"the list"

your list is fairly incomplete and its usually not necessary to ask where the board came from, thats usually obvious.

Most of my boards in recent years have been made in Thailand - Donald Takayama Egg - absolutely magic. Doc Lausch HVP - magic, Merrick Flyer II - magic - these are Tuflite.

Currently spending most of my time on the Byrne Phil Macca 6' 1" in TL2 - this really is a fabulous board will do all sorts of waves with its neutral tail rocker (2 1/2"), I just spent 11 glorious days of surfing this over the Christmas holidays.

From your list is my Bushman Pancho Sullivan Model 6' 3" - this board really has lifted my surfing up a level and its become my choice when the waves are bowly due to its higher tail rocker (2 7/8"). This board also in TL2 (Tuflite Two from Surftech).

Also from your list and owned by my mate is the McCoy Nugget in Tuflite - I've borroweed this and it is a brilliant package although not my type of regular ride. He has recently aquired the Webber Pulse quad (SLX made by GSI in Thailand) and raves about it and it certainly has lifted his surfing.

popey.....

I don't know if you wrote the text in that image, or if you just found it somewhere and felt compelled to post it here.

I can tell you that whoever wrote it does NOT know what a popout is.

Just another example of a self-appointed expert spewing bad info.

Those people are wrong. They are the same folks who don't know what a fish is, most likely.

Can't wait for Bill T, Balsa Bill, or JimTheGenius to chime in on this one....

no, not quite technically correct. Pop-outs are moulded boards, not just the core, the whole finished laminate is moulded. I'm not sure if there are many made that way now. Certainly back then the glass was layed up by hand in the mould. The labour saving was no sanding (except on the seam) was required and the blank didn't need to be shaped either.

When I was growing up there were some pop-outs produced in the UK - the local sports shop had a board where the seam along the side wasn't hidden. However I think the first pop-outs were made in the US?

The first board I ever owned was a pop-out made in school. We poured the foam in-situ.

60s popouts as I recall them were done much the same way cleanlines describes. A layer of mat was fused to the foam when the foam was blown in the mold. Many of them had fake stringers routed into the deck. Some had actual stringers. After the blank came out of the mold the fuzzy halo of mat around the rails was ground off. Then, a single layer of 10 oz cloth was layed up, followed by fin,  hot coat, and color, etc.

The Morey hollow boards were honeycomb construction. The Hansens were done with foam encased in a top and bottom skin with foam stanchions inside. Hansen called them their "Stratoglas" line.

Here's a photo of a Hansen cut in cross-section:

The Hansens ( and they were the only ones who did it that way that I saw) were......kinda compressible, with that foam stanchion system.

Heh- I saw this clown with one, we called him Lunga Louie for some reason. In any event, I amused myself by pulling the squirt-gun nose vent plug it had and sucking the air out of it for a while. Then, I put a cigarrette to the plug hole ( perfect fit, by the way) until it had finished inhaling. And for a while, you could thump the deck and it'd make a perfect smoke ring.....

doc...

You're easily amused, aint ya?

hey popeye sellouts aye. sold out there fellow countrymen to make a few bucks

nevermind there kids will all be sweet they can move into mum and dads house and put em in a nursing home where stupid baby boomers belong

You are way off on that one, kid. I make no claims of being an "expert", and I make every effort to give factual, accurate info. I would like you to point out any time I've given incorrect info on this forum. Go ahead.

Go and grind your axe some other place.

Haaa- that I am. Simple pleasures for simple minds, y'know?

Around 1969 or 70 I was in Encinitas CA and had a shaping bay in Del Mar. I was shaping twin fins left and right out of Pophoff foam. A guy named  Brummett had a glass shop and he was buying my shaped blanks. These boards were "S" Deck with a rolled bottom up front going to a soft vee in the tail. They were pretty thick. I remember they were really popular in San Diego and La Jolla. Seems like thats where I first heard the word "fish".

    I never really liked em but I got paid. Sorry if this is getting off track from the "list" thing.

This thread is all over the place - just my style.  I love the fish, always had fun with my 5'11" homebuilt (by my buddy) when I was a young buck - but I'm no stylist and never was LOL!  Now I'm just kinda gettin' the  hang of my 6'8" "retro-fish" (they call it retro, but I really never saw one like this back in the day).  Its a homebuilt based on a 6'10" I bought on ebay when I got back into surfing (just a few short months ago).   But we never saw a 6'10 or 6' 8" fish, and the tail is narrower and the template is rounder with  more "hips" and we used keel fins.  I had a 6'7" swallowtail single fin.  But we never called that a fish.

The ebay board, to my dismay, was made in China.  They told me when I picked it up.  Good quality shaping and glassing, but fragile as heck.  And made by some guys in a factory who probably never saw a beach in their life.  Probably child sweat shop slave labor, for all I know.  Which is one reason I've gone to making my own.  Can't pay $6-800 or more (which is fair), and don't want no more china boards. 

Popouts.  I rode a softops surfboard, and had fun.  Surftech makes 'em, and some of their shapes look like they'd be fun to try.  http://www.surftech.com/boardDetails.php?bid=SURFBDS+%3A+SA005-0706-RF&type=SURFBDS&tech=Softops&shape=Hybrid I imagine they're a "popout", meaning glassed right out of the mold.  Or in the mold?  Anyway, I guess I'd outgrow it pretty quick, but who knows, maybe not, now that I'm over the proverbial hill and well onto the other side!  The one I rode was fun to paddle and fun to catch waves, but kinda just plodded along after that.  So I bought a retro fish.  Is this thread going in circles, or is it just me?

Cleanlines, I wondering why sanding was necessary (other than on the mould seams). We used to first paint the inside of the mould with release agent (or release wax for a better finish), then paint polyester "gel coat" - a thick resin with no wax and used in boat moulds to provide a resin finish and keep the glass fibres away from the finished surface, then lay down a layer of mat using rollers. The board then used to pop out of the mould with a finish ready for polishing.

I'm not questioning the accuracy of your statements, you are a legend, just wish to learn

The ones that crack me up are the sales people who talk about "epoxy vs fiberglass". In fact, the website that image in the original post comes from advertises their boards as "fiberglass".

Another sad incident was the time I went in to a shop looking for wetsuit glue. The salesperson tried to sell me a tube of Aquaseal, which I detest. I told him I wanted neoprene cement. The stuff that comes in a can with a brush in the cap. Shop guy says: "They don't make that anymore". I asked him how the hell all the wetsuits on the rack were built, then. I got a blank stare in return.

Having been surf shop sales geek #1, I know a few of the tricks. And- a little rehash of the old 'You wanna have a surf shop?' thread:

First off - the surf customer base are sheep, 90% at least. They will believe anything you tell them, until somebody tells them otherwise. Which means that when they find out different they get ticked off and won't darken your door again. Or give you the thirty pieces of silver - a remarkably appropriate simile.

There's kind of a food chain -

The manufacturer either lies to the reps or else plays straight with them ( and the end-user/customer, via advertising) . It varies a lot.

The reps either lie to or else play straight with the surf shop owner/buyer. This means 'sure, this is the stuff you oughtta be selling, and suuuure, we can deliver for your busy season'. A good, honest manufacturer's rep is rare. A true gem is somebody who will tell ya 'Look, I'd love it if you carried this line, but it's really not right for you'. As opposed to the ones that will sell the same stuff to you and your competitor across the street and do pricing that varies  with how well you've been a faithful sheep.

The owner/buyer usually plays it straight with his staff, providing they have the brains that a benevolent deity bestowed opon a turnip. Which is another 50/50 shot - the majority of surf shop employees are teenage idiots. Or semi-sponsored, which makes them even dimmer. The owner's dilemma is 'can the employee be trusted with some of the dirty little secrets of the business or not?'

And - the employee. If it's somebody who isn't a student, good. Then, at least, you can pretty much tell if they are blowing you smoke or not, as they are probably not completely ignorant. A good one will try to talk you out of things sometimes, if he doesn't think they're right for you. Them, you can ask questions....

doc.... retired surf shop geek.....

Maybe a better name for the boards on the list (and many that are missing) is COP-OUTS.

Lotsa fun stuff on this thread, one thing at a time...

''Popout'' is a misused term. All the old poputs were made in the USA, it was just a way to bypass the shaping process. As soon as molded PU blanks took over in the early 60s somebody had the idea to just mold to finished shape and ''pop it out of the mold''. The layer of mat helped to minimize further glassing, but doing a gelcoat/layup/foam sandwich was beyond the tech of the day. The boards were ''finished'' as close as possible to normal to hide the fact they were popouts. It's hilarious that many of todays molded boards still have fake stringers, etc., painted on them. Today's processes come out of the mold all ugly and have fairing compound smeared all over them and then it's auto body-shop sand, prime, and paint from there.

A great deal of the Asian production is just standard PU/PE, and since they're not marked clearly with country of manufacture, a lot of deception goes on when they get to market. Anything for a dollar....

Regarding surf shop emplyees, there's some really good ones, but theres also some clueless. Some will say anything to make a sale (not limited to surf shops, haha). As someone involved in making a ''new'' product, I try to educate our dealers and encourage them to teach their employees. Misinformation doesn't serve anyone involved. As much as possible we will talk to the end consumer. But we can't expect them all to really understand composites, in fact that's not going to happen even here on sways.

Another ''list'' would be the people who said NO to all of this....

This was how my popout was made:

the construction of the school popout (secondary school/high school - I was 15 at the time) was engineered by the woodwork teacher who didn't surf but was an avid canoe/kayak enthusiast and ran the school canoe club. We were already well familiar with producing cheap moulded canoes and we blew lumps of brown 2 part PU foam in the ends of our canoes to stop them from sinking so even had a bit of basic foam blowing experience under our belt. I was always hanging around the school canoe club involving myself in the canoe building labour even lunchtimes, I enjoyed it. I had a canoe from there at age 13.

All labour supplied by the schoolkids.

1. Borrow a surfboard from the Welsh champion's of that time. The teacher was smart and recognised the value of starting with a proven shape and at 6' 4" and thick (this was the 70s) it had ample float for the children. Using another shape without royalities is not strictly ethical but it was non-commercial and just a way of getting very affordable boards for the students - I think cost was approx 15 or 20 British pounds sterling.

2. build up a masonite flange running around the entire perimeter of the rail. Fill in gaps with mould plaster then paint one side, flange and all with release agent.

3. paint on a thick layer of the thixotropic gel coat resin on one side covering the flange and wait for that to set.

4. gel coat remains tacky and receives many layers of chopped strand mat. The mat is cheaper, builds up thickness quickly and getting a mould stiff enough to hold its shape is the requirement.

5. Prise off the masonite flange which will expose the moulded side of the fibreglass flange. Paint the flange and other side of the board in release agent.

6. repeat steps 3 and 4.

7. drill holes at intervals through both layers of the flange to receive metal bolts.

============================= mould now built, board replication below ==============

1. paint inside of both halves of the moulds with release agent.

2. paint inside of both halves of the mould with gel coat (can lay down masked out areas for simple colour designs)

3. lay up a layer of mat with rollers. Fin was also glassed in place through a slot in the hull mould.

4. bolt both halves of the mould together

4. pouring in the foam then slamming the 2 halves of the mould together was considered but the speed necessary to do this was thought to be a problem so the approach of leaving the tail end of the mold open was taken.

5. stand mould on its nose, mix up brown foam and tip it down the opening in the tail.

6. prise apart mould and pop out a near finished board.

7. cover the seam and open end of the tail with fibreglass tape - we used to do a fairly messy job of this and not attempt to finish sand it to a seamless looking join.

I learned to surf on one of these.

You are stating an opinion, whereas I am stating facts.

Here's more "facts".

I am fairly knowledgeable. 

You have a lot to learn.

----------------------------------------

You seem to have an axe to grind with your "competition", so to speak. Instead of slamming a laundry list of brand names and the people behind them, try learning more about surfboards and how they're made.  You can then market the products you carry from an informed position which will benefit your customers in the end.

Did I say that "all" surfboards are made with fiberglass?   No.

Again, your poor choice of words shows a lack of knowledge. Just about all surfboards are made of foam. The chief exceptions being some hollow boards and wooden ones. Maybe you meant to say soft boards?
With each reply in this thread, you've managed to exhibit a serious deficiency in knowledge. You started out on the wrong foot, and that foot seems to keep stepping in an unpleasant substance.

So, to defend your lack of knowledge and confusion about how surfboards are made, you resort to name calling?  This is behavior I might expect from a 5th grader (to use a construct of your liking)
Let me give you some advice. I mean, that's pretty much the purpose of this forum. To share knowledge and give advice to the less informed.Spend some of your spare time browsing this forum. There are many people who contribute here that know a whole lot about building surfboards. Some have been at it for 40 years or more. Within the knowledge base you will be able to acquire a grasp of how boards are made, and what materials are used. After a little while you might actually be able to sort out your apparent confusion and misconceptions about surfboard construction.Lastly, you might do well to read the "sticky" post that sits at the top of the list in this forum.That is, the second one from the top with the little padlock symbol next to it.

If you would take better care in reading you would see that I was not referring to your website when I wrote "epoxy vs fiberglass". I simply likened your lack of knowledge to other people who use that term.

Again you resort to name calling because your ill-conceived, uninformed, poorly thought out arguments cannot be supported by reason, facts, or civil discussion.

I will be the better man, here, and refrain from using a wide variety of descriptive terms to sum up your MO and mind set.

I will say this...You have no business selling surfboards to anyone. You don't know what in the hell you're talking about, and I pity anyone who hands you money for a product you have 'pitched' to them.

Here's a link you need to heed:

http://www2.swaylocks.com/node/1011862