I graduated High School in 1966, six years into my life as a surfer.

'66 was the year Nat Young won the world contest in San Diego. A picture of him surfing is on the cover of Volume 7 number 6 of Surfer Magazine that year.  That's the seventh year Surfer had been in print and at that point was a Bi monthly publication having graduated from a Quarterly at it's start.

Flipping through that issue the ads for surfboards counted 10 full page, 1 double page and 1 half page ad.  There were of few smaller page ads as well, the larger ads were from Hobie, Dewey Weber, Morey Pope, Jacobs, Con, Greg Noll, Hansen, Bing, Dave Sweet, Rick, Harbour and Gordon & Smith. Interesting.... The Dave Sweet ad top line of copy said "$130.00 buys a new 9'6" Dave Sweet".

As a kid thumbing through Surfer magazine was a big deal. Seeing pictures of team riders and pictures of the latest iterations of foam and fiberglass, dreams and fantasies racing through your thoughts. Or having the chance to visit one of  the surf shops.... that was a big prize. There were the Santa Monica shops, the South Bay shops, Seal Beach, Dana Point and further south Gordon and Smith in San Diego.   

I don't remember why the family took the long drive to San Diego one time. What I do remember was when we started heading home. Just as we started driving through San Diego on the freeway I happened to look out the window at just the right time to see a large Gordon and Smith surfboard label on the side of a building off the highway. My eyes fixated on what I saw, head turning as we passed until I couldn't see it any more. There it was, the place where Gordon and Smith surfboards were made. All the elements, the moon the stars had aligned and I got the chance to see that magical place. even though it was just in passing, didn't matter.    

The drive to San Diego was 3 hours long, and we were just getting started on the 3 hours back. But I was in heaven, seeing that building and sign.... made every minute worth while. The image of what I saw... still there even after some 50 years.

Of those 12 names listed above, the pioneers and founders of the surf industry, six of them are no longer with us. The latest one, Larry Gordon of Gordon and Smith, passed  on the first day of the new year. Sad another gone, R.I.P. Mr. Gordon.

D.R.

Surfer Magazine Vol. 7 No.6 Gordon and Smith ad.

As mentioned in my post of 7 December 2015 there are 2 types of finishes for surfboards. The sanded finish and the gloss and polished finish.

Either way surfboards get sanded, which also fits into the labor not the creative part of making surfboards. Sanding is typically done with a grinder spinning up to 5000 rpm. And depending on how a board will be finished the grinder pad will have between 60 to 320 grit sand paper one it.

Grinding a surfboard takes finesse. It's pretty easy to ruin a nice glass job while sanding it. Good surfboards sanders have pretty secure jobs in the industry for that very reason.... As well, because it's possible to change the shape of a surfboard in small ways while sanding, the high performance guys rely on sanders to dial in specifics of their boards.

It's a dusty dirty job, can irritate your skin and lungs. Many people also don't  know that  sanding dust is flammable and an explosive. So don't go walking into a sanding room with a lit cigarette, or toss a fire cracker into a sanding room as a practical joke.  Yeah, how stupid... but it did happen to my son while he was working through a stack of boards to sand one day, a guy tossed a fire cracker into his room. 'Bout scared him to death,  fortunately the only boom was the fire cracker.

Each step in the process of making a surfboard is important. The guys that sand are specialist and pretty much go unnoticed. That's ok because a well made surfboard you don't notice the sand job, no, it's the poorly sanded boards that you see the sand job.

D.R.   

With a soft pad and board on rail the sander makes things smooth.