It's dirty and life-shortening and filled with so many wonderful secrets!
Recently, I got talking to a ghost shaper, that surfboard craftsman of either fading or soaring ambition, depending on age.
This was a man in his twenties who is young enough to want to do something with the skills he’s cultivated finishing off boards for two of the world’s biggest surfboard companies. But still happy, for the time being, to make a thousand bucks a week refining the plugs spat out of an AKU machine.
And the secrets he revealed!
Did you know that when a new board model from a competitor comes out, brands will send a junior to buy it, measure it up and create a CAD file? The shaper will make a few adjustments and, wow, new board model. Hence why so many brands have comparable boards coming out around the same time.
Instead of finishing their boards in their own factories, the glassing and sanding is outsourced. In Australia boards go to TC Glasshouse, Onboard or Glasslab. Check the tail of your board for the Glasshouse logo. You’ll see TC on brands such as Lost & Pyzel, Glasslab on CI, Sharp Eye & Stacey, Onboard on CI and Simon Anderson. Pureglass in California finish Lost, Pyzel, HS and CI etc. These glasshouses can handle a part of the manufacturing process or the whole thing. From blanks to cutting & shaping to glassing and finishing to storage and distribution.
It ain’t your imagination that some boards are better than others, at least in quality. Jason Stevenson (JS) is notorious for hardcore quality-control checks and will happily bin a board if it doesn’t reach his standards. It’s why he makes all his boards (300 to 500 a week) on the Gold Coast instead of licensing his name to factories in Europe, the USA and Brazil. JS builds ’em, sticks ’em in a container and ships ’em where they need to go.
Surfboard making at any level is a labour intensive and time consuming gig. So if you get a dud board (finish wise) most likely the guy who had to make eight-to-ten boards that day cut a couple of corners on yours because he wanted to get to the beach, bar, whorehouse. I have a board from a big-name San Clemente factory that still has markings from the shaping machine on the rails. Doesn’t mean the company doesn’t know to shape and finish boards properly. It just means that the guy who shaped my board couldn’t be bothered doing a proper job on this particular board for whatever reason.
Things most surfers don’t even consider make a big difference. For example, the blanks ad resins used. Blanks are a big deal. The USA still make the best chemicals so the big guys in Australia import ’em. A lot of the smaller factories use cheaper chemicals from Australia or elsewhere and the boards can be heavier, more fragile and don’t look as clean when finished.
Ghost shaping surfboards is a… killer…job. My ghost shaper pal has smoked two cigs in his life. His doctor says his lungs, at twenty-two, are the same as someone who has smoked a pack a day for twenty years.
My three Aussie made Pyzels are so fricken tough. Creased my Pyzalien three years ago (smearing my knee across the deck coming down with the lip on a slabby wave), and it’s still showing no signs of buckling. Probably have 200 days on my Nugget and 50 on my Ghost, and there’s barely a dent to be seen. Extraordinary quality. Light, too!
Yeah, my Ghost hasn’t a trace of compression or use and I got smeared across the rocks with it first surf.
There is a great chance the subject of this article glassed those boards.
I’ll buy him a beer – or a Negroni? – if I ever get the chance.
Holiday phone in story time much?
JS has multiple ghost shapers.
Don’t take a heat gun to any dents in the foam as it will shrink, unlike US or Artic which expands
Shit , you are actually enjoying the craft of making surfboards , loe ya work!
way stronger than bass , which breaks easy but you get knots in the plantation woods. Eric A , started using appelcore 2 years ago , reduced breakages heaps….
I use when I can the US blank with appelcore and then glass in Bio-epoxy , where you don’t have to wear a mask and you end up with a real sustainable surfboard!
If your mate is getting lung scans at the age of 22, maybe it’s time to retire from surfboard manufacturing.
He should probably have invested in a good mask too.
Sounds like bullshit
really good foam , glass them and see how light you can get them?
US are making some major changes , so there will be no more pinhole air bubbles, and if you want to radically reduce breakages , use an Appelcore 3/16 5 ply!
I’m eating a turkey sandwich w/ stuffing, pepper jack cheese, and wasabi mayonnaise that is pretty damn good right now..
I’ve just made some chipotle sauce for my leftover turkey, but wasabi mayonnaise sounds good too.
Not one comment on how every foam company is actually Mexican made,except US blanks, That’s a pretty notable omission. Arctic,mexi,Mil. Mexi.
US Blanks have the best record of any blank maker. They comply to California’s EPA rules , have a $200 K filter system , have gone solar and to me the best blanks in the world !
Oh I know,I’ve got the sticker!
OK Fred , Alan M hasn’t shaped since he sold CI to Burton. Burton bought his files and they are still used by the Ghost shapers at CI to create new boards for the team/models!
As a massive board slut from what I have seen in Aust, Lost and Pyzel through TC glassing have the best glass jobs and materials going round. They have really stepped up their game. A few years back were terrible but A grade now.
DHD whomever glasses them are also pretty up there.
Glass lab probably has the strongest PU boards but can be a bit weighted and heavy. Had some really strong Stacey’s.
JS i have had the worst experience. The blanks for me have been brittle snapping after standard floaters etc. Had a couple of amazing JS ex team which didnt last long but were glorious! Saying that have a Hyfi which goes great and pretty hard to ding under foot and still feels light and responsive.
Would def agree that the US blanks are better. If your lucky and get a US Lost or CI they have a lot more spring and liveliness in the blanks. Heard the Hawaiian Pyzels are incredible but havent had the joy of riding.
Glassing division in Lennox have been glassing plenty of dhd’s an turning out some nice solid boards
Your boy Tronny Dump has spent the last 15+ year’s in glass shops pushing resin for some of the biggest brands in the game. I can assure you that your average ghost shaper is far removed from the real hazards involved with surfboard manufacturing.
Your friend better retire immediately or he’ll have emphysema by age 27 doctor’s say.
yeah Dumpy right on!
Foam dust is not big enough to actually go into your lungs , but fibre dust and fumes from the Styrene , thinners , catalyst acetone, now there’;s a list for a toxic cocktail , so yeah sounds like Ghost 22 has problems , with his health but it ain’t the foam dust!
Ghost 22 lams and fillers 8 boards a day 5 days a week, thats where his health issues are from.
Not sure how this adds up. Where’s all this time coming from to ghost shape, lam 8 boards, and do whatever the fuck “fillers” are, in the same day? Bigger question, who is busy enough to even supply that amount of work 5 days a week to a 22 year old? I have these concerns with all due respect
When you have a young guy with an aspiration to be the next JS, DHD or whoever, you make things happen.
You glass and filler (hot coat if you are American) 8 boards a day, carefully placing those decals of the guy you want to be just like to make sure you’re eating and living under a roof for the next week. Then you clock off around mid-late afternoon, shape your boards, glass your boards and answer all those instagram messages and emails you couldn’t reply to because you were too busy and you told your day job boss that your own label wouldn’t interfere with you actual paid job.
By now its close to midnight. Your actual job has just earned you enough to pay for all the boards you’ve been giving to your “team rider” who is definitely going to break through on the QS this year. You go home, ignoring your resin, blanks, cloth, courier bills that are outstanding by 30 days.
When it comes to the end of the financial year you’ve basically worked two full-time jobs and the actual paid job has EARNED you about 5k more than your own label has COST you. You work out you’ve made over 200 boards under your own label, after rent, bills etc its actually cost you money to be a “shaper”. You suck a guys dick in the truckstop toilet in exchange for a stolen handgun and you shoot that fucking resin soaked peanut sized brain out the back of your head.
This is too good for just a comment… flesh it out and send it to Derek!
My life mixed with 3 or 4 other guys trying to live the dream. If the surfing public knew the realities of the small time shaper they’d be horrified. Realty TV series maybe?
And the 3 or 4 big dog factories on the Goldy all do well over 100 boards per week. At times more like 200-400 per week. If you know how to herd or knock down resin and you can keep a needle out of your arm and turn up Monday to Friday, you’ll have work.
It can be pointed out that JS was having a fair bit of boards manufactured in San Diego just a few short years ago. At the time, they were all airbrushed white, every one of them. Added paint equals added weight, no matter how you cut it. Furthermore, what kind of bond does resin/fiberglass have with a completely painted foam surface compared to a bare foam surface?
It’s my understanding that the plug was pulled on behalf of staggering sales in a market dominated by domestic brands, not quality control.
What kind of quality can be “controlled” when boards are being built in multiple facilities, under different standards, by people with questionable skill-sets?
All the big shops here still carry JS and people still buy them. The boards coming out of that San Diego facility were shit and word got out fast among the local surfing community. Local JS rep told me thats why they pulled the plug, because of the bad reputation JS was getting in regards to durability.
Now every board has the MadLuc logo on the tail, and they are much stronger.
With regards to the MadLuc logo, in the words of the great fictional race car driver Ricky Bobby, “…with all due respect, and remember I’m sayin’ it with all due respect, that ain’t worth a velvet painting of a whale and a dolphin gettin’ it on!” I was putting MadLuc logos on JS boards over 4 years ago in a San Diego area based shop which definitely wasn’t “that San Diego facility”. As far as I know to this point, tail logos don’t make boards stronger, neither do all white paint jobs.
what blanks were they using , were they trying to compete with the bright white Artic/Millenium/US blanks by bringing in Aus foam , painting boards white makes the board much weaker!
Can’t quite say with any real certainty, but I think they were Burford blanks. If their intention was to make the board bright white then they had it all fucked. The paint gave the boards a dull/off-white look that was all the more noticeable under the florescent lights of a surf shop. Furthermore, I think we may be onto something here with the White Paint Board Strength Theory.
New Zealand is the Saudi Arabia of Milk.
lol at JS having the best QC. Those things are the most renowned for snapping like twigs.
And the IP is so loosely held it’s a joke. All the blanks are cut at outsourced machines so CAD files are shared like wives at a swingers party.
I could walk around the backdoor of a factory here and get any board from any major manufacturer cut on the spot and finished with no decals for a fraction of the cost.
Open secret.
Not sure about the aussie corps importing yankee foam either.
The “JS boards snap like a twig” line is redundant. Maybe 10 years ago it were true but not now days. All boards made on the Goldy by the reputable names are the strongest they have ever been, and light too. The sand-the-cunt-out-of-them then hide all the weave and sand throughs with protek days are long gone.
I actually feel sorry for JS because of this wide spread reputation he has for weak/disposable boards, I hear it everywhere. But then again, it hardly seems to have had an effect on his sales.
Exactly, they are ubiquitous and I agree stock boards made on the Goldy or in the glass shops down here (Byron-Lennox-Ballina) are the best they’ve ever been.
I’d still nominate JS’s as the weakest of the big manufacturers though.
One hair of carbon out of place on a JS and its folded up in the dumpster like a greasy pizza box.
yeah, sure but you and I both know, that is far from the only thing that makes a weak or strong board.
True, but if the JS QC guys are busting blokes nuts over a strand of carbon…..imagine their attitude towards other aspects of the build process. I was always taught “Tidy is strong and strong is tidy”.
A lot of younger crew these days will flop their short, uneven laps over, looking like a whores sausage wallet. They tell me “who gives a fuck, I’ll grind it down flat and you’ll never know the difference”. No, what you’ll do is grind all the cloth to within a bees dick of its life and it might as well not even be there. That is where you get easily snapping boards.
But hey, the younger crews boards look super legit on instagram and that is all that matters these days.
My JS gets compression marks if I give it a harsh stare or breathe on it
They surf well, but QC? Get out
Order/buy one that isn’t a single layer of 4 Oz on the deck. Or deal with it, compressions aren’t that bad and as you say they surf well.
Copy that Jason
You got skin in the game No More?
No drama if you do, just be good to know.
Factory worker by day, my label by night. You know the story
Maybe stop telling everybody they’re going to surf like whoever the Fuck their emmulating on “pro light” glass because they’re not them. Keep making those JS. As a ding guy I built a house off buckles and fin repairs.
Fuck Pro-Lite, Team Lite or whatever the fuck they call it. When someone pays $650 US for a surfboard the thing should last more than 4 months. Lost’s new Pro-Formance series is such bullshit.
Blown blanks are most dense at the skin. The foam on a hand shaped board is mostly taken from the bottom of the blank and the deck pretty much only has the skin knocked off. Machines take the shape from the centre of the blank, that’s why boards seem to compress so much more these days.
Not entirely true. Machine will take the shape from where ever the machine operator sets it up to take it from.
My cuts still have the ink from the blank companies stamp just visible on the deck as my machine guy sets it up to just skim the deck and take the bulk from the bottom.
I have heard stories of some machine operators buying blanks in bulk that they know they can get a variety of shapes/rockers etc out of. Then just slap a blank down and take the shape from the middle of the blank. But any discerning shaper/label owner would soon move on to a better machine operator.
Good to know. Do you think those labels out-sourcing 500 plus a week abroad get much say in how the operator sets up though?
I think if a shit ton of boards are snapping, falling apart or not performing or lasting as long as they should and the home office/owner hears about it, then they will look in to it. Either fly/drive there themselves (trust me I’ve seen it) or send someone they trust to look at the facility that has the license or is employed to do the outsourcing and figure out the problem or problems.
All the big guys who outsource their overflow or set up license abroad are in constant contact with the facilities who are working for them. They don’t take kindly to their pride and joy being devalued and I’ve sent licences revoked, contract glassing cancelled and it’s not always in a pleasant way. Despite what you all think, the big guys are still just normal guys who have pride in their product and they realise how critical the surfing publics is of their product. If a licensee is cutting corners, not paying their royalties or in anyway bringing the brand in to disrepute…..it’s over.
I know a few small time guys who would literally lose their house if they had their big dog boards work taken off them.
Yep, a lot of a board’s strength comes from the blank not the 4/4 or 6/4 glass etc
Got a step up with slightly stronger, better grade glass and good blank and it’s still rockin’
Super light boards are super fun in shitty Summer waves. Not exactly environ-wallet friendly though
It is a hyfi by chance?
Nope
The guy I get js from on kauai claims they have a proprietary polyester resin that is stronger and lighter than normal. I spend 600 bucks a board and they come out of the first session looking like 6 month old boards. My Maui shaper charged the same price for epoxy boards that are so strong they break rocks!! All his short boards are based off monsta 6’s but nothing like a fresh js to get my dick hard!!
now there’s an interesting comment , JS makes your dick hard!
Is it the blanks being soft , or shit stringers , bad glass / sand job?
They still snap like crazy It baffles me that my mate keeps buying them he’s snapped so many
yeah Jack Freestone left JS because of every board breaking , and went to DHD , less breakage , but can’t get the boards to work!
I’m hesitant to believe this, on both points.
ah yes true , jack had more than 50 DHD’s and ended up in Margarets and Bells riding a Pyzel with DHD sticker , saw and spoke to Jack!
That’s cool, stoked for you to be privy to that info. I’d maybe wind it back on the telling the world on the internet front. Jack probably didn’t say to keep it private but I’m sure he assumed you’d keep that info quiet.
Hey at present Jack is a spent force , I don’t think there is much interest from his sponsors in resigning him , so was it because of his results, or is he just tired of being paid to surf?
part of the problem with the downward spiral of the surfing business’s , is they have been marketing bullshit for years , so when it is finally called out get ready for the consequences , truth is truth , so be careful the questions you ask , hahhaa
I still don’t agree that a public internet forum is any place for you to air his dirty laundry. You may think he is a spent force, hell maybe he is……but I guarantee he doesn’t agree with you and either way he’d prefer to keep his business, his business.
Let Jacks managements and his sponsors decide on his deals/no deals. Inflammatory comments about his board likes and dislikes don’t need to be made public unless he chooses to…… you’d be surprised by the damage your little throw away comments can make.
No More: “No more Brutus!”
Brutus: “No! I’m Brutus, you’re No More!”
No More: “No more! Jack management!”
Me: “Great Moments in Beach Grit Commentariat History right there!”
Why doesn’t “no more” just pull a Maurice Cole. At this point no self respecting shaper would suck this much of any one else’s dick,other than his own?
Small time shaper. You don’t need to worry about me in any regard. I’m not a big dog at all but, never met JS (or Jack Freestone) in my life and probably won’t. Just voicing my opinion and on this occasion in fell on the JS side of the fence.
And Negatron is not referring to me when he’s saying about the handful of greatest blah blah blah.
https://youtu.be/vtTkfmaiI4I
There is certainly no greater Shaper South of your shaping bay on your Island!
Thanks. I think.
Haha… I’ll pop in for a beer next time I’m over there!
Fellow cuzzy bro?
ha , I am very interested in, if you could explain how to suck ones own Dick , or are you just fantasizing?
I no got no faith no more !
Dude your worse than schroff
If he’d prefer to keep his business to himself. He should’ve….
This place is pretty straight up most of the time and I for one enjoy the honesty and lack of regard for the past closed doors policy of the industry.
Via the MOD panel I can see who is posting here and you’re mixing it up with a handful of the greatest shapers. Current and past…
Get the truth out there for the sake of truth, justice and better boards for all!
how would you feel if you bought your favourite Pro surfer model surfboard , and found out he actually can’t ride it ?
When you become a Pro surfer , you become a public figure whether you like it or not , so it’s not his dirty laundry , it’s just his life and a lot of people think because of the lack of performance on tour , he has not had the equipment to be the very best he can , so what’s next…QS again , or just retire on Hawaii with Alana , I am not criticizing just making observations!
Got to admit out I have seen that many ex team Freestone DHDs out there its not funny. Might be a picky bugger who knows
JS got rid of jack because he started wearing birkenstocks.
shit I wear them too , no wonder I can’t get a sponsorship , would you suggest maybe a pair of rainbow sandals?
I’m no fashionista. Let’s put it to Chas (i also secretly need some fashion tips).
Not foam, just chems
They use petro-chemicals, aussie blank blowers have always imported those.
But sure, no one like a pedantic cunt.
Is your man going to go out and do a HaydenShapes?
HS.. as in make gorgeously marketed products aimed squarely at white collar workers? Write a book, throw around some IP lawsuits and all whilst flipping the bird at traditional shapers?
A screaming success, in other words.
Certainly hope so. My favourite surf companies are those flipping the bird on their way up… Need Essentials, Gen4 Surfboards, Saturdays…. dare I say BeachGrit too!
just like Quik/BBG and RC !
Support local shapers
what’s a traditional shaper?
Only smokes pot and drinks VB.
damn one out of 2 ain’t bad !
Any thoughts on my comments above? (Is AU foam better than US foam due to less stringent environmental controls in AU?)
Is AU foam was better than Cali foam? It seems you are saying that US chemicals are better than AU chemicals but that AU foam is better than US foam? I was told that AU had less stringent environmental standards and because of that, AU foam is better; any truth to that?
As in that the AU foam keeps its pop longer than US foam.
just so you don’t end up talking to yourself all day , I’ll have a crack at answering the foam Q.
All the materials come from the USA and each blank manufacturer has their own formula , which a lot of the time is made for their local market , which here in Australia is not as sophisticated as the USA….
The USA blanks are very white and very easy to shape , also can source better laminated wood stringers!
one of the most overlooked aspect of blanks is stringers or the Spine of the surfboard , most big brands use what I call toilet paper stingers , breaks and creases very easy….if you use a good laminated stringer , cuts breakages by 90% , or you could spend a lot of money marketing Carbon/stingerless/EPS blah blah…
Thanks Brutus! So basically, it’s best to do some homework about the blank producer if I want to shape my own board. I never really thought much about blanks; I’ve always been focused on the shaper and my surfing, and I’ve only had a few boards I didn’t like. I’ve ridden Pyzel, DHD, Dewey Weber, McTavish, T&C, Campbell Bros, Deadkooks, Takayama, Two Crows, etc., and I don’t know if it’s placebo or what, but my DHD felt like it had the best foam. But that could just be a result of my DHD being my most recent shortboard, and me being at the top of my game. Thanks for the insights.
Def agree US blanks are way nicer. They have more liveliness to them. Best boards I have had are US blanks. Some old clark foam CIs and Pattersons were amazing boards. Crazy glide and response
The JS construction used to be shit, not so anymore. I have a 2 year old Monsta 6, still bright white, hardly any pressure dings, only board I ride. The glass job is insanely good. Best board I’ve ever owned both construction-wise and ride-wise. I’m a big fucker too and I beat the shit out of boards. 6’2 190 lbs.
I was scared to buy the board because the of bad reputation about durability, but I was getting a really good price through the US distribution rep. So glad I took the chance.
and therein lies the problem , that there is very little design work being done , and the boards being ridden by Pros haven’t changed much in 15 years ,any shaper designer that gives 10+ boards to their team , either is just lazy or don’t really know what they are doing!
technology is being pushed down the throats of the consumer as something new ,and as all the big brands have models out of Asia , for their carbon wanks , we know there is one reason and only one reason , $’s!
It’s so cheap to make shitty EPS /Epoxy boards in Asia then charge the consumer more ,as there is a tech component that looks more expensive , but when you see prices out of Asia ,$200 a board , being sold for $1000 , the spectre of the Hypto Krypto has been absorbed by nearly all shapers ,and everybody wants the million $formula!
i would love to know how you can get an EPS out of asia for $200, please tell me the location and phone number of this mythical land of cheap surfboards i want to order 1000.
Jazzy P I reckon you’ve got some Good Swagger!
Would you do us all a favor and outsource your next article submission.
hahaha thanks for reading, look forward to your comments on the next article. My personal favourite comment of yours relates to Sam McIntosh’s tortious inteference… other than that they’re mostly rambunctious trash
When you’re trying your darndest to be so much like Chas’ ‘Secrets Revealed!’ schtick stylistically, why wouldn’t you outsource that shit?!? For gosh sakes man, Chas averages 33.3% success publishing authentic Chas. Be you. Be authentic to you as a writer. Otherwise, outsource that shit!
And yes! Yes my comments are rambunctious trash. It’s my trash. All mine. You working on recycling Chas’ trash.
I’d be pumped to spit out some rambunctious trash.
fake news
Old news
That was the fucktest thing I’ve ever read on this site. Spell check, fact check kook
And the sub headline makes no sense at all. Is English not your native tongue (serious question, not meant as an insult) well kind of….
“It’s a dirty and life-shortening and filled with so many wonderful secrets!” So close, but this is not even a complete sentence. And I graduated from San Diego State University.
Eesssh! You’re right, there’s a few crook sentences in there! I’ll go back and fix it up now. WordPress can be a fiddly bitch!
Obviously better than the Xmas rant I jabbed out on my phone and fired off to Chas. He’s totally blanking it, no pun intended.
Js is a crook nose vac. Scat a bullshit artist of highest. & that Qs kook Chris a fucking L plate wannabe. Seadog storeman smarter than all 3.
Amateur set up, QA still a joke. Should see the complaints file…
6 Mins jazzy what took you so long
All this time I thought Al Merrick was Santa Clause, hand shaping thousands of boards a week. Maybe the rest of them came from a machine but Al hand shaped mine, personally.
Love when my friends #tag up Biolas thanking him for shaping their boards. SUCKERS.
When you walk in and somebody is just scribbling a name on a blank and making it holy? There’s a word for that, counterfeit.
I think you’ll find if you roll the board over and look at the tail , many JS boards are made in Taiwan. Especially the tech (carbon all over the stringer ect) ones which the charge more for. Something tells me your going to get a comment from Brutus very soon Mr Jazzy P
Yep, you’re right. HyFi boards are made in Taiwan. But PU’s all done in Kirra
Not true, the ones we get in Brazil are all made at Tropical Brazil under license.
Not all PUs were being done in Kirra for the US until the quality got so bad they brought back production to AU. That stigma still lives with them today. Just Shyte. A brand propped up by Billabong. Pyzel got a huge hand up from Hurley. Both deservedly skillwise but they wouldn’t be the brands they are today without the backing
very big difference between JS and Pyzel , some of the BBG execs actually own a big % of JS , Pyzel owns his business 100% and travels and services his product, JS just stays home and if you want boards for your pro rider , send in a video and he will shape accordingly , whereas Pyzel still will talk to you about a custom , yeah Pizzle!
True dat Big Guy.