Traveling? we’re looking for great photos of locals and their repair operations.

Years after his inauspicious start, Broglio today has the formula down pat for juggling multiple boards at a time (and not dinging them). The secret ingredient is powdered “Sun Cure” that replaces the usual toxic MEKP resin catalyst or hardener that normally sets within 10–20 minutes. “Sun Cure” is triggered by ultraviolet light either from a florescent light box or directly from the sun. Created as a class project at Flagler College in St. Augustine Florida by Dale Christenson, this much more environmentally-safe product has been employed by Vince for years, even as other pros are just coming around to its benefits. Namely, the hardening process can be controlled by the glasser: slowed or sped up. Excess resin can be filtered, reused, and not wasted, “going off” only when hit by UV rays. This allows more time to squeegee off the fiberglass perfectly during lamination and kick off the hardening of the resin in stages for a stronger board, as well as keeping multiple boards in motion. Added strength comes from eliminating the “guesswork” of adding the catalyst. More info at www.suncure.com

Summer of 1994 – Pictures here of the Industries first UV Cured Surfboard using Sun Cure Resin and Artificial UV Light Unit manufactured by The Surf Source, Inc, an Atlantic Beach Florida company. An evolutionary step in surfboard manufacturing arrived during the summer of 94’ with Surf Sources’ unveiling of a system for glassing surfboards entirely with UV -Sun Cure Resin. While this type of resin has been the favorite for ding repair for years, The Surf Source developed a movable UV curing system so that each coat of resin can fully harden and cure only after 5 minutes. Using a variation on a tanning lamp, this allowed for stable curing properties as compared to the natural suns rays which change throughout the seasons. This system has given glassers much more control over their work and now allows them to control the degree of hardness while they work on them. With Sun Cure, the process can be stopped at any point by simply cutting off UV light to the resin, giving workers more opportunities to cut cloth, correct mistakes or add finishing touches. This process saves time, floor space, harmful fumes, mixing related problems and wasted chemicals. At the same time final product has proven stronger and less yellowing than conventionally catalyzed surfboards. Even more remarkable is the jump in time efficiency, since the final curing time is cut from 2 weeks to 1 day. This time is a godsend to shapers who are constantly under the pressure for fast orders from team riders and raises hopes for greater leaps in the board building process.

Tony from Clean Ocean Surfboards has been working diligently with Local Kiter, Pat Lemoine, to design and manufacture KiteBoards especially for the East Coast conditions. Giving birth to Manic Kiteboards, Clean Ocean leads the pack among local shapers. Contact: www.cleanoceansurfboards.com for more information.

The History of Whisnant Surfboards

Mike Whisnant started building surfboards at the age of 15 with a friend of his Winnie Strickland in Neptune Beach. They were building about one board a month when they first started. Then ended up building up to 40 per week with a full crew.

After that he worked with Atlantis surfboards. He has also worked with and on Savage, Rozo, Escape, Nev, HIC, Blue Hawaii, Byrne, Line Drive, and R. Wood surfboards.

In 1989 Mike started Whisnant surfboards in Jacksonville Beach. His intentions in the begining were to build something that he wanted, not what other shapers wanted to give him. That is still the way he does things, building what people want even if he dosen’t necessarily agree. His mission is to make what the customer wants and make it work.