Shaping Bay

Curtis’s New board.

December 13, 2009 by busbey · 3 Comments

Curtis Cromwell, who does all the glassing here and works in the shop, likes his boards a little different than most people. He really likes the raised deck idea ( having had several of them), so this one is no different but this one comes with a much flatter and fuller raised deck than his past ones trying to gain a little extra paddling power for the up coming winter in 5/4/3′s. This one was also designed with a much deeper single concave than the past ones so a little more rise in the deck should help the float out also. We’ve brought the tail in fairly thin so hopefully it’s not to “corky” feeling and hold in on the steeper and more powerful waves of winter. We like the epoxy construction and the blank is a 2 lb density EPS. The rails are wrapped as you can see with a 6 lb. density MDI urethane foam. We have been doing this to all of our EPS blanks, it is stronger against rail dings and if you do get a small ding in the rail you won’t have the problem of it soaking up to much water unlike the straight EPS foam. Dimensions, 6’4″ x 19 3/8″x 2 1/2″. It has a 12 1/8″ nose and a 14 3/8″ tail.

Filed Under: Shaping Bay · Tagged With: custom surfboard, eps foam, scott busbey, surfboard construction

Custom New 80′s Twin Fin

August 14, 2009 by busbey · 2 Comments

Ross Byrd who runs the Goodtimes Surf Camp in Rodanthe brought me an old board that I built probably in 80 or 81. He said it is one of his favorite boards and rides it a lot in the summer when the waves are small. This one had a pretty boxy rail and even had a little bit of deck concave in the tail. His request was to copy it but update it also and he thought he would like it a little thinner.

The new one doesn’t have the concave deck, not quite as thick and we updated the nose. It doesn’t have the old school thick down rail nose. Color wise as you can see it was very similar. Fun to do as I don’t get to do those kind of color jobs to much these days. It’s glossed and polished just like the old one and Curtis said it was a good one to polish because it really made the bright colors pop.

The old one I felt had some really small fins on it for a twin so we increased the area of the fins a little bit also. Dimensions are 5′ 7″ x 20 1/2″ x 2 1/2″ It has a 13 3/4″ nose and a 15 3/4″ tail. The wing is up 10″ from the tail and across the tips of the swallow it is 4″.

By the way they do a good job at the surf camp in the summer if your looking to send someone, check them out at SurfHatteras.com

Filed Under: Shaping Bay · Tagged With: 80's retro twin, classic surfboards, custom surfboard, goodtimes surf camp, retro surfboards, scott busbey, surf cape hatteras, surfhatteras.com

Joey’s New Red Fish

July 4, 2009 by busbey · 1 Comment

Hey this board is not red, it’s green. It’s a surf shot of Joey Crum on his old green fish. We built this one for Joey about 5 years ago and last year he finally retired it “last” summer. Many hours were logged on the green fish and it has seen all sizes of waves and all conditions. Some days it was well overhead and closing out, not a fish type wave at all but Joey would take it out and still surf it well.

If you have been to Hatteras any time in the past 5 years and there was a swell of some kind you probably saw Joey out on his green fish. Joey rides short boards also but likes his fish designs done old school. The green one was glassed with all 6 0z glass , Green resin tint, cut laps, glass on twins, gloss and polish – the works. I think he rode it so much that it had been delaminated twice and repaired twice gaining weight each time and it was never a “Super Light” to begin with. Last summer he ordered a new fish and this one was to be a little different than the old green one. This one had the old school nose but a modern tail with a tri fin, not a twin like fish usually are done. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Shaping Bay · Tagged With: buxton, cape hatteras, cape hatteras lighthouse, classic surfboards, custom surfboard, handmade fins, Joey Crum, lighthouse jetties, old school fish, Surfboard pinlines

EPS FOAM

May 25, 2009 by busbey · 5 Comments

EPS or Expanded Polystyrene is associated with Epoxy surfboards. There are 2 types of EPS blanks being used today. EPS that is extruded (XPS) and tends to look more like Polyurethane foam and the Bead foam which is more commonly called styrofoam. Even though most people call it styrofoam it is actually a trade name used by Dow Chemical for their EPS foam. Most epoxy surfboards being made today use the EPS bead foam so that is what we will focus on. The EPS beads are put into a mold and using pressure, steam and a blowing agent the beads are fused together to take on the shape of the mold. Most of the foam is made into large blocks and then are cut using a hot wire into either smaller blocks or what ever shape the customer may desire. The smaller block can then be cut into the shape of a blank using rocker templates and a hot wire.

After the blank has been cut it can be cut lengthwise to insert the stringer or stringer combination of your choice. This is more work for the shaper but the benefits are all the rocker templates are your own and you can design and adjust the blank to your liking. It is a great tool for any shaper as the product is completely your own , not a reshape of whoever shaped the plug in other foam blanks. By doing it this way, the blank is very true [Read more...]

Filed Under: Shaping Bay · Tagged With: Australian Foam, custom surfboard, eps foam, EPS surfboards, Greg Loehr, In The Eye Surfboards, Marko foam, surf blanks

Old Velzy Surfboard

April 14, 2009 by busbey · 4 Comments

Eric Holt from Michigan came across this old Velzy and sent it down here for us to fix up and refurbish. When we saw it there was something that puzzled me about the board. First off I had never seen this particular Velzy logo ever on a board before. I also noticed that this board was glassed with a matt cloth and displayed all of the characteristics of the old popout boards.

I am sure Dale Velzy had hand shaped everything at that time so why would his name and logo be on an old popout? I looked for a couple of board collector sites but didn’t find any that seemed like they could answer my question so I fired off an email to Steve Pezman at the Surfers Journal.

I figured he had to have seen many collections and growing up in that time in Southern California he might possibly know the boards origins. Here is the email I sent him, Maybe Steve Pezman could give me some info about a board someone brought by for us to restore. I’ve never seen this Velzy logo before and upon inspecting it I feel for certain it is a popout and not a real Velzy. It looks shape wise exactly like the old Cutlass and Duke Kahanamoku’s I used to look at for sale at Sears when I was a kid. It is also built with matt glass and as you can see the bottom has the stringer covered up with gloss work making me believe that it has the fake redwood stringer on the deck like the old popouts.

Could anyone tell me what the deal was with these? Did Velzy lend his name to be used on pop-outs? Did they do it without his consent? Is it worth anything because of this or is it just like any of the old pop-outs? Any info anyone could give me would be appreciated. I felt like someone at the Surfers Journal might have a clue about it’s origins.

Thanks,

Scott Busbey
Natural Art Surf Shop/ In The Eye Surfboards Buxton, NC.
———————————————————————————–
He sent me 2 replies.

Hi Scott,
I never seen that logo either. When Velzy went out of business, closed by IRS, this guy named Bernard took over his name and built some boards in like 1960. That could be what that is.-Steve Hobie: “There was a thing in Velzy’s book about him going bust in the early ’60s. He’s pretty accurate on that. We couldn’t figure out how he survived. God, he was giving boards to everybody and he’s got all these Hawaiians down in the shop—they were good guys—the Patterson’s and that (when they came up we got them: Bobby, Ronald, and Raymond) and he was driving that 300 SL. Then, this guy Bernard, he came to me first and I sold him 50 surfboards. He was going to take them to Hawaii.

I was to ship them to San Francisco C.O.D., freight collect, and when they got there he wouldn’t pay the freight. I said, “Oh, shit, that wasn’t the deal.” He said, “Well, I changed my mind!” I said, “OK, just pay for the boards,” because I didn’t want to ship them back again. Well, right after Velzy went broke, Bernard got into Velzy, took the shop, Velzy’s name, and he proceeded to screw Velzy, royally.” So anyway this is where I am on trying to find out about the origins of this surfboard. If any of you out there know or know someone who might know, send them this link or send me an email.

Thanks Scott.

PS: Eric is interested in selling the board.

Filed Under: Shaping Bay · Tagged With: classic surfboards, Dale Velzy, duke kahanamoku, Surfers Journal, Velzy surfboards

Jim’s Kneeboard

March 26, 2009 by busbey · 2 Comments

There are not a lot of kneeboarders out there, but I have always managed to build one or two of them each year. The hollower waves of Hatteras are the kind of waves that kneeboarders are attracted to. I’ve known and ridden with many of them over the years, Robert Finchem, Danny Burrus, Danny Couch, Jeff Oden and Landry Gray are some of the kneeriders I’ve known and built for.

Most of the guys like the wide swallow tails but I’ve done some round tails also. One that comes to mind is a little 5’5″ disc made for Rob that we called the “The Breakfast Special”. It was oval looking like a plate so we airbrushed bacon, eggs and toast on the bottom, hence the name. But this is one I recently built for Jim Norton. As you can see the outline is slightly forward because a kneeboarder usually is leaning that way while driving through the tube. The tails are relatively thin for good holding power with the wider tails.

Deck of the board carved out.

Corecell ready to insert

One problem the riders have is even with the thick pads the pressure from their knees tend to destroy the decks of their board. Recently we have been using a very dense 1/8″ core cell foam on the decks of our epoxy boards and the results have been really good as far as the decks holding up. Jim wasn’t searching for the lightness of an epoxy and wanted a PU/Polyester board but wanted to increase the deck strength.

To solve the problem we inserted a sheet of corecell into the deck. Originally we planned on a raised deck but later Jim decided he would rather have it blend in on the rail so I shaped out a place to insert the hard foam into. We really wanted to add some strength so underneath the layer of corecell and between the foam blank we used a 12 0z triaxle fiberglass cloth. If we had done the whole deck like this it would have probably been to heavy so we only did an area where the knees would be doing the most damage.

The rest of the board was glassed normally with a 60z bottom and a 6/4 oz deck. It did come out slightly heavier than normal but that won’t hurt, especially the way it will be used. The board dimensions are 5’10″x 22 3/4″ x 2 5/8″. It has a 17 7/8″ nose and a 17 1/4″ tail. The width across the tips of the swallow is 10 1/4″.

- Scott

Filed Under: Shaping Bay · Tagged With: corecell foam, custom kneeboard, kneeboard designs

PU Blanks

March 13, 2009 by busbey · Leave a Comment

PU or Polyurethane blank

The traditional urethane foam has been around since the 50′s when blanks switched from balsa wood to foam and gained in popularity with the lighter weight surfboards. It is a closed cell foam that is poured liquid into a heated concrete mold. The liquid expands rapidly filling the mold and after time the mold is opened and out comes a raw surfboard blank.

Later the blank is cut in two and re glued together with a stringer added to the center. The stringer adds to the longitudinal strength and also provides a focal point for the shaper to use. The molds come in many different shapes and sizes and when deciding which blank to use when shaping a board you try to pick one as close to the desired finish shape.

There are 2 reasons for this, first it requires less effort to get the desired shape and second the foam on the deeper interior of the blank is slightly less dense and the closer to the skin it is more dense creating a stronger finished product. The way to create a lighter core is to make a blank that is less dense but lighter also equals weaker.

The age old question is how strong/ light do you want your board to be. There are 2 types of urethane foam on the market today the most widely used is TDI which stands for Toluene Diisocyanate. It is one of the essential components used in the making of urethane foam. It is also toxic and is the chemical used which was giving Clark foam issues with the EPA.

Also urethane foams can be formulated using Methylene Diphenyl Diisocyanate or MDI, this is more commonly used and you may ask why use TDI when MDI is available. The TDI foams can be formulated lighter while retaining their strength. The MDI foam blanks will be slightly heavier and not quite as white in color, but they would also be more “eco friendly”.

Most customers demand a lighter weight board and the costs are the same so TDI is the most used in surfboard construction. Urethane foam is what we are used to, we know the way they ride, we know how to glass them and we know how to take care of them. They are relatively low cost and easy to shape by hand or machine. Most boards in the world are still made the same way they were 50 years ago and you know what to expect when you buy one.

- Scott

Filed Under: Shaping Bay · Tagged With: Add new tag, custom surfboard, PU blanks, surf blanks, surfboard blanks, surfboard construction