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Wilken Bellyboard
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Solo
Dolphin Glider


Joined: 10 Jan 2004
Posts: 67
Location: Newport, Oregon

PostPosted: Fri Mar 26, 2004 3:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wow!! I love to see all this stuff!

What a find! Sweet little bellyboard, Birdie! Nice pics, too! Whoever the shaper, it had some insightful care put into the design. IMHO, restore it for surfing, and then if you really like how it feels/performs, consider replicating it. Small, wide (esp. thicker), solid boards often work very well with dual shallow keels, too.

BTW, I don`t think that George Greenough has ever built, used or recommended paipos, bellyboards or bodyboards. In fact, many surfers during the late 60`s- early 70`s misunderstood his spoon kneeboards... sometimes referring to them as "bellyboards". During that time period, there were all sorts of "Greenough-inspired" boards/fins which had very little to do with any of his ideas.

Regarding his prone riding, for over 50 years, George has preferred the feel and performance of finless, inflatable surf mats. His current mats weigh 17-18 ounces, and he surfs them in everything from small, flat, choppy ledges to smooth, offshore barrels, from 1' beachbreak zippers to 6 meter outer reef waves.
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doc
Dolphin Glider


Joined: 09 Jan 2004
Posts: 171
Location: the Frozen Northeast aka New England

PostPosted: Fri Mar 26, 2004 10:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wayull...might not be an acetone wash , might be just plain wear and sunburn, like you get from a board that was just left out in the weather . Kinda looks like half-rotted canvas? That'd be it..... polyester resin isn't long time permanent in the environment - you see a fiberglass boat chaulk up? Same sorta deal.

Where it's kinda balooned? Foam rot. It leaked past the caulking - which is normal, that smeg doesn't really work, even on houses, never on boats....dunno why anybody falls for their line of advertising, really.

So what you do is this: cut as little as possible of the glass - ideally as a kinda trap-door instead of removing it completely, and take some sort of small tool to the rotted foam, removing what's obviously shot. A Dremel would be ideal.

Then, some spray-type insulating foam, placing the little schnozzle in all the way. If you have a choice, they have a low-expansion type rather than the regular variety - go for that. When you've squirted in a little, pull the schnozzle and leave it be, it'll expand nicely. You can then shape that with coarse paper. Don't use too much or leave too little area for it to escape, as it'll tend to blow it out worse.

Sand like mad on the rest, a half or quarter sheet finishing sander with 80 grit is best if you're not real experienced with any other type, forget belt sanders, hand sand the rails.

For the fin, if you have a half-round wood rasp that would be ideal. Chew away at the smeg and everything, watch your knuckles, and chew away at it until just before you get to wood.

If I was gonna make a semi copy, I'd make the rails thinner and harder in the tail, mebbe go to a FCS twin fin setup..... that'd be slick....

doc.... cursing, as I have two spare keyboards and I can't remember where I put the AT=>PS/ adapters.
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Birdie



Joined: 20 Jan 2004
Posts:
Location: so cal

PostPosted: Fri Mar 26, 2004 10:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

No 1/2 rotted canvas, and it looks more white than tan in real life...

I've always used Q-Cell as filler on rail or deep dings, sometimes mixed up with shredded/cut up fiberglass strands....especially tail and nose repairs.

I have an x-acto blade kit which has awesome carving tools for cleaning out dings.

Eh, hope the whole thing didn't get soaked inside.

The board is very light.....

It does have that almost canvas look - feel to it.

No blank canvas for my walls.
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doc
Dolphin Glider


Joined: 09 Jan 2004
Posts: 171
Location: the Frozen Northeast aka New England

PostPosted: Fri Mar 26, 2004 11:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

ah, ok, i tend to consider foam for things that may require major excavation. weight and appearance issue, 'cos the resin/filler mix is not as opaque and definitely heavier than foam.

one of these days i might have to make a top-piloted router setup to whittle out an irregular shape in a board and another irregular shape in a sheet of foam such that I could carve it out and you'd have a press-fit plus a little glue, then sandable or shapeable to contour- i'm given to understand thatthat's how they do it in japan, though there the price structure for ding repairs is wildly different. 800 dollar board prices mean 100 dollar ding repairs, i guess. kinda like the setups they use for repairing veneers in fancy furniture.

now, i have a little project going- composite replacement/stiffener/repair frames, eps foam and epoxy, for an aluminum and composite rowing shell. dimensions 26'5"x12" and stability is gonna be real amusing...... the design of these frames is gonna be based on the design for wing formers that they used in the HPA Gossamer Albatross....

oh, and before i forget - if you use a slow batch, low catalyst, in your filler mix, you don't need or want those bits of glass fiber in the filler. tends to make sanding a whole lot of fun.

life is a carnival..... and i guess i'm the freak show

doc.....
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Poobah
Dolphin Glider


Joined: 09 Jan 2004
Posts: 696
Location: California, San Diego

PostPosted: Sat Mar 27, 2004 2:46 am    Post subject: Re: Restoration Reply with quote

Phantom wrote:
Hey, this board could use some spice! Krylon spray some Birdie Stripes, Greenough used the stuff alot... throw on a deck pad too! A real street rod.


As I left the house this morning I was thinking something very similar. That the tail, deck and fin were rather Greenoughesque, and that some Krylon paint was in order. Or perhaps some spray epoxy paint. My thinking was to a fix the dings, put in a Fins Unlimited slider box (or three) then hot coat the board and wet sand it to maybe 440. Then paint it like a zebra, by taping over the good looking parts and painting over the repairs and ugly spots with black spray paint. You might even be able to bury the name PALI into the zebra stripe pattern. Just zebra stripe the bottom and around the rails to the lap line on the deck. Then give the deck a pin stripe at the lap line with the same black paint. Maybe dull the black paint with rubbing compound or 600 wet sandpaper. I think the FU fin box is in character with the board. Another option is to recycle the current fin by making it into two little glass on fins for a 2+1 setup. Especially if the previous owner is certain that fin is original.
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tumak
Dolphin Glider


Joined: 10 Jan 2004
Posts: 131
Location: FL, Indian Harbour Beach

PostPosted: Sat Mar 27, 2004 8:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hey Solo...I've been wondering for a while why it is that Greenough wasn't attracted to paipo riding. Not to take away from mat riding (someday I intend to get one of your Neumatics), but I observe him in The Innermost Limits and Crystal Voyager and say to myself, "boy, what would he be doing on that wave with a sweet little paipo?" Are there hindrances on a paipo that he felt were transcended on a mat? Did he feel that a paipo was more dangerous?
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Solo
Dolphin Glider


Joined: 10 Jan 2004
Posts: 67
Location: Newport, Oregon

PostPosted: Mon Mar 29, 2004 2:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi tumak,

That`s a good question, and one that I also asked him about 30 years ago. Part of George`s answer was a simple challenge: try one, give it a go... learn to ride a good surf mat. So, he talked me into getting my first mat... a blue rubber and canvas RipCurl, costing $25.00. By the time I began mat surfing, I`d gathered some experience as a standing surfer, bodysurfer, paipo rider and bodyboarder on Tom Morey`s "Boogie"... so practical comparisons between the surf mat and my other forms of wave riding were very enlightening.

George first described surf mats as being fun and feeling really good..."really alive". He talked on and on about how mats offered surprising levels of performance over a wide range of waves... having the deceptively sophisticated characterstic of adapting their shape, flex and buoyancy distribution to the conditions at hand. They could even be "fine-tuned" for balanced handling, in the water between waves.

Pre-surf mat, everything I`d ever ridden had been some combination of hard and rigid, hard and flexible, soft and flexible or soft and rigid, finned and finless. George said when prone surfing a solid/flexible object, the rider was "dead weight on the deck"... inhibiting any meaningful flex, especially through the tail. But with a mat, the deck and bottom surfaces were free and active, responding separately to both wave and rider... like an independent suspension system. Great for running fast across choppy waves.

His opinion was that hard or soft, non-pneumatic, non-flexible designs lacked a wide range of sensation and performance. He emphasized that when riding, such prone craft were very vulnerable to increasing wave size, power, dropping sections, boils, chop and ledges.

In contrast to maintaining a quiver of different designs, George preferred (and still does) the many advantages of intimate familiarity with one small, efficient surf vehicle, capable of being used in most all conditions. He placed a high value on a surf mat`s overall safety, compactness, and ease of lightweight portability, too.

As for the mat surfing seen in Innermost Limits, George said it was "mostly just goofing around", not intended to be seen as "hero" mat surfing. As an example of high performance mat surfing, he directed me to a photo of himself carving, long hard arcs, at Lennox Heads, NSW... taken about 1966-67:

http://digitalstar.com/dalesolomonson/images/231028.JPG

Nearly 20 years later, George throws a severe turn in California:

http://digitalstar.com/dalesolomonson/images/324146.JPG

Plus... the famous, huge and gnarly, rider-point-of-view tube ride, at the end of his "Echoes" footage, was actually filmed while riding a cheap $20.00 mat, not one of his flexible kneeboards, as many have assumed.

That`s all for now... I hope this has been helpful.
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tumak
Dolphin Glider


Joined: 10 Jan 2004
Posts: 131
Location: FL, Indian Harbour Beach

PostPosted: Mon Mar 29, 2004 5:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wow, Solo! Thanks for that great answer! Like I said, I'd like to get one of your mats as soon as I can afford it. There's something about the thought of a mat that I find appealing...so I'll go to your website and take a look.
One thing that makes me chuckle inside is when I think about the looks I would get from some of my amigos if I showed up with a mat! My balsa paipos command a little respect as they smack of traditional surfing to some degree, and since these folks already know me as an accomplished and respected surfer on classic longboards. They'd think I've flipped if I show up with a mat! Ha ha ha! I can't wait!
Various largescale expenses are coming up this summer, so I'll be in touch with you when I can.
Thanks again for the thorough and helpful response!
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Solo
Dolphin Glider


Joined: 10 Jan 2004
Posts: 67
Location: Newport, Oregon

PostPosted: Tue Mar 30, 2004 11:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

tumak...

I think no matter where you`d go, your balsa paipos would command respect. They`re gorgeous!
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john



Joined: 04 Apr 2004
Posts:
Location: hollywood

PostPosted: Sun Apr 04, 2004 10:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I had a dextra when I was a kid after riding rental mats got mine at big 5!! I should say the first good kneeboards I had after elpaipo's were made at Wilkin surfboards and the shaper was---PAT RAWSON!! from there i went to lis fishes .Pat started at Wilkin also , a great glasser by the name of Fred Stangl was the shop Rat now a great glasser at Cascade in Washington.
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Poobah
Dolphin Glider


Joined: 09 Jan 2004
Posts: 696
Location: California, San Diego

PostPosted: Mon Apr 05, 2004 12:05 am    Post subject: Wilken Reply with quote

For the benefit of future historians...so far in this thread I've seen Wilkinson, Wilkins, Wilkin and Wilken. I assume everyone was talking about the same surfboard company, and that Wilken is the correct spelling.

Birdie, you never mentioned how you knew who shaped the bellyboard. A signature, decal or verbal history?
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Birdie



Joined: 20 Jan 2004
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Location: so cal

PostPosted: Mon Apr 05, 2004 12:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I found it inthe recycler and the owner, who had it made, spelled it wilkinson, but he said it had a really big skaeg, too.

So, I asked him, and he faltered and said it could have been Wilken...and that he was a famous Palisdaes shaper and had his shop down near the PCH at the bottom of the canyon, near channel road....next to a gay bar...and I forget the name of it....but, Maui and sons was near there and no that's not it...it *has* to be Wilken

Maybe John can clarify.

Rich Wilken is the surfboard maker from the Palisades from the 70's, who now is an Architect, who panelled the boardroom of a Frank Gehry designed office building....with...surfboards...yep...surfboard paneling for walls in the boardroom.

Has to be him...

I found his email at the end of this article about him, as he responded to it, and will email him a picture of the board...


Quote:
The Wilken Episode
(From Pacific Longboarder (Volume 1 Number 1) page 59 of article, "Dora: The Dark Side of da Cat" by Glenn Hening)

Things first started changing for Dora in his mid-30's when his world was turned inside out by shortboards. Noll stopped building Cats in late 1967, and to add insult to injury, Noll's first shortboard was designed by none other than Johnny Fain, Dora's arch-rival. After more than a decade of being at the very top of his game, Mickey Dora was suddenly and dangerously adrift. And, as in most tales of demi-gods, forgetful of their own mortality, he was given a last chance to redeem himself, only to double-cross the very people who gave him shelter.

So there he was in early 1968, talking with Rich Wilken at a new factory in Santa Monica. A local shaper from Pacific Palisades, Wilken had just opened a surfboard company with backing from businessman Jim Cayton, whose sons rode Wilken's boards. The Cat model was extinct and Dora, as they say in racing, needed a ride. It looked good for both of them, and so a handshake sealed the deal between the naive young craftsman and the charming, legendary Cat.

By late 1968, Wilken had assembled a surf team as good as any in California. In a full page ad in SURFER he listed all the names of his riders, including Marty Sugarman, Robbie Dick, J. Riddle, Mike Vos - and Mickey Dora. This was the first time Dora's name had been in an ad since the glory days of the Cat model.

But Dora could not bring himself to be a part of anything except himself, even if it was a close-knit community of excellent surfers coming together at his, and their, local surf spot. In my opinion, this was Dora's chance to become one of the guys, to shed his personal mythology and be a part of a local surf scene with unlimited potential. This was the moment of truth not for Mickey Dora the surfer, but for Mickey Dora the human being. It was thus a somewhat sad moment as it turned out.

Soon after the ad was published, Rich Wilken was contacted by lawyer Roger Diamond, who threatened Wilken with a lawsuit based on "unauthorized use of Mr. Dora's name and associated sales-value of Mr. Dora's reputation without proper compensation or signed contract, thus depriving Mr. Dora of income properly his and, in effect, stealing from Mr. Dora."

Diamond wanted mid-to-high five figures. Wilken tried to tell him that suing was useless because the surfboard business was losing money and in danger of folding. However, Diamond, undoubtedly following Dora's instructions, was really targeting Jim Cayton's prosperous company, whose Dunn & Bradstreet `double A' credit rating had allowed Wilken Surfboards to get off the ground in the first place.

Wilken went back to Cayton to discuss the conversation with Dora's lawyer. But Dora's reputation preceded him. Earlier that year, Cayton had hit the ceiling when he saw a swastika on one of Dora's new boards. At the time Cayton allowed himself to be reassured that it was just part of "da Cat's" legendary image. Now he had to deal with Dora and his aggressive attorney threatening a lawsuit. Cayton responded, "I'll take care of this."

Mickey Dora never got a cent. Although he continued to ride the free boards he had been given, he and Rich Wilken never spoke to each other again. Dora had not only cut himself off from his benefactor, but he also blew a chance to somehow adopt a sense of community that, in the end, we all need.

Now there was only Mother Nature herself to turn to. But as we are reminded by the ancient Greeks, "Those who would be as gods - beware the caprice of fate."

In the spring of 1969, both of Mickey Dora's home spots were completely sanded in by heavy rains. The State Beach community relocated down the beach to Bay Street, but the surf was not as good, and we felt like refugees in some ways. I suppose he gave some thought to moving with us, but in the end Dora never showed up in his tennis whites like he used to for a morning go-out at State. It was only beach break surfing, and he could easily do without it.

What was more serious, though, was the natural "destruction" of classic Malibu. 1st Point was turned into unmakeable slop as a newly formed 3rd Point provided a perfect new venue for shortboard surfing. The wave that helped define the genius of Mickey Dora was literally dead and buried.
Dora's dominance of the peeling walls of Malibu was over.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

XShaper@aol.com wrote to "Robert R. Feigel" <rrf@xtra.co.nz>

Robert:
Thanks for the word about Rick and his story. I remember him the old days. Perhaps some day I'll have a chance to have a word with him about it.
Rich Wilken
XShaper@aol.com
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john



Joined: 04 Apr 2004
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Location: hollywood

PostPosted: Mon Apr 05, 2004 11:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

yeah, it's Wilken .Really a classic surfshop in the late sixties early seventies!!! Constant weed smell and very hot girls from pali high school! the gay bar was The freindship next door in fact state beach was a combo of the hottest chicks from malibu and santa monica and total gay queens!!! I use to kneeride Oxnard,POP pier and the Jetty where Dora could be seen regularly also Chart house is a super dredging long tube when on.Wilken was a classic surfshop owner really put up with a lot of stuff --nothing like a surfshop today.
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Birdie



Joined: 20 Jan 2004
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Location: so cal

PostPosted: Tue Apr 06, 2004 1:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

So, it's a Rich Wilken bellyboard - early seventies.

Thanks for helping to clarify...

The guy I got it from, had Rich make it for him...

Lance Carson is still in the hood.

WR state beach is still the gay beach - where the volleyball nets are.

I go to Sunset whenever it's working...otherwise head north.

Greenough used to mat ride there....

Looked good today - thursday - new swell coming in.

Holler if you ever want to try my paipo - whatever.

Birdie
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tumak
Dolphin Glider


Joined: 10 Jan 2004
Posts: 131
Location: FL, Indian Harbour Beach

PostPosted: Tue Apr 06, 2004 9:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Cool story about da Cat. Thanks for sharing that! Birdie, that little board is a great little piece of history! Fixing it up is a good idea. I also like the idea of making a copy of it.
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