The Daily Good News

Id like to get one of those too. Would like one with a thinned down tail and they look like fun even though Ive never owned a twinny. I made my first board at 14 because I couldn't afford one and blanks were $7 and I bludged glass and a planer off my cousins who were learning shaping with Geoff Wakefield in the western suburbs. Dad had a surform..(good name for a tool eh). It came out pretty good and went OK until I tried it in big Fairy Bower and big Gravelly waves and learnt about rails a bit more. My next one went great and I finally turned 17, got my car and I had it for years until I got stoned at a beach and forgot to occy it on. I finally bought a great factory made secondhand board with tubes, palm trees and a sunset sprayed on the bottom which I always wanted after seeing Fitzgeralds HB boards. Haven't made one since...Maybe its time again. In 1971 to 1974 when I surfed there a lot, there used to be an old guy who was always at Fairy Bower. He was pretty skinny, not much hair, may have had a little moustache and rode a 7 foot something Keyo. He was the oldest guy out there and charged for his age. Do any of you guys know his name. My friend and I were the youngest Bower boys at the time and he really encouraged us with a bit of coaching advice when it was big...Making a new surfboard again yourself must be Good news.

Nice work Stu.

I'll leave all that to the experts.

Me and resin of any kind do not get along. Just thinking about the feral botch-up jobs I've made of ding fixing in the desert is enough to keep me away from any kind of board making and leave it to the experts, of which luckily there are a surplus around here.
Enough for several lifetimes worth of great boards.

Just on good news, my favourite ding fixing moment was working for Bylsey at 69 Shirley.

He asked me to set these fins on some shittbox beater. I had everything set up ready to go, rovings, hot mix etc etc.

He showed up with a tally. Put a pie in the microwave. Donned the gloves, drank the beer in between setting the fin.
Ate a pie straight from the microwave whilst doing it that was hotter than the sun and dripped boiling hot pie juice all over the repair and then in the middle of it, sold a board to a fat kid who rocked up from Brisbane with his parents. Beer in one hand, pie in the other.

Sadly, that shop, which used to be the old Sky shop is now an Uber-gentrified set of tasteful units bought up by big money city people.

As it turned out I had zero talent for ding fixing or any kind of selling in a surf shop. All I was fucking good for was driving to the bottle-o and buying cases of Coopers.

69shirley Vimeo

The ding shop : the last bastions of unrefined hedonism .

I bought a few boards from a name Seppo brand whilst I was in Bali last year. Great boards and really friendly, helpful staff , but the shop itself was a suburban retail wet dream safe zone that left me unmoved no matter the amount of blonde wood and polished floor. Probably because of the blonde wood and polished floor.

A while later and just as I’m about to board a flight back to Oz and I landed my fat arse fair on the stringer on the bottom of the board , leaving a couple of massive cheek prints divided by a crumpled stringer. As embarrassing a ding as you will ever see. There’s no cool explanation behind an arse shaped ding no matter how you tried to spin it.

So I had to get it fixed back in Oz. Straight down the coast to Margie’s upon landing and go to a ding fixer in the industrial area for a Friday lunchtime drop off. No chance to get it fixed before the weekend I supposed, but the fella there in his glassed over sneakers gave me a glimmer of hope when he said come back at closing and see how he went.

I rock back in the afternoon and there is people everywhere sucking beers and lunging durries .Probably as busy as the pub , crew on milk crates and paint tins and eskies and deck chairs all on it. I’m told the ding doctor is still into it and to go into the shed. There’s old mate chugging hard and putting the final polish onto the arse impression, now looking perfect.

Wish I’d thought to take him a six pack .

Salute to the ding fixer !

Freeride...surely the Coopers is as essential as the resin ?

69 Shirley Vimeo -

“ Fucken cold beers . Fucken sunnies.....”

Awesome

Bylsey was trying to help me out and give me a job at a time when I was a bit hard up.

Night before my first day he rings me at midnight.
"Mate, I've had to go out to Nimbin, I've left the keys buried outside the fourth rock on the western entrance at the Bangalow public dunnies".

So, I'm starting the day scrabbling around like a weirdo outside the Bangalow public dunnies looking for a set of keys.

Couldn't find the keys. Drove into Byron. Sat there for an hour. Couldn't get hold of Bylsey and ended up going surfing at Tallows.

Opened the shop up about 3pm and sold nothing.

It went on, pretty much as it began.

The good ol dayz....that was livin.

Curiouser and curiouser, Blow In.

Hot tip: You never go round the factory without at least a sixer on a Friday arvo.

Ha ha. Quick job. What was the wallet damage?

I think it was $100 .

March last year.

Why so curious?

When I worked in a surf shop in the old days, if the surf was pumping we just wouldn't open. I used to look at my boss in the lineup and say "its nearly 9am I suppose I better go and open". He would look at me and shake his head and say naaa don't worry about it. That was really good news. Bosses are different now.

Daily Good News? Yesterday's second hand score...

Driving up to Sydney isn't my idea of a relaxed Saturday, but when a dirty old Nev appeared on Gumtree showing some promise I figured I'd swing north and take a punt.

Some backstory: I'd always been keen on getting a Pro Circuit Board, I find them fascinating as they're the pre-cursor to much that came afterwards, the epoxy experiments, Salmon S-Core, Surftech, and even Firewire. To date, a PCB has eluded me. Last year I went close to getting an AB BS but lost out.

So even though the seller of this board had no idea what it was ("Surfing board 1.8 metres long") I took the risk. When I got there I was disappointed as my first impression was an old Nev with a coat of white house paint and a flash fluro jobby on top. Nice, but not a PCB. I paid $50 and drove home bummed.

When I got home, however, I cleaned it up and I'm almost certain it is a PCB. There are no PCB markings, though they were stickers anyway, someone could've peeled them off, the Nev sticker is a bit brown where the clear sections are, it has exactly the same colour scheme (but not pattern) as another Nev PCB I've seen on here, and the same belly channels too. And the knock test tells me epoxy.

It's in fantastic condition, and if it is a genuine Nev PCB then I'll be thrilled. Fifty bucks well spent! Of all the shapers who licensed to PCB, Nev is the guy who pushed the 'alternative' construction barrow the furthest.

PS: I wrote the above text on the Vintage Surfboard Collectors site yesterday arvo, and also tagged in Nev. It's definitely a Pro Circuit Board, a Munga Barry model, and compared to the few PCBs left it's in great condition.

$50 buck bargain stu- well worth the drive- tell us how she surfs.

Stoked for $50. Looks like a nice planshape . Munga rode a similar looking board in Bunyip Dreaming. And Occy rode a Nev epoxy board very much like it in Bunyip dreaming too. Bonus section of him riding it at Turtles in the extra clips on the DVD.

A mate of mine down your way picked up. Pyzel Phantom with JJF fins , new leggie and deck grip for $400 yesterday too. There’s some epic bargains to be had.

Oh , yeah - Surfing board 1.8 metres is fucking awesome. Red flag !!

PS Your stag horn is looking a little second hand too.

Stu - Just reread your post with the realisation of the depth that you are a board hound. Must be the buzz going on the treasure hunt , finding that rough diamond, unrealised slice of history and functionality, sitting under appreciated in a garage somewhere.

Id ask what your dream find would be for a board in pristine condition, with a proud heritage only obscured by a light layer of wax and a thick layer of dust for less than a hundred dollars and for sale within 50 kms of your house . But you’d have to lie so as not to alert the sellers.

Good luck out there.

I haven't been trawling the classifieds as much as I used to. In fact, about this time last year I had to hock off ten or so boards to pay for my Hawaii trip. The first one was the hardest, after that I realised I could do it. A lot of those boards were just being horded, weren't particularly special.

But yeah, I'm always on the sly lookout for particular boards, as the weekend score testifies.

I've got a couple of my own dream boards in the shed, such as a never-been-surfed Insight rocker ship from late '92, early '93. I paid a bit more than I would've liked for that, but about six months later I paid SFA for another Insight in great condition and found it was the very next board made - i.e consecutive serial numbers.

My mate Damo has a huge collection and he tells me about some of the scores he's had over the years. Like the guy who went to sell a pristine Lightning Bolt but duffed the eBay ad so the first few shots - which most people use to assess the item - was another board entirely. Probably wondered why only one person bidded on a marquee board.

I tend to collect boards that aren't sought out by the hordes, like brightly coloured McCoys and Hot Buttereds, but rather boards that are integral to the design timeline. For instance, following the channel lineage: Jim Pollard, Al Byrne, Marty Littlewood, Col Smith, Phil Myers, etc.

That's a skill not to be underestimated Freeride. Any time you need practise, there's a bottle-o in regional SA waiting for your arrival.

In other good news, I switched from 4:3 steamer to the 3:2 this week just past and didn't need to have my testicles surgically extracted afterwards. Summer really must be on its way.

I also crossed a personal milestone too - I managed to get two boards that I handshaped for sale in an actual bricks & mortar surf shop (Big Surf Middleton, if anyone's interested). Whether they sell or not, it's pretty exciting.

There's this Thompson guy. Watercooled. He was the real good news, the best news for the viccos!!!

But SA... what streams!!!

'The surfshops at the time were mostly still the outlets of a workshop, smelly with resin and with showrooms full of glossy single-fins – They were hugely exotic and desirable, long before the popout had made boards a throwaway commodity – there was Dick Van Straalen, Jim Pollock, Donny Allcroft, Kym Thompson… I’d dare to want one but only had pocket-money…'

'Just now a memory comes to mind - a quote that’s stayed with me – It was graffiti in Kym Thompson’s shaping room at Watercooled in Torquay – “Pay attention to detail and you’ll be a cut above the rest”.'

https://surfbunker.com/blog/josh-dowling-the-interview

That's real good news!!!!

Congrats, SS.

Here's hoping a discerning buyer(s) appreciates what you've made.

That is pretty frickin cool.

It’d be a buzz selling your first board as a professional shaper.

I had to pay the bastard at the tip to take a couple of mine.

Congratulations, SS. Let us know how your boards go.

Just checked your local SSTs. 17C! Still 14C here :-/

That's awesome SS, big milestone and hopefully an avenue to many more sales.

I'm stoked on squeezing the very last out of the Aussie snow season.

These were two of my final lines from the weekend. Should be snow for another few weeks but will probably call it a day.

A great season!

Gd stuff SS
seadragon surfboards insta

Craig was that this weekend just gone>>??????????? if it was you certainly get around.

Haha yeah, man it's been a big 3 weeks. Looking to relax this weekend.

Snow, Vicco strike, Snow :s

Asymmetrical deck grip, hey SS. I've done that before, though it wasn't deliberate.

Just checked out your site , Surfstarved .

Beautiful boards , mate.

There’s some cool and talented people post on Swellnet. Like when VelocityJohnno was casually saying a couple of days ago about shaping boards out of chambered paulownia....

Now it turns out SS is the craft master.

Good on ya, Surf Starved. The more shapers, the merrier. Especially on the South Coast.

Tommy's a good egg too.

That's not a deck grip Stu, just a reinforcing deck patch of hex-weave basalt innegra under a layer of 4oz. The asym is purely an aesthetic choice.

Cheers for all the kind words folks. Hopefully they'll sell and I'll be impossibly rich for all of 12 hours.

Here’s some good news ....we got to page 3 before Lifty showed up with his patented non informative, nonsensical, insulting attempt to grab some attention.

3 pages !!!

Even better news is that Lifty's post has just been deleted! Cry foul, cry free speech, those ones will be deleted too. 

Sorry I missed it.

Just had more daily good news. Sold another unwanted board on gumtree. I'm trying to decide if mans best friend is his dog or Gumtree.

The suns coming up and I’m about to chuck the board in the truck.
First time in 5 weeks
Good news aye
Specially if I get a few
Cheers all

Very good guysmiley!

Good news is having a new board arriving tomorrow. Cheers Steve!

Went and walked good old shelly beach (Cat bay) last night with the family just before sun sunset, had been a while and brought back many memories it was a beach my Gran use to take me too as a kid to beach comb and a spot i learnt to surf as a grommet....was funny seeing all the crazy surf craft out there trying to catch one foot waves though and the weirdest array of surfers.

I wish i could go back to the same perspective i had as a grommet, i remember when i was very young it actually seemed like a fun wave and everywhere else seemed challenging and high quality, now I'm just so fussy even the good days seem average..

Nice one ID. It's good to realise your changing perspective, even try to alter it where possible.

I ordered a Greenough-style edge board off Phil Myers a month or so back, and a small wave assym off Stuart Paterson even longer ago. Picked 'em both up on Friday and the good news is that with summer coming the small wave section of the board rack is totally kitted out.

I love the outline of that board Stu.

Tell your mate Phil to clue me in on his bass fishing honey holes.

How many boards are racked in that shed, Stu?

Don't tell me thats a twinny Stu..

@IB,

A few, though less than this time last year.

@GF,

The fish? Yep. Wonder how it'll go at Blax?

Amasing.

Deluxe.

BTW ....nice deck. Fella that threw that up must have known what he was doing.

Keen eyes might spot a glass fishing float hanging from the Japanese maple tree.

What they won't see is the booby trap set to go off should someone come around and steal it for their wife.