"Foaming: an Interview with Gordon Clark," written by Paul Chapey, ran in the April 1972 issue of Surfing magazine. Clark was quoted occasionally over the years but seems to be the first and only full-length interview he ever did. Clark was 41 at the time.

What are the procedures in making a foam blank?

We buy the raw materials, or basic chemicals. We set off a series of chemical reactions in mixing steps which we then put in a bucket in liquid form and put under a mixer for about a minute and a half. Then we pour the mixture into a mold where it foams up and cures for about a half hour. The blank is then popped out, cured, cut in half and the center strip installed.

Two chemical reactions take place. One is creating a plastic and the other one is expansion through the formation of gas bubbles.

What are the most important strength factors in building a surfboard blank?

The raw materials used, the formula itself; all blank manufacturers have different formulas. Quality control during processing is also important—that is, the actual mixing. There's a kind of art in balancing all the variables in order to achieve a high strength-to-weight ratio.

What percent of a surfboard blank is composed of air?

What have been the major innovations in the foam industry since the inception of the foam-fiberglass board?

Clarity. Foam didn't used to be as white as it is now. Uniformity of foam has improved, too. The strength-to-weight ratio has improved. The byproduct of all is that able to make lighter boards, using lower density foam, which has had a dramatic effect on board shapes, surfing styles, and performance. And as the board shapes and designs changed, the whole thing was co-mingled, you might say, and the entire style of surfing changed. Guys start doing things that were totally impossible on an older product. The whole thing moved forward together. The shapers and surfers did their part. But without better blanks, without low-density foam and the different mold sizes, we would not have the tremendous change in the way people surf. It’s been a tremendous evolution.


Can you tell me more about the mold sizes?

As the market grew larger, we were able to build mold sizes which are closer to what the shaper is going to make, compared to the old days when you had to cut a foot off a blank before you even got started shaping. Now, a guy has a variety of blank shapes to choose from. We build a great number of molds each year. Our molds become obsolete within two years, most of the time a lot sooner, due to change in shape.

As far as making a mold, how do you determine its size and shape?

We try to get a feel for the direction things are going. Certain shapers just have a special aptitude for building plugs [the original shape from which the mold will be built]. Usually, we work with the same people. We also listen to shapers who we know are going to be in demand, because they're going to be using our product a lot.

What is the ability required in order to be able to build a good plug? Why is it that some guys can do it and some can’t?

I have no idea. There are some guys I respect very much as shapers who can’t build a plug.

How does the blank industry differ from the surfboard industry in general?

The manufacturing of a surfboard is primarily a matter of purchasing some materials that are readily available. To manufacture a surfboard blank requires a larger investment in equipment than it does to be in the surfboard business. Besides a great deal of equipment, there’s a tremendous amount of knowledge necessary, and a lot of trial and error. It takes a long time to develop your particular process, and it’s just a lot of little two-bit tricks which take a long time to learn. That keeps people out because it’s very difficult to come into the business and compete against people with ten years' experience in an operation that involves a tremendous number of variables. It’s kind of an art to keep everything running right.

It seems more like a lot of hard-nosed work.

Yeah, there’s no romanticism in foam. We’re just a raw materials supplier. It’s dirty, messy, and it’s hard work, and it’s not anything you particularly dream of doing for a career. It’s probably one of the worst operations involved in making a surfboard because it’s fumey and smelly and you've got to work fast.

What do you think of the new molded surfboards?

Well, there are a number of new processes and materials, some of which are promising and may have a future in surfboard construction. From what I've seen so far, though, once the new materials are converted into a surfboard it just doesn't work, mainly because the board won't last, or it's too heavy, or there was some weak link. There's always a flaw. So far there has just not been an improvement or a replacement for the foam-fiberglass board.


Do you ever see the day where the molded surfboard will replace the foam-fiberglass board?

I’d say that would depend on the price structure and the strength-to-weight ratio of the molded board. If you had a stronger, cheaper board that could have design improvements from year to year, it would be silly to continue building boards the way we do now. It would be uneconomical to continue to do it the way we do it way. Our whole society is based on mass-produced items.

But surfing is closely aligned with an alternate culture, and surfers in many ways are turned off by mass production. Don’t you think the attraction of having a more personalized product would still be one of the strongest appeals of the foam-fiberglass board?

Brushing your teeth is very personalized too, but I haven’t seen anybody make their own toothbrush. That would be just ludicrous. Anyway, even if something new comes along, I don't think we'll see the end of the custom foam-fiberglass board. We still have balsa boards being made—not too many, but some. They’re a lot of work to build, but they’re individual, different and pretty. So maybe foam boards would be in that position at some time in the future. Overall, though, if there was a radical breakthrough in materials—if there were an extreme price differential and an improvement in performance and strength—I would say that the foam board could disappear quite fast.

Do you think this would have a positive or negative effect on the surfboard industry?

A total upheaval in the industry would occur. It would eliminate the smaller surfboard manufacturer; not many people who are in business today would remain. I’m a corporation and so I’d be eligible for unemployment insurance.

It would mean a big change, but that’s progress.

What happens to Clark Foam's discarded materials, can they be decomposed?

The materials that we use in the manufacturing process—not the product, but the materials we use—are buried in a canyon up here [in Laguna] with everybody’s garbage. We’ve been using the same canyon for years and years and we’re never going to fill it. I don’t think mankind is really going to be able to fill all the canyons around here; although he’d like to think he’d be able to. The materials are buried in the canyon, we don’t leave them out anywhere. I’d say everything that goes into a surfboard can be decomposed.

Gordon "Grubby" Clark

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