Shaping surfboards is pretty much done behind closed doors. That's what Wayne Rich said one day when we were talking about surfboard stuff.

Here's a look behind closed doors one day last week...with some explanation. When I started working on a new board patterned after a 1968 V-Bottom.  One that I didn't keep an outline of from back in the day. Fortunately a friend of mine had the old board so I could map it. 

First I write in my book all the numbers from mapping the board. Outline numbers every 3 inches, same for rocker and thickness.

Second I mark the outline numbers on the blank I'm using for my board. And pull a tape line connecting all the marks. 

Then I cut one side of the blank and true up the curve where ever needed.

After the outline on the one side is clean and satisfactory I scribe it onto some template material and cut the template.

 I used sheet vinyl for the template, which will hold a line, easily cuts with scissors and  it can be trued up with block plane and sanding block.

Now the other side of the board can be outlined using the new template running along the marks from mapping the original board.

With board outline complete the board is shaped and finished, ready for glassing.

D.R.

Woodland Hills, the place my parents moved my 2 sisters and I to in 1954.

We lived on a street a few blocks south of Ventura Blvd and a few blocks west of Toganga Canyon Rd. Our Aunt lived in Woodland Hills as well on a street up Topanga about 12 blocks and 1 block east of Topanga.

When my mom started working she took me and my sisters to our Aunts house every week day in the morning and pick us up after work. We'd leave for school from there, return after school and play until mom returned to take us home. During the summer me and my sisters would play all day around our Aunts house with the kids that lived on the street there.

At the time my Aunts house was pretty much the last street up Topanga that was developed. Just a couple unpaved roads up from the house was Mulholand Drive. The adventure was to hike up to Mulholand and look around. It was a dirt road where people would dump unwanted stuff... an old chair, matress, misc. house hold things. We could go up there and bust bottles on the rocks, be generally mischievous and not get noticed.

Fast forward to an all day surf with Bob Cooper and Dale Herd. Cooper the Morey-Pope shop foreman and Dale the shop salesman and I took a Saturday surf trip to the spot where Topanga Canyon meets the coast. A small point south of Malibu... Topanga point, or just Topanga. In 1967 Topanga was a private community and the only way you could surf the point was if you lived in one of the small houses on the point or were invited by someone that had a place there. We were invited, so we got to surf the place with just a couple others that happened to be there that day too.

The surf was small and inconsistent so after some time we decided to go off somewhere else for something better... if we could find it. Since home was back up the PCH that's the direction we headed and stopped where Mulholand Highway, the west end of Mulholand Dr. meets the coast...  Secos at Leo Carrillo State Beach.

Little did I know when I was 7 that Mulholand Dr. and Topanga Canyon road both end at  the Pacific Coast Highway and, there are surf spots where each road meets the coast. And 13 years later I would surf both spots in one day.

D.R.