DON KOPLIEN IN AN ERA THAT WAS LEGENDARY

It was a wet Monday morning with the winds and traffic being light and the waves on the North Shore choppy and diminishing. The intermittent rain was falling on the parking lot at Haleiwa Harbor on Oahu. Not the best time to go surfing, but an interesting time to talk to Don Koplien, one of the best shaper/glasser of the 1970’s era.

Initially the interview was to take place aboard Don’s boat the Lana Kini, but was relocated to a café in Haleiwa due to the rain. The table we were sitting at was next to a window. As the rain drops made their way down the window pane, the steam trailing from the coffee cups vanished into our conversation.

Don was recollecting the North Shore during the winter of 1967/68, his first winter on the island of Oahu. Don and his wife Lana rented a house near Rocky Point and were adjusting to the slower pace of life out in the country. Driving around in a typical north shore cruiser, a 53’ Chevy added to the experience of being part of the emerging surf scene that stretched from Haleiwa to Velzyland. A small area of coastline that was about to embark on changing the face of surfing as never before.

There was this one time when Don’s friend David Nuuhiiwa whom Don knew from his days at Huntington Beach and Bing Surfboards came by from town with a friend. That friend was Gerry Lopez who would go on to become one of the most influential shaper/surfer of the next decade. Don didn't know this back then and neither did David so he left Gerry there at Don house for a couple days while he went back to town.

Don took it in stride, but his wife was a little concerned about Gerry being abandoned. Don got to know Gerry in the short time that he was there. Gerry was attending the University of Hawaii majoring in Architecture and had some free time. Meanwhile the surf had come up so Don and Gerry decided to go surf.

David had a few boards at Don’s house and being a good host, Don offered the use of one of David’s boards which were shaped by Mike Hynson. Hynson along with other notables like Miki Dora were staying at the house next door. After selecting a board to use and grabbing a bar of paraffin wax Don and Gerry walked down the beach to Pipeline. Don sat and watched as Gerry paddled out into the lineup. After a couple of waves later Don paddled out and joined Gerry. They were the only ones out in the water and Gerry was catching all the waves he wanted. Gerry’s ability to ride the Pipe in 1967 was impressive to say the least Don recalled.

His takeoffs and tube rides were the precursor of his legend at the Pipe. As the two walked up the beach refreshed from their surf session, Don would have never thought their paths were going to meet again and that a life long friendship would develop. As it turned out David showed up after a couple of days and Gerry went back home to town. Gerry and Don would not meet again until a year later.

Don and Lana would move to a house further down Ke Nui Rd. the new location was across the street from Kammie’s Market. A photo was taken in front of this house for Surfing Magazine in 1970. It was titled the “North Shore Brotherhood”.


A GATHERING OF FRIENDS AND ACQUAINTANCES 1970 photo Duke Boyd

That winter Don was over on Maui, and had Dick Brewer shape a board for him. Don knew Dick from the mainland when Dick was shaping for Bing Surfboards. (Don was on the Bing Surf Team) The glasser who was suppose to glass his board didn’t show up. Don was leaving for Oahu the next day and was forced to make a decision. Having watched glassers before, Don decided to glass his own board, this would be his first glass job. By the next morning he had it finned, hot coated and it was suitable for travel.

After returning to Oahu Don started glassing boards in his backyard for friends. In May of 1968 Don returned to Huntington Beach and rented a house and turned the garage into a shaping and glassing rooms. Word spread that Don had just returned from Hawaii and was making boards. Those who knew Don stopped by the house and saw his shapes. They liked what they saw and wanted a board made by him. This gave Don an immediate customer base to hone his shaping and glassing skills.

Don knew some of the guys at Plastic Fantastic Surfboards in Huntington Beach and by the end of the summer Don and PFS decided to do a joint venture in Hawaii. So Don was back on the North Shore in September of 68'. Don rented an old dilapidated house and Dave Garner, Danny Callaghan, John Boozer, and Greg Tucker of PFS worked with him to turn it into a surfboard shop. Dave and Danny moved into a house next door to the shop, which was in better shape than the shop.

Don remembers Larry McElheny as a super craftsman who rented one of the shaping rooms at the shop. The shop was located up Hakuola Road at the base of the cliff opposite Ke Iki Road. The house turned shop had a couple shaping rooms upstairs. Glassing was done in the living room and another large room next to it was for glossing. Other rooms were used for sanding and polishing. The house was built on stilts and there was plenty of room under the house for another shaping room and storage.

Don has a engineering background which showed in his approach to making surfboards. He neatly printed “Koplien” on each of his boards 18 inches from the tail by the stringer. This became somewhat of a trademark. He also kept a log of each shape with the dimensions and the clients names. Starting with batten sticks and afterwards making templates of the boards he made. Don developed a wide range of templates that ran the gamut of outlines that were being used on the North Shore.



Don shared the shaping room with other North Shore shapers at the time, there were Larry McElheny, Billy Hamilton and Ryan Dotson to name a few. Ole Olson showed up for a short while and shaped, and there was Nat Young, Bob McTavish and other Australians who would stop by during the contest season and shape some as well.

The shops in Town (Honolulu) were clamping down on the backyard board builders on the North Shore. The reason was the backyard builders were taking business away from the Town shops. Don felt the heat the building inspectors were putting on him so he rented a shop in Haleiwa. The shop was zoned for light manufacturing. The landowner received the variance for the previous renter who was into pottery and had to have a kiln. Don now had a shop in Haleiwa which was zoned for manufacturing which satisfied the inspectors and the Town shops decided to drop the issue.

Plastic Fantastic opened a retail shop in Kailua but it didn’t do well, and closed its doors only after a few months. Don got his boards out of Plastic Fantastic’s shop and placed them on consignment in Rick Surfboards in Honolulu where Barry Kaniapuni was selling his boards. Rick’s closed their doors a month later and Don took his boards to Hobie Surfboards. Within less than a year Hobie closed their doors on Kapiolani Blvd. So Don took his boards to Surfline. Gerry Lopez had just started shaping at Surfline just before Don started consigning his boards. After two weeks Don and the owner of Surfline were having problems agreeing on the selling price of his boards.

Don was at a stand still and told the owner he would give it some thought. Jack Shipley, who was the shop manager at Surfline, was aware of the problem Don was having. Jack pulls Don to the side and tells him that he and Gerry were starting a new surfboard company called Lightning Bolt and would like Don to come with them. When the owner of Surfline inadvertently found out about Jack and Gerry’s plan, he fired Jack immediately and tried to pressure Gerry to stay. Gerry’s presents with Surfline was a definite draw for them. When Gerry said he’d made up his mind and he was leaving with Jack, some subtle threats from Surfline were made. A couple months after the Lightning Bolt show room was open someone tried to set fire to the back of the building. No real damage had occurred.

So Don is now with Lightning Bolt and the rest is history. He produced six boards a week, shaped and glassed them all. Don’s glass jobs were probably best known for there rich even colors and the fine pin line work. At that time the colors were tints mixed in the laminating resin and the trick was to squeegee it out evenly to avoid streaks. Pin lines were done by taping off both sides of an area and applying pigmented resin with a brush. There were no airbrushed colors.

Don was making Bolts along with about three or four other shapers that would eventually join Lightning Bolt. Lightning Bolt quickly became the predominate logo seen in the water during this era. Shapers on the North Shore at the time that influenced Don were Mike Diffenderfer and Larry McElheny. A glasser at the time that he also appreciated and few knew of was Bosco Burns.

Don recalls significant changes in surfboard designs starting in 1967. In his opinion the change began with John Mobley who had a shop in Haleiwa. He was making and riding the first “short” boards on the North Shore. That same winter Gary Chapman, older brother of Craig “Owl” Chapman, showed up with a “mini” gun shaped by Dick Brewer. This began a mini gun explosion that set standards that still apply today. Bob McTavish showed up from Australia with the “V” bottom that many were skeptical about.


Bob McTavish carving up the face at Sunset Beach 1968 photo Dave Darling

Around 1970 Herbie Fletcher was riding a board shaped by Mike Hynson. It had a flat nose to tail and the rails turned down hard. Don remembers old pictures of Herbie. You saw him always side-slipping down the face of the wave but he could pull it off. Don made one of these for himself but didn’t care for the results. Herbie was asked about his side-slipping and he just said “yea, you just got to go with it”.

With design changes happening daily Don started to take his rails down and flatten the bottom. Thinking subtle in terms of foil transition was a direction Don went towards. Softer rails at the wide point of the board while still leaving them relatively hard at the nose and quite hard at the tail. The board could now stay in the face of the wave without releasing off. No more unexpected side-slipping.

That idea is still being used today says Don. Regarding fins and looking back now, multi fins were the way to go. There were some attempts at multiple fins in the early 70's but that didn’t really make much headway until the end of the 70’s. "Today materials have gone high tech and it is constantly evolving" pausing for a moment and looking out the window as the sunlight appears through the clouds.

Next to Don’s shop in Haleiwa was Country Surfboards.
Country Surfboard decal

Eventually Don gave up part of the glass shop to Country Surfboards and Jack Reeves. Don recalled the shapers at Country Surfboards were Mike Turnbull, Mike Turkington, and Roger Hinds. After awhile Don gave up the remaining space to Country Surfboards and moved his board building operation to his house at Pupukea Hill. His shop was located on the first floor. Orders were steady and his boardbuilding busy. If he weren’t shaping, you would find him glassing. Don glassed for other shapers as well his own boards. One of the shapers that he was Tom Parrish. Tom was shaping for Lightning Bolt and his designs were popular among the top surfers of that era.

Shortly after starting with Lightning Bolt, Don got into silk screening and took on a partner. His business partner was Greg Matney, a T-shirt silk screener. The name of the company was Superscreen Hawaii. Don’s knowledge and contacts in the surfing industry and Greg’s talents in silk screening were a perfect match. They went on to develop some of the first more realistic looking designs and artwork to go on T-shirts. Prior to that, most of the T-shirts around had more of a “cartoonish” look. This new look was due to a new process in photo quality tint overlays.

The 80’s were a couple years away but there was a change happening. The demise of Lightning Bolt was seen by Don as a great loss. The roots of those surfer/shaper who built Bolt boards were shaken. They had taken surfboard designs “outside of the box” and with the change they felt a little empty. At the Bolt's peak they began to broaden out into other areas. This was a good move until they sold some control of the name to a mainland company. Gerry got out at that time and Jack continued on to do his best to make it all work. The problem quickly became apparent. The new partners in their three piece suits started changing things mainland style. The relaxed style that made Lightning Bolt what it was, seemed to collide with the direction the new partner had in mind. One by one the orginal group started going their own way.

Don and his family left Hawaii in 1977. On one of their trips back in 1982 after Hurricane Iwa had hit Oahu, Don went to see Jack at the Bolt shop. He walked into the show room on Kapiolani Blvd. The power was still out from the hurricane and Jack was there by himself. The shop was dark and only partially stocked with a few boards and other products. Don asked what was going on and Jack said “I guess we’re closing the doors”.

Over the years since Don and his family moved from the North Shore, he continues to shape a few boards for himself and friends. He has crossed paths a number of times with Jack Shipley, who now is a head judge for the Hawaii surf contest circuit, and has seen Gerry Lopez when he makes an appearance from time to time on the North Shore.

Some years laters Don came across an article in The Surfers Journal, July 2002 issue. The article was by Gerry and featured his reproduction of the classic pintail “Coral Cruisers” he made famous at Pipeline. Gerry had some nice things to say about Don in the article when reminiscing about Lightning Bolt. Under one of the photos was Gerry's email address. Don emailed Gerry and thanked him for the comments and recalled some of their memories during the 70’s. Don speaks highly of Gerry as a person who, after rising to the top in the surfing world, always treated you kindly and made you feel like you were his long lost friend.

The interview began in the parking lot of Haleiwa Harbor and concluded at the end of the Huntington Beach Pier.


Lana Koplien and Gerry Lopez at the Huntington Beach Walk of Fame Inductee Ceremony for Gerry
photo Don Koplien

I’d Rather Be Surfing!

The shaping of surfboards is a remarkable art form spinoff from the sport of surfing, easily as involved as the act of riding a wave. In fact, there are striking similarities in the terminologies of both surfing and shaping.

Even back in the early days of draw knives and varnished wooden planks, those who had the knack of creating those long, heavy, spiritual spears were considered to be a notch above those who could only ride them. In present times, even with the use of easily shaped foam, becoming a master shaper involves developing and intimate and complex knowledge of the medium and the tools used to form it.

It becomes a full-time, absorbing task to keep abreast of the constantly evolving blanks and surfboards theories. There are a staggering amount of variables. Different batches of foam have different densities and textures. Every mold or plug has a different displacement of volume and curve. Every glue-up has a chance to vary. The starting point for a shaper is practically never the same twice in a row. Thus, shaping becomes a “zen” brain game of sorts, challenging your ability to see what’s there, and act accordinly, requiring a combination of efficiency, concentration, creativity and manual skills.

At first you begin to develop the barest abilities to look at a blank or shaped board and read its contents. You learn to gaze across a plane of foam, form one angle then another, and see it as flat and true, tilted, bumped, dipped or what. You learn to distinguish between a low dip in a line as opposed to high spots on either side of a point on that line that creates the illusion of making that spot on either side of a point on that line that creates the illusion making that spot look low. You become capable of comparing the widths, tapers, and slopes of bands you’re cutting on either rail. You get to the point where you can step back and see enough in a shape to like it or not, for specific reasons rather than for gut feelings.

To be able to look at and read foam, you use shadow-casting lights and silhouette. The space you shape in must be large enough to allow you to step back from the shape and view it in its entirety. And the walls should be dark to form a contrasting backdrop for the white light reflecting foam. Lighting is used to create form-defining shadows. Shapers preferences for lighting setups vary between top lights, side lighting and combination of both.

Side lights have a tendency to create more readable shadows when a blank is flat on a shaping rack, while top lights have a tendency to fill in light and obscure shadow. Both side and top lights are generally made of eight-foot fluorescent light boxes, and their distance from the shaping rack, as well as elevation in relation to the blank on the rack, greatly affects the intensity and coverage of the light. Many shapers who prefer top lighting are in preferring not to see what they’re doing (what marks their tools are leaving) unless they shape the entire board in a vertical, on-edge position in the racks.

It takes shapers quite a few blanks from a particular mold to learn it qualities. By learning, I mean knowing at the start, without having to look, where the volume of foam is and where the flaws are (there have been good blanks, but never an absolutely perfect one). On a blank from a badly warped mold, you can spend fifteen minutes just straightening it out, and end up with such a reduced amount of foam that you have little choice as far as thickness, rocker and contour are concerned.

Merely being able to look at a blank and read it correctly can take up to a year or two of full-time effort. Basically, looking involves scanning the blank from many angles while comparing one longitudinal half to the other and seeing what’s there to work with. Initially everything looks the same, but after a few minutes you begin to see things.

The lines and planes a shaper’s looking at are the top line or deck from nose to tail, along the stringer and the outer portions of the deck both longitudinally and crosswise from nose to tail, and the same for the bottom. A shaper will also step back and look at the entire length of the blank edge on the thickness flow (flow of the volume between the top and bottom lines).

As a shaper learns to read lines and planes, he begins to see them as a series of straights comprising what seems to the untrained eye to be a curve. The task becomes one of converting these straights and the points where they meet into a flowing, true, evenly breaking curve. To remove a high point from a line means touching just that high point with your tool and not the low on either side (the same holds true for removing a low point). Since your tools are all planning on the existing surface, unless you’re merely duplicating or compounding your earlier mistakes.

Eight years ago, shapers were faced with making 10-foot boards out of 11-foot blanks. They had to remove tremendous amounts of foam and maintain large, true planes of bottom and deck while doing it. They also had to keep ten feet or more of rail line and contour the same on both sides.

The shapers who are still into it from this era are generally superior tool users and foam readers to those who started more recently in the short-board era, with blanks being very close. Plus, those old boards had 50-50 rails rather than the low-cornered ones of today that are much easier to read while shaping (Hynson’s no fool). To accomplish this massive foam removal, shapers developed individualized systems or sequences of things they did to a blank every time the same way in the same order. A truly flexible system could be adapted to any shape.

With slight alterations due to different tool preferences and blanks, etc., a system might go something like this: (1) Look at blank if major bumps, dips or glue-up are way off, correct with planner. (2) Draw outline and cut out and saw. (3) Adjust rocker and bottom and deck surfaces to proper thickness and flow. (note: this procedure can be done with step # 1 also.) (4) Band rails with planer (to begin with a series of bevels which break the rail curve into the deck). (5) Fine-contour rails and blend into bottom and deck with sureform. (6) Clean up center stringer and fine tune nose and tail with block plane. (7) Rough sand with block. (8) Screen rails. (9) Fine sand flats.

Through every step, you’re reading the blank and making adjustments and corrections. Shaping systems are constantly being evolved by the shaper. Basically, they are confined to the tool-use abilities the shaper has mastered. The advent of “production shaping” in the early to mid-60’s created master tool users who developed new techniques such as the use of power saws for outlining( which sounds scary, but was a break through in the sense that the more efficient the tool, the more perfect the cut), and power disk sanders for sanding flats and blending curves. The logic being, aside from speed, that the larger the surface you could effect in one pass, the fewer bumps you shape in.

It’s funny, but the common belief that the longer a shaper takes to do a board, the better it will be is more often than a fallacy. The whole idea in shaping is to touch the foam as little as possible in the most direct fashion with the most efficient tool. And that takes knowing at the beginning where you want to be at the end.

Templates are constantly evolving along with board theory. Basically, a shaper keeps revising a line he’s been working with for a long time, rather than designing an entirely new one each time. Using a template is another art in itself. From one template, many different outlines can be created by combining portions of one or more templates. Sometimes an outline on one side of a board represents the sum of three or four different sections of template all blended smoothly together. It can b tricky to duplicate such line on the other side of the blank.

The power planer is used to remove areas of foam from the decks and to carve tapered bands, the first step in turning the rails. You use a planer just as the name implies, planning the tool on its rear planning surfaces, holding the tool so that you’re cutting a controlled line with a controlled angles to the blank (which may want to change during the cut). Learning how to control the planer as you extend your arms without altering the angle of the planer, while adjusting the depth of bite the blade is taking, takes time. Learning how to swing the tail of the planer out when coming to a sharp upward curve so that the length of the planer doesn’t bridge the curve, inadvertently changing your angle of attack is another tricky and time consuming lesson to be learned. Many shapers cut their planers down to reduce this problem.

Saw are basically used for outlining. The whole art of using this tool is to remember you’re creating a curved, vertical plane (the thickness), not just cutting along a line. Here, ability is centered around holding the tool in a constant up and down attitude while following the line.

Sureform a grating tool about ten inches long and an inch or so wide. This is the crutch tool, the hardest to control accurately, as far as cutting surfaces goes, and the hardest to tell afterwards what you’ve actually done to the board. The sureform is properly used in a plane conscious way, rather than for scrubbing on spots. It’s used as a blending tool, and can cause a hell of a lot of bumps if you’re not delicate or try to attack a large surface of foam with it. Many shapers overuse the tool because it feels so direct and craftsy, but it’s a mistake.

Block plane, if you had to choose one hand tool with which to shape a board, this would be it. It’s easily controlled and leaves a nice, even surface, compared to a sureform. However, the block plane is basically used for flushing the center stringer and fine tuning the nose and tail. It’s also good for altering the top and bottom line of a rail band.

Sanding Block, you use a block (as big as you can control) whenever sanding so that you cover a large area with fewer strokes and with a constant angle and pressure. Sanding is used for blending, fine contouring rails and flats, and making minor corrections to nearly finished shape. Different grades of paper vary the cutting power and resultant smoothness.

Abrasive Screen, Potentially another crutch tool, the screen is primarily used for final smoothing and contouring of the edgeof the rails and into the decks four or five inches. A lot of shapers will try to do too much shaping with the screen because it tends to hide bumps by eliminating the ridge that casts the shadow. It won't take out bumps, for merely duplicates the surface it's pulled over.

Every shaper has his personal tool use habits, and frequently customizes his tools to fit his system. Learning to use all these tools to the degree that they don't hang you up is more involved than it may seem. For instance, learning to go both front side and backside with your planer is a necessity if you wish to shape your rails from tail to nose on both sides. If you don't, or can't, chances are they'll be different.

The entire shaping process calls for total concentration. Foam is very malleable and easy to contour, but also easy to ruin for the same reasons. The system that a shaper develops becomes a reflection of his efficiency and perceptiveness, a contest with himself to materially create that which he mentally envisions.

Surfboards are incredibly beautiful and functional sculptures. Part of their beauty lies in what they're designed to do: to slide down the face of an upward- flowing mass of water in a controlled fashion. But their forms exist aesthetically on their own artistic merit as well as on their usefulness. The surfer shaper who has earned, over a period of years, his ability to read foam and who has evolved a truly direct system and a flowing set of templates, is just that much further into the intrinsic values hidden within the sport of surfing. And we are the lucky ones who may plug into all that energy by merely riding his shape.

“In one art is zen used time and again-shaping for all the seasons.” Archipuni

Shaper Bing Copeland of
Bing Surfboards




Ben Aipa Velzyland 1974 photo Leroy Grannis


David Puu vertical off the Lip, photo Veronica Slavin


Bob McTavish traveling down the line 2007


Jim Phillips twin fin off the lip 80's, Michel Junod on the nose 00's both learned to shape from Carl "Tinker" West


Phil Edwards






George Greenough


Gene Cooper
Cooperfish Surfboards

The Shapers Tree