The surfboard shaper who marries creativity with craftsmanship.
When Stuart Paterson was a creatively minded young surfer growing up around Cronulla beach in the late 1970s, he naturally gravitated to the craft of surfboard making. Surfing was exploding as a subculture and the brightly sprayed boards of the eraappealed directly to his artistic inclinations.
“I liked music and art so I thought painting surfboards or doing album covers would be good jobs,” he recalls.
In his late teens, Stuart started working at the iconic G&S surfboard factory as a ding repairer and board sprayer, but as demand for boards in the busy factory increased, he was soon receiving an education in the multi-faceted craft of surfboard production.
Over four decades later Stuart has shaped over 14,000 boards and overseen thousands more. He is still in love with the whole process of making surfboards, and these days he has three full-time staff and two part-timers to help him make boards under his PCC (Paterson Contemporary Craft) label.
CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD
A visit to Stuart’s Caringbah showroom and shaping warehouse is a bit like visiting a lolly shop for grownups.
The narrow entrance door opens into a showroom where two long walls are decorated by a diverse array of surfcraft. These are nothing like the toothpaste-white boards that proliferate the racks of your typical surf store.
Instead the boards feature a dazzling array of colours and curious outlines – eye-catching resin tints, cut laps, pinlines, cloth underlays and abstract paint jobs are all on display. The compulsion to touch and feel them is irresistible.
With his mane of wavy, silver hair, paintsplashedattire and lively mind, Stuart has a wizard-like quality that is befitting of the almost magical aura that permeates his shaping bay.
While I’m standing in the showroom ogling the designs a new customer walks in. Overwhelmed by the eclectic mix of boards, he becomes that proverbial kid in the candy store.
“I’d like one of those, one of those and one of these,” he chuckles while pointing to different boards.
Perhaps some people have the same response when they wander into a car or motorbike showroom, but for surfers a space like this sends the imagination wild with possibilities. Each board suggests a slightly different kind of ride or experience.
MAX OUT
Surfers are always searching for a better board or a different sensation, so the sugarhit for a shaper like Stuart is seeing someone happy after a few rides on a board he’s made.
“The best reward is when you get any customer saying, ‘Oh, this board is so great. And I love it’. And you know when that comes from the heart.”
While Stuart gets just as much joy out of making a board for a beginner or an intermediate sur fer, he concedes it’s gratifying when an expert surfer rides one of his designs and takes it to an impossible realm. It’s a bit like engineering the car that puts Lewis Hamilton on the podium. Recently young Maroubra surfer, Max McGuigan, was aboard one of Stuart’s boards when a massive south swell unleashed its energy at the wave off Manly’s Fairy Bower, known ominously as ‘Deadman’s’.
After Max had broken his own board he borrowed one from a friend that happened to be made by Stuart.
The lurching wave swallowed Max whole. All he could do was trust in the board beneath his feet and hope it released him from its clutches after barrelling over his slim frame.
Afterwards many were calling it the best wave ever ridden at Deadman’s by a backsider (riding with his back to the wave) surfer.
“I spoke to Max about that wave, and for him to say that was the best wave of his his life, that’s pretty incredible,” explains Stuart.“The board got there serendipitously, but the moment is etched in time for him and for me.” Stuart and Max are now working on making a few boards together, and Stuart is releasing a big-wave shape inspired by the one Max rode and calling it the Deadman’s model.
CUTTING BACK
While the front of the warehouse is reserved for showing off the end product, out the back is where the magic really happens. Stuart’s warehouse is divided into separate rooms for the various steps in the process of board creation. “The actual shaping process combines a lot of geometry and imagination,” insists Stuart. “It’s a bit like an architectural drawing, but then you’re physically making the three-dimensional object…there’s a meshing of art with accuracy…the complexity of the shape takes some imagination to appreciate what you want to achieve.”
The glassing, where coats of dripping fibreglass mat are wrapped around the foam blank to provide strength and form, is messy and requires a delicate touch and attention to detail; particularly if a resin tint or design is being added to the board.
“To use the woven stuff that we use it’s such a fine, purpose-built process it sort of stands on its own,” explains Stuart.
Meanwhile, Stuart compares the final process – the sanding – to working on cars.
“Cutting back to finish and getting it perfect is a lot like automotive sanding and painting.”
SHAPE SHIFTER
In most sur fboard factories all three processes are treated like separate skills with specialists performing each task. Shaping is obviously the most prized skill, but Stuart likes his apprentices to be well practised in all phases of the construction process before they graduate to shaping boards.
“From my point of view, I needed to know the start-to-finish process.
“With other people I’ve taught, who’ve worked with me, they’ve all learned that similar way…all the aspects.”
In the modern era, the evolution of CNC shaping machines has dramatically changed the way surfboard manufacturing is conducted. When Stuart started out all the boards had to be hand-shaped from a foam blank, but these days the increasingly sophisticated machines can do much of the basic work for the shaper. According to Stuart, the machines have significantly increased the production capacity of shaping bays.
“Once upon a time a shaper was limited at, say, 25 boards a week. And that was going flat-out. Now one shaper can do a lot more.”
RETRO IS ACTIVE
While Stuart still respects the craft of hand shaping, the machine means there is far less wear and tear on his body.
“For me, personally, it’s given me longevity because I don’t get as much fatigue in my joints,” he insists.
In a competitive surfboard market finding a point of difference is critical. Stuart has embraced the renaissance of boards from different eras. For a long time surfers were only interested in high-performance boards that closely mimicked what was being ridden by the top professionals. However, in recent years there has been more of a yearning for craft from bygone eras, almost as if the surfboard could act as a kind of time machine, transporting the rider back to the feelings and mood from a different era.
“There’s an interest in characters from that time, and some sort of feeling that they want to experience, so they want to investigate what it was like to be of that time,” hypothesises Stuart.
One rack of boards in Stuart’s shaping bay is distinctly retro-themed, hosting everything from twin fins, Mini-Simmons and midlength hot-doggers, to asymmetricals and a selection of longboards.
“It’s a little bit like rock music,” continues Stuart. “You know, a lot of people love Led Zeppelin. They haven’t produced any music for years. But so many people still love it. I think there was a time where the cutting edge of performance was leading the way, whereas now, it’s like it’s okay to look back.”
INSTA
Now a master of his craft, Stuart hasn’t let go of his artistic leanings and derives much of his pleasure from adding unique paintings and distinctive designs to the boards he custom designs for his clientele. Some are content to let him freeform while others have specific shapes, images or designs in mind.
“Sometimes if you don’t know what you want, I’m saying, ‘Well, why don’t you give me a colour?’”
The paint jobs vary widely from board to board and can swing between classically recognisable sur f-style patterns to experiments in modernism. I spy one particularly eye-catching shortboard on the rack; its colours are a dramatic fusion of black and orange that resemble some kind of interstellar explosion.
“That’s the Space Jaffa,” quips Patto, nailing the name of his creation.
Instagram has proven to be an effective medium for showcasing his work and the carefully curated account @pccboards delivers a snapshot of his enchanting shapes and painted boards.
UNIQUE IN A PROCESSED WORLD
Ultimately, Stuart Paterson has fashioned a unique life, one which marries the knowledge and industry of a craftsman with the creative sensibilities of an artist.
The product of his labours are aesthetically pleasing, bespoke sur fboards which transport the rider to a state of ecstasy asthey fly across a wave. His preference for custom-made designs and shapes means surfers know the craft beneath their feet is made entirely for them and no one else.
In a world filled with mass-produced products it’s refreshing to know you can spend around $1000 on a board by PCC and end up with something totally unique.