What I like about doing something different is that you’ve got to think about what you’re doing. I’ve got two new boards that I’ll be completing this week…. Actually they’re not new but new twists to my retro hulls.

I’m calling them the sisters. One has parabolic or perimeter stringers. Shaping boards with perimeter stringers is different. There is no center line to follow so you have to find center at every measurement point. I use a special centering ruler that I made some years ago so it’s fairly easy to measure and outline the perimeter stringered blank, just time consuming.

The thing I also like about shaping perimeter stringers is doing the rails. Since the stringers run along the rail line the stringer intersects the rail profile. So when fine tuning rails and fitting a profile template on the rail you’ve got to make adjustments with a block plane…. very exacting. Put the template on the rail, if it doesn’t fit take a couple passes with the block plane check the fit, back and forth until it’s just right.

The net result of these perimeter stringer boards is I’ve got something quite different. They have a very unique look and if the new perimeter stringer hull works anything like the PSQ… perimeter stringer long board I’m doing now it’s going to be great.

D.R.

I had a visit with my mother today, she came out for the afternoon. So we had the whole family at the house. My daughters two girls are now teenagers and my mom was looking at them then turns to me and says… “ I never had to worry about you or where you were when you were a teenager”. I had never given this much thought but she went on to say… “ yeah, Dennis you were always out back in your surfboard shack. I always knew where you were… out back working on your surfboards”.

To think back now, I’d come home from school and go work on surfboards. On the weekends if I didn’t have a ride to the beach I’d be in my shack doing something on a surfboard. It really wasn’t a job for me it was just what I did. Who knows how much time I spent working on a ding repair? It didn’t matter what kind of repair I’d get to do either. If I’d never done anything like it before, like cutting the corner of a nose off and fitting a new piece of foam and reshaping and glassing it. I’d just figure it out and work at it until it was done. Then ask for couple bucks when the board was done…. remember every thing was a lot cheaper back then.

Learning by doing, and with no ones help… Like the first time me and a couple friends did some resin work… we didn’t know that you needed acetone to clean up with. We used some other solvent that of course didn’t work. Then went to wash up with soap and water in his mothers kitchen sink. We made one serious mess of that sink…. His mother was pissed!

My first planer? I bought one that the motor sat below the table.. you know that the planers we use to shape a surfboard are usually used by carpenters on doors. So they are usually used with a fence on them, we take the fences off to shape surfboards. My first planer was made with a permanent fence and the motor housing was part of the fence so the planer wouldn’t lay flat on the blank surface. I learned right away I needed a different planer. Had no one to tell me which kind to get but spent time looking at tool catalogs to find what would work and for the amount of money I could pay.

My little surfboard shack. I spent hours and hours messing with surfboards in it. Figuring out how to laminate a board better, or sanding one and realizing that if I’d do a better job with the resin work sanding it wouldn’t be so hard. How to get a gloss coat just right....

I loved every minute…. I really can’t say I’ve changed… My shack is a little bigger but I still love messing with surfboards.

D.R.

My story post 30

Surfing before the crowds… actually there were crowds at a number of spots in the late sixties and into the seventies. Like Malibu, of course, Rincon, Ventura inside point or the cove, I remember Doheny being pretty crowded, Newport pier and other places as well.

As surfboards began getting shorter we also began finding places to surf that weren’t ridden. For instance my friend Richie would surf the north side of Ventura pier during the summer wind swells. He didn’t have a car and lived just a block from the pier. Hungry for surf after work he found if you picked your wave you could have a good time surfing there. I joined him a number of times and, if I wasn’t with him he was surfing by himself.

Believe it or not, though inside point would get crowds further up the point could be absent of surfers. Now days one of the most crowded spots in Ventura is Pipe. But in ’68 my friend Peter would come by my place on MacMillan and San Nicolas throw rocks at my window to wake me up at the butt crack of dawn to go surf pipe before work. He didn’t want to surf alone! After going there a number of mornings with Peter I got my shaping partner Richard to go with me some mornings too. We were the only guys there.

Speaking of Richard…. In late ’68 he got a pass to go to the Ranch… the kind you use to drive in. Before I left MP we made a number of trips up there. Usually it would be Richard me and one other guy. We’d head out about 7 or 8 in the morning with surfboards, water and trail mix. Be in the water at rights and lefts by 9 or so and surf the whole day all by our selves. I can still see those perfect A frames in my mind. Surf for an couple hours go in and rest. Go back out until you were tired, rest some more for a final go out before heading home.

One other spot that was not surfed was Overhead beach break. It might have been Richie that went in there first but, Mike, Richie and I went there looking for surf in the summer of ’69 and had plenty fun surfing it when no one was around.

It’s still possible to find spots without tons of people but back in times past it was not to difficult.

D.R.

At the point with 3 guys out… June 07