My Story post 5

My older brother did a little illustrating during his high school years and while I was making my first surfboard he took it upon himself do design a label for it. You can’t have a surfboard without a label.

I’d made copies of that label and used it for all the boards I made during my teens. I don’t really remember how many boards I made with that make shift label. I’d guess 8 or 10. The hard part was getting blanks. Unlike the first blank I made a board from that was pretty much already molded into a shape, I wanted blanks to shape. The blank companies, Walker and Clark, wouldn’t sell to a kid working in his parents back yard. So what’s a guy to do?

Some how I found out that Greg Noll made his own blanks and I got the hair brained idea that maybe I could buy blanks from him. What the heck, it doesn’t hurt to ask. So I made the trip to Hermosa Beach walked around the Greg Noll shop until I found the man and when I found him I basically said, “Hi, I make surfboards but kinda have a hard time getting blanks, would you sell me some?”

What was I thinking? A 16 year old kid from nowhere standing in the office of a surfing icon and asking him some dumb questions. As I remember it, we conversed for a few minutes and then he said “ Ok, I’ll sell you some blanks.” So I left that day with a couple blanks and returned some weeks later and got a few more.

Resin and fiberglass was easy to get so now with blanks my little surfboard business was in full bloom. I actually had guys I talked into making boards for. The hard part for me was not sneaking off to the beach with a new board I made for someone and try it out before they came to pick it up.

D.R.