A-frame

Aaberg, Denny

Aaberg, Kemp

Abberton, Koby

Abbruzzi, Sid

Abellira, Reno

Abubo, Megan

academia and surfing

Adler, Tom

advertising and surfing

Aeder, Erik

aerial

Aguerre, Fernando

Aichner, Scott

Aikau, Clyde

Aikau, Eddie

Aipa, Ben

air-drop

airbrush

Airshow

Ala Moana

Alabama

alaia board

Alaska

alcohol and surfing

Alexander, Kala

Allen, Chuck

Alms, Paige

aloha shirt

Alter, Hobie

Alvarez, Pepe

Ancell, Kevin

Andaman Islands

Andersen, Lisa

Anderson, Craig

Anderson, Simon

Andino, Kolohe

Angel, Jose

angle

Angola

Angourie

Antarctica

Apocalypse Now

Arabian Sea

Aragon, Janice

Arakawa, Eric

Archbold, Matt

Arena, Eduardo

Ashton, Juan

Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP)

Atlantic Ocean

August, Robert

Aurness, Rolf

Auster, Ken

Australia

Avalon, Frankie

Azores

backdoor

backside

backside attack, Pipeline

backwash

bail out

Bain, Rob

Baja California

Baker, Bernie

Baker, Grant “Twiggy”

Baker, Tim

Bali

Ball, John “Doc”

Ballard, Bill

Ballard, Rochelle

balsa

Baltic Sea

Banks, Jim

Barbados

Barilotti, Steve

Barland, Michel

Barreda, Sergio “Gordo”

Barry, Michael

Bartholomew, Wayne

Baxter, Jackie

Bay of Bengal

Beach Boys, The

Beacham, Debbie

beachboys

beachbreak

Beachcomber Bills Grand Prix

Beachley, Layne

beavertail

Becker, Phil

Bedford-Brown, Stuart

Belgium

Bells Beach

Bendall, Ma and Pa

Bennett, Barry

Benson, Becky

Benson, Blanche

Benson, Linda

Bermuda

Bertlemann, Larry

Expensive and at one point mildly controversial computer-programmed machines designed to shape a polyurethane foam blank into something very close to a ready-to-fiberglass surfboard. The shaping machine does in a few minutes what the planer-wielding shaper does in about an hour. The prototype noncomputerized shaping machine—an elliptical wooden jig used to guide an electric planer—was being used by a few Southern California board-makers as far back as the mid-1950s, but the device didn't come to the attention of the surf world at large until early 1968, when Dewey Weber Surfboards began advertising their "precision quality" machine that allowed them to "guarantee the dimensions on all of our shapes to 1?32 of an inch." But shapers by that time were already giving up on the jigs, as the wild design fluctuations of the just-started shortboard revolution were better met by traditional hand-shaping. French board-maker and engineer Michel Barland developed the first computerized shaping machine in 1979. Barland's fully mechanized invention allowed the shaper to preprogram virtually every board measurement, and could rough-shape a board in 15 minutes. By the mid-'90s, top surfboard-makers including Al Merrick and Donald Takayama, while still fine-shaping their boards, were using machines to increase their production rate. Fundamentalists argued that the new computer-shaped boards lacked "soul." But as Merrick told the Los Angeles Times in 1996, "There's no soul in foam. The soul of surfing is to get out into the waves and have a good time." Machine-aided, Merrick was able to produce 150 boards a week. By the early '00s, there were two primary methods of computerized shaping: computer-aided manufacturing (CAM), which replicates existing boards, and computer-aided drafting (CAD), developed in large part by Brazilian shaper Luciano Leao, which allows the shaper to design a board from scratch entirely on a computer. Once a board is machine-shaped, with dimensions exact to 1?100th of a millimeter, a small amount of fine-sanding by hand is still required before the board can be fiberglassed. By 2003, an estimated 85 percent of major board-makers (those producing more than 2,000 boards a year) were using computerized shaping machines. A top-of-the-line shaping machine costs roughly $500,000. See also: Michel Barland, surfboard construction, surfboard shaping.

shaping machine

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Encyclopedia of Surfing

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Encyclopedia of Surfing

Interviews

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The Sunday Joint