Clark Foam Modified Hitachi Planer

Here is another video in from our series, Informative Foam E-Z Product Tutorials. In this segment we review the coveted Clark Foam Modified Hitachi Planer. This planer was first modified in the mid nineties by Clark Foam. Gordon Clark thought it was necessary to create an affordable planer specific for the surfboard shapers. Up till that time most shapers were using the Skil 100 but they were becoming more and more scarce causing the price to inflate. Over the past twenty something years the Clark Planer has been updated with different modifications a number of times. The current model was last updated in 2003 and appears to be here to stay.

This planer has become the standard for surfboard shapers around the world. It's light, affordable, functional, and has plenty of power. Check out the video and let us know if you have further questions.

WE HAVE A WINNER FOR FEBRUARY!!! Tommy Gardner Is The Lucky Customer!

It’s official, Tommy Gardner is the February, Foam E-Z Facebook Frenzy WINNER!!! His caption was as simple as "This Barrel ROCKS!!! There was a wide variety of entries, some great, some not so great, and others gave us a scary look into your freakish little minds. All in all it was fun, and it didn’t cost you guys a dime. Stay tuned in to our Facebook page throughout the month of March for daily deals/promotions, and make sure to come back the last week of March for another shot at the 4 hours of Shape Lessons or $100 Gift Certificate. See you around cyber space!

FOAM E-Z'S FACEBOOK FRENZY IS ON!!!

Foam E-Z's Facebook Frenzy is underway as of Feb 22! All you have to do to enter is go to our Facebook page and Like Us, then comment on the photo. On Wednesday Feb 29th we will pick one lucky person to win FOUR (4) FREE Hours ($200 Value) of Shape Lessons or $100 Gift Certificate good for anything at the shop (winners choice). This month it's a Caption Contest and here is the photo:

We will be running this promotion the last week of every month through 2012.

Good Luck!

Kelly Slater "Knubster" Fin - We Got Em!!!

If you want to be like Kelly or surf like Kelly you need the "Knubster" Fin by FCS. Add it to your quad set up to create a five fin like the Eleven Time World Champ rides. All it takes is to add one (1) FCS X-2 Center Plug and you're good to go! This video is interesting as Slater talks about the evolution of the fin etc... Even if you're not interested in what Kelly is saying his surfing from the 2011 Quiksilver New York is incredible to watch. If you need one we got em right here!!!

Gerry Lopez, Shaper, Surfer, Snowboarder, Ambassador!

This a pretty cool video of Gerry Lopez, Pipe Master. Even though it's a little dated as far as the snowboard contest it's a great look into Gerry's world. He talks a little history on his move to mainland and how he ended up in Oregon. Check out the stack of Clark Foam Blanks. I've been to his factory and he keeps a full inventory of blanks to fill his orders. Gerry rules Mount Bachelor just like he used to rule Pipe! What an awesome all around dude!

Professional Shape Lessons In The Foam E-Z Shape Box

You asked for it, and we listened. Professional Shaping Lessons are now available at Foam E-Z!!! We got Maui Transplant Chris Carrozza to hop in The Shape Box and give one on one lessons. We’ve been doing lessons unofficially for the past 8 months and the response has been awesome from each student. They aren’t for everyone but for those of you ready to get into shaping and need some direction, or for the novice shaper ready to bump their game, then this will benefit you. Check out the video to get a taste and feel free to hit us up with any other questions you may have.

COME HELL OR HIGH WATER MOVIE in Seal Beach This Saturday Night!!!

This Saturday January 28th, Canvas Shop is proud to present Come Hell Or High Water-The film explores the history and progression of the sport of bodysurfing and the pureness that comes from riding a wave. Shot primary in 16mm, the film takes a unique look at the culture, beauty and simplicity of the sport, capturing the stories and locations of those who belong to this community. Woodshed Films, Patagonia, and Nixon are proud to announce the world tour for Keith Malloy’s debut film project, Come Hell or High Water.

While Malloy is most widely known for his time in the water as a surfer, his exploration into the world of bodysurfing began some 10 years ago when he wanted to reconnect with the ocean and did so through bodysurfing. Said Malloy about this project, “It’s about taking a breath and kicking your feet in the big blue sea.”

Movie will start at 8, Ray Barbee plays at 7, event is free. Located at 702 Marina Dr. Seal Beach CA. www.canvasshopsb.com

Canvas Shop is a shop with a mission to make fantastic custom canvas products and to sell goods that we believe in and whose makers share our passion for craftsmanship and community. We also offer great classes and workshops, please check out our current schedule. Our storefront is our workspace, and we welcome all to come and visit and have a cup of coffee and see what we do.

Definitely go check this out if you have some time. It is an awesome shop and it will be a great time.

See you there.

RECYCLING FOAM - MARKO FOAM!!!

This is pretty cool it made the "big time" news. People have been bringing us their foam packaging and we've been getting over to Marko to make blanks. Better than it ending up in the dirt or in the ocean.

Fish Out of Water!!! Surfboard? Snowboard?

This is pretty wild! Maybe not the most functional but definitely a really cool build. It's awesome to see Doc of Surf Prescriptions get into it and shape away incorporating the snowboard into the surfboard. Dig the cool wood/carbon inlay to adhere the bindings to. That was pretty crafty! Also neat to go behind the scenes at Futures Fins with Owner/operator Vince Longo and watch them install the fin boxes. Signal Snowboards does a nice job of vacuum bagging the carbon deck on the board.

I'm sure that board was hard as hell to surf but Rob Machado sure can rip on just about anything! With all the volume it looked tough to get it to bite in the powder. This looked like a great project and the boys obviously had a great time with it.

Thanks to Surf Prescriptions, Future Fins, and Signal Snowboards for giving us a little look into the production and testing of this board.

Sean Collins - Surfline Entrepreneur

By Brad Nadell:

I'm sure by now you're all aware of the untimely death of Surfline Entrepreneur Sean Collins. Growing up as a Harbour grom in the early eighties, I had the pleasure of getting to know Sean. He was one of my local idols as I loved his smooth style and the way he carried himself. I couldn't wait till he'd come back from his Mex trips so we could look at his pictures. Subsequently, some of the photos would make it to the wall of fame at Harbour Surfboards. Sean was usually at the Harbour functions getting bombarded with forecasting questions. If I didn't see him around the shop, I would run into him surfing at the Side. Sean usually didn't have too much to say, but was always super cool to be around and whenever he did say something it was complimentary or insightful.

I remember he used to bring the early Surfline Faxes to Harbour for Rich to feed to us frothing young surfers. It was truly groundbreaking as I couldn't wrap my head around those faxes. Later in life I was lucky enough to do business with Sean as we have run ads on Surfline since it's inception. Check out this cool video I found of Sean back in the Surfline Fax era (1991).



Our best wishes go out to Sean's family, friends, and his staff.

RIP Sean

Happy 2012!!!

Happy New Year!!! Hope everyone had a safe and sane New Years Eve with lots of celebrating. Did you make a New Years Resolution? One of ours is to have more fun events at our shop. We will keep you posted as our other new resolutions come to fruition.

Thanks for the great year in 2011. We couldn't have done it without your support and patronage. Here's to great year of board building in 2012!

RIP Sean Collins and Grandma Billie

Support In Love Seal Beach

Machado Get's His Board Glassed With Entropy Resin!

2011 was a fun year for us here at Foam E-Z. We were able to talk surfboards, build some boards, play with some new tools, meet new people and…basically do what we love. We have some fun stuff lined up for 2012 in the way of new products, events, inter-web, multi-media, and graphical shenanigans. But before we let the cat out of the bag on any of that stuff, here’s a little lost footage that we just recently found from the Sacred Craft show in Del Mar in October 2011.



We met up with our buddies from Entropy Resin and got in the mix as Rob Machado was “shaping” up one of his famous Channel Island “Motor Boat” models. We thought it would be a cool idea to glass it right on the spot using Entropy Epoxy Resin and guess what?…It was! I’m sure that he’s in some exotic location with the board shredding, and wondering, “Whatever happened to those fine fellows from Foam E-Z?” Here we are, bringing you some of that lost footage and suggesting that you make a New Years resolution to try epoxy in 2012. Rob would want you to.

E-Z Square Pro Video Tutorial Starring A Famous Actor!

Enjoy my debut as the resident shaping tool aficionado! Go ahead and laugh, I know my acting doesn't compare with Brad Pitt but at least we look good on camera!



Hopefully this tutorial will ease the learning curve when using the E-Z Square Pro. In case you didn't know we recently upgraded our E-Z Square Pro to now have the ability to measure and mark toe-in on fins. Everything is done with just the one tool! All the detailed instructions are on the square in case you don't have a computer in your shape room or don't own a smart phone.

Keep your eye out for more tutorial/demonstration videos of our products to come.

Thanks for your support!

2011 Holiday Shipping Calendar!

If you can believe it the holidays are right around the corner. Hope you were good this year so you don't get coal in your stocking! Where did 2011 go????

There is only a couple of weeks to prepare so here is our Holiday Shipping Calendar just to be sure your gifts make it under the tree in time. We don't recommend waiting till the last minute but... the dates are on the calendar for that reason. If you plan to order blanks or board building kits please call to be sure they'll make it on time. In general, blank shipping takes a max of five business days but with the holidays things might get delayed. Better to be safe than sorry.

Hope everyone has the happiest of holiday season.

Thanks for your support!

Brad

Black Monday 6 Years Ago Today!!!!

Six years ago today we received the infamous fax from Clark Foam. In case you don't remember, the fax basically said that Clark Foam was closing their doors!!! Luckily, Walker Foam stepped up to fill the immediate void. After about a year or so US Blanks went online and proceeded to become our number one blank supplier.

December 5th 2005 changed the surfboard industry forever. It opened the door for more innovation, EPS/Epoxy boards, Chinese imports, Surftech, and more. Things have settled down quite a bit from those days and the custom surfboard market is more popular than ever. It's also a great time to build your own board BYOB!

The E-Z SHAPING PAD, The Most Versatile and Efficient Surfboard Shaping Tool Available!

We are very excited to announce that after many months of testing, it's finally available! The E-Z Shaping Pad is the most versatile and efficient shaping pad on the market. The medium density foam is extremely light, flexible, and comfortable to use. The pad increases accuracy and consistency while saving time and energy in the shape room. The E-Z Shaping Pad is so versatile that you can use just this pad to do most of the shaping steps on a board. These pads have been thoroughly tested by a number of professional shapers over the past year.

The E-Z Shaping Pad can be used to shape decks (convex), bottoms (concaves), and flats with some e-z manipulation of the pad. The abrasives we've chosen are unbelievable at cutting foam at a consistent rate, the aerated mesh keeps the abrasive from clogging up, and the durability is un-paralleled. The E-Z Abrasives come in two styles; HD = Heavy Duty and LD = Light Duty. These abrasives work incredible with both Polyurethane and EPS Foam. The hook/loop backing allows for quick abrasive changes. Check out this video to see how e-z the pad is to use:



The E-Z Shaping Pad Combo comes with the E-Z Shaping Pad and your choice of TWO (2) E-Z Abrasives. By purchasing the E-Z Shape Pad Combo you get one (1) Abrasive FREE, a $5.00 value.

The E-Z Shaping Pad is so simple, yet effective, that we're sure it will become your "go to" tool in the bay.

Interview With Christian Saenz, Local HB Upstart!

I've known Christian Saenz dad for a long time. He first started working at Huntington Surf and Sport as a sales guy and has moved up the ladder to be one of the main managers. I really don't think he would approve of his son doing an interview with Bryan Seacrest. Please don't tell him about this interview if you bump into him in HSS.

This interview is the second installment of I.S.I.I, Interesting Surf Industry Interviews! In this episode, Bryan Seacrest interviews Christian Saenz and we get to see what he can do in 1 Week in HB.

Enjoy!

Turkey Day, then Black Friday!

We here at Foam E-Z love giving thanks. Therefore we want to thank you, our customers, by offering 10% OFF EVERYTHING under our roof on Friday, November 25th. That includes all fin installation kits and power tools…for real. Yes, even resin, and fins…and cloth…yeah, everything! Come on in and take advantage of this one day only deal, we'll be open from 10-4pm.

If you can’t make it to the shop, don’t sweat it, we have a redemption code you can use online. Just enter EZBLKFRI11 on November 25th upon checkout. The offer is only valid on Black Friday the 25th and cannot be applied to phone orders.
Thanks again for the support and we hope you have a great Thanksgiving.

Gobble! Gobble!

Whitney Lang, A Unique Board Builder From Newport Beach

Check out this video of our customer Whitney Lang laying up a board with pigmented resin. She's been building boards for a few years now and has really come a long way since we first met her. There is a small community of women that are involved in board building but Whitney might be the only one who builds boards from start to finish. Her specialties are Retro-fish with bright resin colors. If she's not in the garage working on a surfboard you can find her surfing one of her fishes at RJ's! Check out her Facebook page for more info.

KE11Y Wins ELEVEN And Talks Candidly About Andy Irons!

I'm sure by now you've all heard that Kelly Slater has won his unprecedented Eleventh World Title at the Rip Curl Pro Search, Somewhere in San Francisco. Kelly locked down the title in the final minutes of the Third Round in classic Slater fashion eliminating Australian Dan Ross. Unbelievable to think but it looked like Kelly was destined this year as he and Owen Wright battled for first and second contest after contest. Ironically Wright had the heat just after Kelly's and had to surf it while Kelly was getting mobbed on the beach.

Ironically also Kelly locked down the title on the anniversary of Andy Irons untimely death. After a year of being asked question after question about Irons. Kelly sat dawn and spoke candidly about the life and his relationship with Andy Irons. Here's what Kelly had to say:

How I Remember Andy

Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011

I’ve been asked for many opinions and interviews about Andy Irons and the situations and decisions that lead to his early departure from our world. It’s not something I take lightly. I have my own opinions about not only Andy’s choices and how he ultimately got to the place he did, but also about the way these things are handled from all sides of the story. But what is right? And whose opinions actually matter other than those of his family and closest friends about who they knew and how they feel inside? What is it that each of us hopes to take away from the Andy Irons story? And what is it that we want to give to the story of his life?

I dealt, in a strange way, with the death of my own father through Andy. Even though he was 6 years younger, he reminded me of an older brother and for that reason alone we had a heated relationship. We wanted the same thing and knew the other was in the way.

My father passed away in April 2002, and I made shirts with his picture on it. Andy and I weren’t close then so he had no idea, and for the next few months I stumbled around like a zombie tripping out that I would never again see my dad. Andy had just started his roll that year by winning a couple of events and taking the lead on Tour, and I had just gotten back on Tour but found myself not really caring about winning anything except maybe a war of words or a fight with somebody. Andy was just the guy.

I’ll share a story, but for the sake of brevity, I’ll just say this: We got really drunk on a Tavarua trip. We got into a shouting match. I said something about him thinking he’s the man for winning a couple of contests. He screamed and laughed at me, “You’re going baaaalllldddd, hahahaha.” I told him he’d know how I felt when his father passed away, and he started kicking me in the face. (I had earlier punched him in the face in a crazy 10-man wrestling match in a taxi). Then Shane Dorian tackled him and pulled him off me telling him my father had just died a few weeks ago. Andy started crying hysterically and hugging and apologizing to me for the next half hour before he went to bed and then apologized again the next day. In some weird way I think I just wanted him to know that I was hurting because he had a way of just sorta being tough even though he was one of the most sensitive guys in the world. There was just this strange and awkward dynamic between us. Months later, he won his first title and all I could think to do was give him one of the shirts that I had made with a picture of my dad on it and congratulate him. He gave me a hug and thanked me and felt really awkward that I gave him a shirt with a picture of my dad on it. On one level he knew what it was about, and on another level he wasn’t gonna let me put a chink in his armor and wear that damned thing. For all I know, he either burned it or hid it. I’ve often wondered.

The following years have been pretty well documented in our history. Not always correct or spot on, but at other times pretty accurate. The press maybe said some things that we might have thought but never verbalized. I loved and hated the guy, but I probably only hated him because I admired and envied what he was capable of.

A year and a half before he died, at the first event of the year, he told me he was making a documentary about the changes and lessons in his life, and he wanted to help any kids that had ever looked up to him and struggled in their lives, because he now knew what was possible. He was so clear and happy and confident and positive. We stood off away from everyone else and had our first and only real one-on-one, heart-to-heart talk. I actually welled up with tears for how proud I was of him and how insanely unbelievable it was to have Andy look me in the eye and talk straight to me. He told me he had always looked up to me and asked me if I’d work with him on this documentary. He told me he couldn’t believe how amazing life was and discussed with me his fears, his goals, his struggles and his family. It was the true epiphany in Andy’s life: the moment he was open to clean out and shift all the things holding him back from his actual potential as a human being. And that’s the exciting thing: he had so much more ability and knowledge on so many levels. I won heats against Andy at that particular event and the following one at Bells. The only reason I’m sharing that is because both times he smiled and said good job and although he was pissed off at losing, I could see that he was enjoying the process of learning how to accept things, even the things he really hated, like losing…and to me!

The last time I saw Andy was in Portugal a year ago. I was just about to clinch the title, and he saw me at the event and gave me a hug and told me he was really proud of me and that he hoped I would win the title in Puerto Rico and that he was “psyched” for me. I was thinking “Man, if I had only beaten you in Tahiti, this thing would probably be done,” and I sorta mentioned that to him, and we laughed. He gave me a big hug and high five, and I never saw him again.

Two weeks later in Puerto Rico, some people were saying he was sick, and some people said he was partying. Some people said he never left his hotel room. Martin Potter and I were really concerned when he missed his first heat. I just remember them calling his name and his three-man heat surfing without him, and I felt really weird about it. We agreed that we needed to go see him at his hotel and see if he was alright, because there’s no way that he would fly all that way just to miss a heat. Then we were told that a doctor had seen him, and he was sick and resting. I was uneasy about him going missing, but at least it was an update.

When he missed his next heat, and I heard that he had left, I was really worried. I got a call from a friend who was with him in Miami the night before and he asked me why Andy wasn’t staying in Puerto Rico and he told me Andy had caught a flight home thru Dallas. I called Andy’s phone and got no answer. I sent him a couple of texts and got no reply. That was within 30 minutes of when he was found in the hotel in Dallas. About two or three hours later I got the news that he had died. I sat on the beach with a homeless dog and started getting calls from people.

The story of Andy Irons may likely never feel good to us whether you were his friend and you miss him or you have a strong judgment about his shortcomings and it made you angry. No matter what, it doesn’t make sense for someone so gifted and in touch on so many levels to die alone in an airport hotel room nowhere close to anything that mattered to him. But remembering someone can sometimes be about the toughest thing you ever had with them and feeling like your life is better for having experienced that with them. And if that can make you laugh or smile, you’re honoring their life and their legacy, I believe.

I have questioned whether anything in our relationship and battles had any impact on the course of his life or whether I could have made a difference somehow. Maybe that’s just my own form of denial, but one thing is clear, I still can’t believe that Andy is gone. Hell, I still can’t believe that Todd Chesser is gone and Donnie Solomon and Malik Joyeux and a whole bunch of other good friends are gone. An anniversary is best used for remembering the good things and letting it all sink in more so that the sadness fades away and the good memories remain. And if we learn anything from that, let it be that the positive impact of Andy and all our other friends who are gone bring us closer to the ones and the things that we love right here, right now.

I’ll leave you with one last thought of Andy. The other day I was with a friend who had given Andy some rims for his car. In his office, my friend had a signed board from Andy. The autograph was signed, “Picture me Rollin’!” And so I will, buddy.

With love and respect,

Kelly