My story post 7

From day one of my surfing experience I’ve only had one surfboard that I didn’t make or shape for myself. It was a Phil Edwards model Hobie I bought used and surfed between 1965 and ’66.

Phil Edwards was well known and a very good surfer back in the day and his signature board was the real deal. Having one of his boards was kind of a prestige thing, it was a good thing to have and ride.

Now, you might think having that board would give me a great opportunity to do a little copying or borrowing for making my own boards. And you’re right but, I didn’t borrow anything. Never took the outline, or measurements. Honestly I don’t think I was smart enough to think ‘hey I’ve got this killer board here, let’s just take some numbers and use them to make a killer board like it’. I was to busy hacking away on my own, didn’t really know what I was doing, just did what I did.

Today I’ve got tools to measure boards I never thought of as a kid. Today when I need to or want to make one board the same as another I’ll measure the width from nose to tail in 6 inch increments, and the same for the thickness as well as rockers. Never dreamed of doing that as a kid. Back then it was… look at the blank…think surfboard… and hack at the blank until I had what I thought was a decent surfboard.

A good way to get a feel for a surfboard is via repairs. When you have to fix dings you’ve got to look at the board, handle it, run your hands over the areas on the board that need fixing. Feel if you’ve feathered out your patch job etc. All that can give you sight and touch memories that can be transferred into actually making one. That’s what helped me, it was the repairs I did. I looked at, held, ran my hands over a fair amount of boards which helped me see in my minds eye what a surfboard should look like. Once you’ve got the picture in your head of what a surfboard should look like you can take a blank and cut away at it here and there until the picture in your head is something you can see and feel in real life form.

Shaping surfboards is what I call an alphabet thing. You can’t just start with A then go to B then C until you get to Z and be pau ( finished ). You’ve got to see the whole alphabet all at one time. Yeah, you still start at A but when you are working at A you see B, C, D all the way through all the stages.

Somehow as a kid I could see the surfboard I wanted to make. Then went and made it… good or bad I just wanted to make it. Today I’m still amazed at the process.

D.R.