have gotten real good at cleaning up messes and opening surfers eyes to the truth of a “custom” shape after the soulless money-mongers split. Or wasn’t that your business plan that you just slapped us in the face with? I hope it wasn’t those dog thingies…