Foam E-Z's fuNKy FieldTrip To Future Fins!!!

Last week we got a chance to visit 
and tour the Future Fin Factory/Warehouse.  Luckily for us their facility is only two miles from our shop so we get a chance 
to stop by often.  This time when we showed up we caught Vince Longo (owner) in his office working on some top secret stuff.  
Vince and his wife just had twins so needless to say he has been extremely busy for the last few months.  

After saying hello and a few words of catch up we headed over to the customer service department where Jacob Dildine greeted us.  Jacob, our tour guide, has been with the company for five years and has been moving up through the ranks.  


After saying hi to all the peeps in customer service we headed back to the warehouse.  I'm always blown away at the number of fins and fin boxes they have in stock, but then again they are a fin system company!  The sheer numbers are staggering as they have all their Thermotech fins on one side and all their Premium fins on the other.  There's a big rack holding the white and black fin boxes, the new totally bitchen brightly colored fin boxes, screws, fin keys, etc...  Complete fin system heaven!!!  All these items surround their shipping area where the guys are always busy packing stuff for their US and international customers.  


Future Fins also have a large manufacturing section where they build fins and boxes!  
They have these super high tech CNC machines to cut and foil fins and have a special screen printing machine to apply logos on their fins.  Within their warehouse they have a killer machine shop where they are constantly working on new projects, testing and improving their current systems, and just plain tinkering trying to come up with the next big thing in fins.



It's pretty cool this locally owned company has grown to be one of the big powerhouses in the fin world.  Some of the most popular and successful surfers in the world ride Future Fins.  This is a great testament to the time and effort these guys have spent perfecting their brand.  

We really appreciate them giving us the opportunity to go behind the scenes and see how this operation runs.  Great job guys, keep up the amazing work and continue to push this stuff forward.  Congrats on the twins Vince...

Foam E-Z fuNKy FieldTrip To Stamps Surfboards

I recently took a little skateboard trip down the street to visit Tim Stamps of “Surfboards by Stamps” fame.  When I rolled into his shop, he was glued to his lap top computer getting ready to watch Brett Simpson surf his heat in 

Intently Watching

the Burton Toyota Pro at Newcastle Australia.  Knowing Tim needed some support,  I pulled up a seat next to him and watched as Brett unfortunately didn’t get the waves needed to move through his third round heat.  

That’s the life and relationship of a pro surfer and a shaper to top ASP surfers.   Tim has been making boards for Simpo for the past few years.  After the heat was over, and a quick “F” bomb, it was back to work in the shaping bay.  Stamps had some deadlines to fill before he left for the Gold Coast of Australia.  He headed down under to support his other big named ASP surfer Courtney Conlogue as she surfs in the Quiksilver Pro. 

Simpo Boards

As I entered Tim’s shape room we chatted about some of the tools and the nuances of the different abrasive grits he uses.   Tim has been integral in helping us develop our line of shaping tools.  He comes to us with ideas and I go to him for feedback and testing before we launch and tools.  This way we know that what we sell works and we can stand behind it.

Stamps’ boards are made completely in house from the shaping to the glassing.  He employs some of the best guys in the industry to do his glass jobs and uses only the best materials.  By having it all under one roof, this insures that Tim’s boards are exactly to spec before leaving his shop.  Quality control  at its best!  Tim is a true craftsman, having learned his trade from one of the best shapers around - Rich Harbour.  

Fine Tuning

If you haven’t had a chance to ride a Stamps board, go check one out, or just tune into any ASP contest to watch Simpo or Courtney tearing it up on one.

GlassRoom

Thanks again for having us and we are rooting for Simpo and Courtney in the Quiky Pro!

Foam E-Z fuNky FieldTrip to Harbour Surfboards

This is the first installment in our Foam E-Z fuNky FieldTrips!  Last week we stopped in at Harbour Surfboards and visited with Rich Harbour, his shop has been in the same location since 1959!!!  This is an extremely unique surfshop by today’s standards in that there is a shaperoom on the premises that Rich doddles in on a daily basis.  

On this day we were lucky enough to stumble in on Rich putting on a nose block.  This is an arduous task to get it right but Rich has put a few on in his fifty some odd years of shaping.   Since he makes his noseblocks from scratch, he first has to acquire the nose block material (walnut, balsawood, red cedar).  The next step is to re-saw the wood to the appropriate thicknesses, then glue up the wood strips in the order desired, plane the block to square it up, miter cut the block at the appropriate angle and finally glue it together (ideally in a jig).  After all that work, the noseblock is finally ready to be installed on the board.  Now the trick is to cut the mostly shaped blank perfect so that the noseblock fits tight with no gaps.  He grabs some five-minute epoxy and glues the noseblock to the blank using tape to secure it.  He flips the board over a number of times making adjustments to be sure block is placed appropriately.  Once the glue dries Rich busts out one of his razor sharp hand planes and chips away at the nose block until it’s roughed to the final shape.  After sanding with a couple of grits of sandpaper the block is finished. 

It was great to catch up with this artisan craftsman in the midst of such a cool project.  I’ve seen him do this a number of times over the years but now that I’m older and more mature I just now realized the time and tlc Rich puts into each of these nice add-ons. Thanks Rich, it's always great to catch up with you.  I forgot to add that Rich is now taking up mixology on the side, creating his own Lemoncello drinks!!!

Stay tuned for our next Foam E-Z fuNky FieldTrip.