Saturday, June 20, 2009

Goomba 271?!! NICE!

Goomba 271 ( johnmellor on swaylocks.com) was the person's email address that sent me this. I love the internet in times like this. This is rad. It gives me inspiration. A board maker just left the name of the person they shaped it for. NICE aesthetic on the finished product too! This supports what Hilbers said (and most of us already know) earlier about "pre-conceived notions".
THANK YOU GOOMBA271 (johnmellor)!!!

"Hi - Love the blog! I think it's very nice to be able to reexamine older (but perfectly functional) designs that somehow were passed by in the effort to develop the next 'newest' thing. I started surfing about 40 years ago and longboards were about all that were available at that time. In my opinion the best longboards were being made in the late 60s and a big part of the step forward was with the fins that were being designed. One of my all time personal favorites was a G&S hot curl with a skinny raked flex fin. The board had a wide point of 23" set back a bit from center, a 19" nose and a 17" round pin tail. The bottom was flattest in the nose but the rails on the underside were rolled perhaps a couple of inches. The mid section was more rounded with the rail roll extended more towards the stringer. The tail blended to a 50/50 edge and had a good amount of rocker - perhaps a reverse rocker would be an appropriate term? The board was stolen (along with several others) from a barn on a ranch where I lived back then in Topanga Canyon. If I ever find it again, someone is gonna have some explaining to do. Back on subject, I made a board for a friend in Santa Cruz, Peter Costello. We met through Swaylocks. He was one of those 'imaginary' friends from the internet until an in-person introduction at one of the Big Sur camp outs. Here are some pics of the board in progress. It came in at 9'3" X 23 1/2" X 3 3/4" but I fudged the numbers I wrote on the stringer. I didn't want to freak Peter out with the thickness until he had a chance to ride it. Once I heard that he liked it, I informed him of the actual thickness. We also discussed the wide point aft concept and he agreed to give it a try. He is a computer design guy and sent me this great diagram of the initial design which I tried to follow except for the wide point position and thickness. I love the note of tail rocker..."Or, I have no idea." LOL After some discussion, we changed what appears top be a beak nose to an upturned 50/50 kind of thing. I also threw in a mild concave slightly ahead of center as an accelerator even though Peter said that "Michel Junod doesn't like them." WTF, have Michel Junod make it then, eh? I did all the shaping by hand in the backyard. The glassing as well.... I'm truly a back yard hack and do it all from start to finish. The pics were taken after a shaping session that went until it was nearly dark. It was still a bit rough but I wanted to send Peter a progress report. We eventually met at Plaskett Creek in Big Sur for the delivery. Anyway, if this board fits the parametrs of a 'Pig', please consider including it on your site. "







GOOD ON YA!!!

No comments:

Post a Comment