Bird Huffman has cultivated a gem like no other to house one of the most exhaustive collections of surfboards on this planet. He calls his trove Bird’s Surf Shed, and it’s open to the public to enjoy in San Diego, California. We caught up with Eric “Bird” Huffman to learn more about what motivates his passions. The Inertia: The Definitive Voice of Surf, Mountain, and Outdoors // http://www.theinertia.com
Originally Posted: Dec.9th 2016
Words By Eric “Bird” Huffman
I was born in San Diego, California on April 17th, 1957. I was the fourth child of Robert & Marion Huffman. By the time my folks stopped having kids there were nine of us in total. I have five sisters and three brothers. My folks loaded up the old Studebaker, hitched on a wooden trailer, and headed west to check out California, leaving the cold and snow of Minnesota. After their car broke down at Mission Bay, they planted their roots and decided to call San Diego home.
My mom was into the beach and La Jolla Cove was her SPOT. She would load the kids into our old Plymouth and hit The Cove as many times a week as possible. As the family grew, a Volkswagen van became the preferred mode of transportation. For as long as I can remember the beaches of San Diego have been like a home to me. We all grew up with the ocean being in our lives, so wave riding of some sort was pretty much a given. Styrofoam boards, hard rental rafts, skim boards, belly boards, etc… everything was part of the quiver. Whatever we could get our hands on we would ride… and let’s not forget about the many hours spent bodysurfing. The ocean was everything to us as a family.
Growing up in Mission Hills (which is about 3 miles from the beach), the winter beach days were far less frequent. It was a bummer, but we had no wetsuits to keep us warm so we just had to deal with it. As my two brothers grew older they both started to ride kneeboards. Kneeboards are shorter and easier to transport which is a good thing when you’re peddling on a bike 3 or 4 miles each way to the beach. At that point in time they cost a whole lot less that a surfboard so it just made sense. The boards we rode were basically like belly boards that could be ridden on your knees. Mark and Rex started to get into it and were able to infiltrate a group of young kneeboarders who surfed at Sunset Cliffs and some of the La Jolla areas that most stand up surfers feared to tread. Being the little brother I was constantly under-foot looking for rides to the beach and, more importantly, my own equipment.
We all continued to grow and so did kneeboarding as a sport. Special shapes were being built by some of our fellow kneeboarders as well as a few regular surfboard shapers. Most our boards were built out of garages of friends and surfers we met at the beach At that time, a 3rd-quality blank from Mitch’s Surf Shop in La Jolla was only $5. Resin, fiberglass, fins, buckets etc only cost a few dollars more. Add in $10 for the shaper fee and you were in the water. Sounds cheap, right? Not so fast. Paper routes paid poorly back then and doing yard work took away from your time in the water, not-to-mention that a boards lifespan was short, as the quality of construction was poor and NO leashes were even thought of at that time.
At that point in my life all I wanted was good equipment and that was pretty how I got into the Surf Biz in the first place. There were very few surf shops in San Diego at the time and boards were not cheap. By sheer luck, a neighbor up the street owned the coolest surf shop in town. Select Surf Shop and its owner Phil Castagnola were everything that was cool about surfing at the time. They had the best boards and the heaviest locals. On any given day at the Select there was hot chicks and cold beers, plenty of smokes and other sorts of contraband. It was for sure where I wanted to be.
Phil knew EVERYONE and the shop was like a Mecca that drew all the core faithful through its doors. Enter a surf-stoked 13 year-old Catholic school kid and the game was on. I would work for nothing; cleaning, running errands etc… just for a chance to hang out and get a ride home. Over time, I became a payable employee but not a coin was exchanged as all funds I acquired were invested back into the best equipment I could get my hands on.
At first it was just some better quality used stuff, then as I started getting new gear at TEAM pricing, it got better and better. I soaked up all the information and made all the connections I could. As time went on I was lucky enough to know and work with countless first-rate board builders and world-class surfers.
Shapers like Bill Caster, Skip Frye, Hank Warner, Stevie Lis, and Gary Goodrum all became friends and mentors to me. Surfers like Chris O’Rourke, Dale Dobson, Tim Lynch, Gary Keating, etc… would talk story and share surf tips with me regularly. Over the 10-year period that I worked and managed Select Surf Shop there was never a dull moment. There were times that Big Phil owed so much money to people that I was afraid that somebody would come in and beat it out of him.
On more than a few occasions when it looked like that was going to happen Phil would work his magic, calm the person down AND then borrow even more money from them! Such was Phil’s way. The ultimate conman/salesman/hero and friend that always had a smile on his face. I learned and saw things at Select that sent me down the road of life well prepared for what lay ahead.
At the very end of 1979..maybe early 1980, I was approached by Jeff Junkins to manage a great shop at La Jolla Shores called La Jolla Surf Systems. At first I was hesitant to make the move. Surf Systems was everything that Select wasn’t. It was well funded, well stocked, and very commercial and big brand oriented. Not only would my paycheck triple from what I was making at Select, I would actually get the money. After a bit of soul searching I made the move and “sold out” as I was often reminded by some of the older crew who I looked up to.
I soon settled in to a rocky few years at Surf Systems. It was made quite complicated by a co-owner who was often hammered or was high as a kite on any one or several illegal substances. I did manage to learn quite a bit about buying and stocking a full-service surf shop and I also continued to meet all the major players in this fast-growing industry. At around the two-year mark at Surf Systems I couldn’t take any more of the drama that was going on between the owners and I up and quit. It was the first and only time that I was not working in the surf industry in my entire life. But that wouldn’t last for long.
After a few months of planning and scraping some money together, I partnered with Bill Caster and Ernie Higgins (who was Bill’s Glasser at the time and a former manager at Select.). We opened up Windansea Beach an’ Surf in 1983 on the corner of Bonair street and La Jolla boulevard, just a block up the street from the legendary surf break Windansea. Rent was only $125/month with all the waves you could catch within walking distance. It was tight from the get-go. We were vastly under-capitalized and trying hard to compete with a growing number of well-established surf shops in the area. It was a hard fought battle to survive.
All that I had learned from the past years from Phil at Select and from JLJ at Surf Systems was not enough to make success a sure thing. Now I needed to meet and deal with the upper management of the surf industry. Most everybody is your friend when you work at a surf shop, but it’s a whole different story when you own one. Even after knowing quite a few of the major players from throughout the industry, I had to pay my dues. It would be years before I could become a dealer for a lot of the key brands.
As the years passed by and business would come in and go and by 1990 the economy was once again in a bad way and my partners wanted out of the business. Recessions and trends would come and go and running a surf shop never got any easier. I was still meeting and working with all of the best people involved in the surf biz and new things were learned everyday but still I knew things could be better. I liquidated whatever I could and borrowed a chunk of money so that I could buy out the partners and struggle on as a surf shop owner. Those were some rough but wonderful years spent in our Pacific Beach location at the foot of Crystal Pier. Skip Frye shared a door on the side of my shop and a great community evolved over the years.
In late ’91 I struck up a conversation with Rob Ard who owned one of best surf shops in OB called South Coast. He was closing down his inland store and wanted to concentrate his interest back at the beach areas. We struck up a test market plan where I would market and sell South Coast Surfboards and clothing in my Pacific Beach location to see if there was a market for his product. After a trial period time of approximately a year a plan was made to partner up with one of Rob’s old managers, Erich Tramonti, and turn Windansea Beach an’ Surf into South Coast-Windansea. While That venture was another pivotal step in my growth as a business owner, It was difficult to unlearn all I had up until that point. I was and always will be a surfboard lover and my focus will always be loyal to that first and foremost. By the time 2011 rolled around, I was ready to go solo and go “Back to the Future.” I turned my old quonset hut where i used to store my collection of boards into Bird’s Surf Shed.It was a leap of faith, but I knew in my heart that it needed to happen, for my own sanity and for my love of what started it all…The Surfboard.
So now, after almost 50 years working in the surf industry, I have my own store and I continue to make sure that I always have the best equipment available. My commitment to surfing has never been stronger and I couldn’t be more thankful to be where I am today. I continue to meet new people on a daily basis and learn more about how to cater the business to what my customers want, and most of all, I enjoy giving back to the surf community which has given me so much.
Thank you all and Best Regards,
Bird
Original Post: May 29, 2018
“Everything rides,” says Bird Huffman of Bird’s Surf Shed. “You should expand your surfing horizons and capabilities.” “Everything Rides” should maybe take over the “Ride Anything” moniker for our zeitgeist of board experimentation. Way cooler of a phrase. And hey, Bird gets it. One look at the smorgasbord of surfboards in the Shed tells you that. Speaking of which, for this episode of Shed Sessions, Bird picked about as random an assortments of boards as you could imagine, most of which are from North County, San Diego shapers. A bonzer from Leucadia wizard Gary Hanel. A progressive late ’60s single fin log from Don Hansen. A squirty little 5’2″ fish from Sunset Surf Shop’s Ed Wright. Even tossed in a flex-tail thingie as a non-North County wildcard from Allan Gibbons, a legendary figure who ghost shaped for Al Merrick for a long time, just to throw an even odder board into the mix. We sent Joel Tudor, Derrick Disney, Jake Marshall, and Duran Barr out to put ’em through their paces. Bird was right. Everything does ride. Here’s the quiver for this episode: Gary Hanel Bonzer 6’3″ x 19 1/2″ x 2 5/8″ Don Hansen “Hustler” 9’6″ x 22 3/4″ x 3 1/8″ Sunset Fish 5’2″ x 21″ x 2 3/4″ Alan Gibbons “Reflex”: 6’0″ x 19 1/2″ x 2 1/2″
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In today’s episode Scott Bass chats with Eric “Bird” Huffman about growing up in San Diego, his love of surfboards, and the impetus for creating Bird’s Surf Shed, a veritable interactive (surfable) museum of surfboard design archive and history.
Opened in 2011, Bird’s Surf Shed is owned and curated by lifelong surfer and San Diego local, Bird Huffman. The Quonset hut’s 1,800 square feet are generously packed with gear, stoke-inspired swag and surf-history gold. A multitude of rare and collectible boards cover every square inch of the arched ceilings.
Beyond boasting the most diverse collections of new and eclectic boards, as well as everything imaginable for your paddle out, the Shed is the place for some of San Diego’s most epic events. Film premiers, fundraisers, community gatherings, even grad parties are all part of the Shed experience.
Click the link below to give a listen to Bird as he describes his road “The Shed.”
One of our favorite Shed Sessions ever. Watch the legendary Matt Archbold and Taylor Knox take apart Lowers on two 25 year old boards from the Sheds library of boards. Some of the turns on the old Frye fish are among the best you will ever see.
posted originally on Dec. 19th 2016
A local San Diego shaping icon, Mabile is the picture definition of local-boy does good. Decades of grinding out his following in all countries of the world, Larry Mabile has become one of the most diverse and sought after shapers in the world today. Learning his craft early on as a Surfboard glasser and eventual protege to Skip Frye during the Select Surf Shop era, Mabile has and still is the workhorse for brands like G&S, Xanadu and currently Sharp Eye. On the side he still shapes boards under his own label and splits time between San Diego and his second home on Baja Sur. His boards are featured in the Surf Shed every time he comes back into town. So if you see them on the site or on the floor, dont wait. They will be sold in a matter of days.
The following is an excerpt from John Durrant from the Surfers Journal article: The Shaper Series
Inland – far from the bright, sunny beaches where everybody surfs – is another world where surfboards are made. Surfboards are beautiful, clean sculptural objects. Surfboard factories are not. A surfboard factory usually has a small front office with battered furniture. Scattered piles of dog-eared surf magazines sit covered in a fine layer of polyurethane dust. Just down the hall, racks of unshaped foam blanks wait to be roughed out. There will be glassing racks splattered with bright catalyzed resin; bolts of fiberglass will be wall mounted and the air will be heavy with the scent of polyurethane resin. But the heart of the surfboard factory – the heart of surfing itself is the shaping room.
A shaping room is a small, controlled area where a shaper sculpts foam, by hand, into a finished surfboard. The rooms themselves are tiny: usually eighteen feet by seven or eight feet wide. Side lighting is essential so a set of longitudinal florescent fixtures will be wall mounted at waist level. In that respect almost all shaping rooms are the same, but that’s where the similarities end. Shapers are individualists – no two will pick the same wall color or rack height; no two will use the same tools or have the same templates. No two will start or finish a surfboard exactly the same way.
The way surfboards are made is changing. Computer numerated cutting machines are common and now most of the boards you can buy in a surf shop or at the mall are created via digital software or mass-produced in Asia. A small number of die hards continue to shape boards by hand, one at a time, but every year that number dwindles as the overhead and costs of making a board by hand diminishes the profit margin.
-John Durant