Hi Grasshopper, Here are the first pics of the ’62 Gordie I just finished restoring. I acquired it from my Lil Bro, Frank a couple of years ago. It was a super-solid board before the restoration, with the exception of some discoloring and a few ugly rail dings with very old and very bad repairs. I replaced those with new foam and re-glassed them. I did all the restoration repairs, but this time I let Michael Miller’s color guy do the opaque resin panels. The ’62 Hobie I restored came out great. I did those color panels myself, but…what a chore!! Plus, to me this is a very important board and I wanted it perfect. It is! The nice thing about this board, even though it was always clear volan glassed, Gordie did as many opaque color panels on his boards during this period. So this restoration is very correct. The color in most of these photos is washed out because of the brightness outside. The colors in 3405 and 3380 are pretty right on. My second board in my young surfing career (about 1962) was an 8-0 Gordie. It had the same fin template, but a different glue-up pattern. It had 3 stringers. The two outboard stringers widened, close at the nose and further from the center stringer as they went back, hitting the rail about 24” from the tail. It had sky-blue opaque resin panels outside of the outboard stringers. It was a really cool board. I still have pictures of me with it somewhere. The fin on this board is the original. I was able to remove it, remove the glass, sand it and reinstall it. I’m planning on taking this one to sacred craft, along with a 9’7” balsa board that I will make with a similar stringer pattern and some crazy woodwork in the fin. I’d like to display them side by side in honor of Gordie and all the cool stuff back then that still inspires surfboard design today. You will get to see it in person SOON. Summer is almost here Bro! Ciao Fratello,JC
That's a beautiful board,man!
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