Burn Before Shaping

Robin Kegel is always talking, talking. His ideas untangle in hypomanic monologues. Relentless streams of consciousness come spinning from his mind. To enter his radius is to find yourself instantly challenged and inspired. His surfboards, created under Gato Heroi, are a visionary concept, crystalised in the slipstream of volatile genius.

"You know how long it takes to come up with something?" says Evan Daley, a close friend who has shaped and glassed with Kegel for years. "We would stay up until three in the morning for nights on end discussing an idea and then he'd wake up and he's over it. He'd say- 'No, I've got a new idea,' and I'd be like, 'Dude! We spent a week on that!' And he'd just say, 'No, l've got a better idea' and of course it would end up being way better." With wide ranging influences - from the exotic to the absurd - Robin knows something about everything and is always open to new ideas and willing to learn. One minute he'll play his favorite Russian classical flute piece, the next you find yourself watching a clip of Skitchy, a 70s skateboarding prodigy, as he dances around the shaping bay in boardshorts and Reeboks, blowing the air compressor into his mouth before scratching a board from a blank using nothing but a handsaw. 

Robin has always looked to Australians for inspiration in the water. He first took to surfing at 14, and quickly became obsessed with the Evolution and Hot Generation period and the surfing and backyard shaping of Wayne, MP, Midget, Nat and Bob. His first boards were short Morning of the Earth MP-style shapes, but it wasn't long before he was exploring transitional concepts and making longer boards.

Soon enough he was shaping and glassing his own designs at night and splitting his surfing between traditional logs by Tyler (his sponsor at the time), Takyamas and his own experimental shapes (at first called Créme then later Gato Herói). It wasn't long before his childhood friend Alex Knost was also riding the boards bringing with him interest from other high profile longboarders such as radical stylist Cody Simplcins and noseriding savant CJ Nelson. Orders grew as the shapes clearly worked and the surfers riding them were onto something exciting.

The Créme boards featured a new style of glasswork, called the calico abstract, which brought a lot of attention to the company. Robin's abstracts were inspired by the separation of oil and vinegar, as he had seen in a bread dish at dinner during an altered state of mind. This same tension between inter-related opposites feeds the dynamic state of creative energy channeled into Gato Herói.

Robin recently closed down his US base, permanently shifting his focus away from the Californian bubble. He burnt all his old templates in a fire pit on Doheny Beach, as Phil Edwards looked on. Now based in Europe, he frequently travels to other Gato Her6i outposts in Australia, Italy and Japan on an annual basis. The international chapters sustain his friends and allow him to travel to surf. The company barely makes money, but that was never the point.

On the plane back home to France last year, Robin lost his computer with most of his photos and memories from the past ten years of Gato, rare music and strange 8mm footage. His response to the incident was, "It was time anyway, there was too much old shit on there." And that is his way. Always moving forward. If the whole thing fell apart tomorrow it wouldn't change the fact that Robin would still make a surfboard and go surfing ...

SW: ls shaping an art, a science, both or neither? 

I've seen RK: many approaches. Some guys treat it like construction work. They have set basic techniques to shape out a board in two hours flat based upon other boards and concepts they’ve studied. Others, the industrial production types, are sanding computer ridges. There's little art in that, but if they're good they can reproduce or even enhance the original master shape consistently. Looking at some of the iconic longboard shapers… 

Dale Velzy: Very inventive, primitive shapes that worked for the time. Raw. Not too refined but he had the eye/hand and took advantage of his customers' infatuation and the innocence of the era. 

Terry Martin: Dedicated construction type. He was hand shaping ten boards per day until the week he died. They were as basic as surfboards get. Nothing unique but ten muscled out with ease every day. 

Donald Takayama: Inventive, masterful. He was diverse. He put all his years of knowledge into models and reworked them for decades, 

then put them all on the machine to reproduce them. But up until he died he would still do redwood masterpieces, or balsa customs. Wood shaping is legitimate sculpting. DT was always thinking about his production plugs to divulge his spirit to the masses. 

Gene Cooper and Tyler H: Resurrected spirit of the 60s surf boom. Both advertise their masterpiece work, und can revise a vintage longboard concept with perfect execution bringing nostalgic glory to extinct shapes, 

perfecting them beyond their era of conception. I've seen them both machine boards in addition, which lightens their heavy load of artisinal quality custom orders and glass jobs. 

Jim Phillips: Independant craftsman. Each industrial surfboard yard might have these characters. They can shape anything and have been doing it for years and they get little recognition for their skill. From gluing up replica wood boards, to tail block custom longboards, or even an epoxy shortboard ... all in the same day. 

Legends: Owl Chapman, Reno Abellira, Dick Brewer, Bob McTavish. Each so different but in the same position- people will buy anything they make. Why? They are proven surfer/shaper legends. They all have their own work pace and ideals formulated over years of experimenting, tinkering, ego trips, come downs, and logged hours in blue rooms. They are living artists. 

Their character is that of the artist. Their labor is sculpting flings for people to mix up the monotony of everyday life. They're pimps and they sell vicarious pleasure. 

Glassers are the industrial artists.They deal with fluids, colors, nasty shit and they have to make the product look good. Shapers that do their own glasswork deserve to be called artists. Execute the concept from start to finish ... that's a bitch. 

Surfboard manufacturers live the artist lifestyle, living in industrial yards, or at least spending most of their time in 1hat type of setting. Many drink a lot and smoke all day to calm the physical fatigue of elbow greasing and the heavy intake of toxins. Very few are health freaks. In my opinion, surfboard manufacturers are artists by means of lifestyle choices. It's hard to generalize the whole lot, although I've met some eccentric folks through this experience. 

Take us through your process of creating a surfboard from scratch. 

What are you specifically looking for in terms of how lhe5e things translate into the performance aspects of the board?

A) ... thickness?

Sink or swim.

B) ... width?

How wide is your chest? Long your legs? Arms? Back? Neck? Where do you surf? How do you surf?

C) ... nose and Tail lift?

The rocker killed the classic surfer and the jazz, and created surfing sport.

D) ... bottom curves?

Each rider has their own interpretation of angular projection versus pump and float drive.

E) ... glassing?

Buoyancy is determined by all coinciding factors: volume, weight, blank density, width, rocker. Numeric values worth investigating.

F) ... Sanding?

Sanders are shapers. They must recreate contours, bottom contours, edges. All very key. It's secondary shaping process.

What's been your most most uplifting design discovery o,·er the past year or two? 

Running a hard block over the bottom of the board after machine sanding and again after it's all done. I'll get all my curves done, stringer perfect. soft polish screening, and before signing my name I'll run a hard block over the bottom to ensure linear flow. It scratches the board a little but connects water flow points one last time -following laws of physics - for optimum release. Water flow dynamics. Also specific angles I put 1he board at in the shaping racks while I bevel out the rails with my planer. Small reference 

points on the wall to ensure I'm on the angular plane I'm looking to get the rail pitched at

I saw a quote of yours where you said, "The color affects the ride," relating to resin tints. Do you think we sometimes forget the simple pleasures of surfboard design in the conversations about what works and why? 

Owl Chapman once told me in Hawaii, "Your board will be red or yellow. blue is too dangerous in North Shore water. If you wipe out no one can see your board." 

No blues, no green. Yellow or red could save your life if you drift off to sea. Even with retro longboards, dark colors attract heat and the wax is always pamal. I've had slippery sessions due to dark decks. Clear is pure. When I do nice stringers and glass on fins I usually stay clear. The customer who is attracted to clear is more concerned with the shape. Also clear is more discreet. When I surf heavily localised spots my boards are clear. Not even a logo. 

Color helps sell the board. Some customers seem infatuated with searching for their board. The one that's screaming their name from first impression. And I enjoy doing the color work. Abstractions have been one of my main features on custom boards. People feel I went the extra effort to think of them when abstracting the board, it's psychology. It's the same for me on the clears.

Introduction by Jessamyn Jean. Interview by Vaughen Blakey. Originally printed in Surfing World Magazine. Scanned and hosted in PDF on wildthingaustralia.com. Transcribed from the scanned PDF by Molly for the Pemulis Water & Power informational blog.