SURFBOARD SHAPING | LISBON CROOKS We are not surfers, at least not the ones you are use to

 

Lisbon Crooks are small surfboard shapers from Portugal’s capital and bring back the good ol’ times when surfing still was punkrock. An edgy, alternative way of life, that wasn’t about pleasing everybody or earning shitloads of money. That stands for being true to yourself, loving what you do and share the stoke with a bunch of saltwater-crazy buddies. With slogans like “we are not surfers, we are wave lovers” the Crooks are distancing themselves from today’s mainstream with its billion-dollar surf industry, big brands, uber hip people and elitarian line ups. Instead, they just make fantastic boards and celebrate their surf counter culture.

We met Mr. Benga and Alfredo – the two tattooed and very friendly Lisbon Crook founders – several times in Portugal. To chat, to drink, and to shape what is now one of our favorite boards. The guys have different names, but prefer using alter egos, because, as they say, shapers shouldn’t take themselves too seriously. Luckily, we still could convince them to do this interview and tell us more about their very entertaining story – from the early (not always legal) beginnings to the feisty way they do business today.

Enjoying surf life, not stereotypes: (1) Alfredo and (2) Mr. Benga from Lisbon Crooks

(1) Lisbon Crooks: From Kooks to Surfboard Shapers

Hi guys, great to have you! Tell us a bit more about Lisbon Crooks – what’s the story behind your brand?

Mr. Benga: I started surfing really late, in my 30s, after I couldn’t play football anymore because of injury. That was over 10 years ago. I remember that I looked for a surfboard, but could only find the “cool” surf shops, with expensive boards and people working there being kind of intimidating. So I asked my friend Alfredo to shape me a surfboard by hand – it was rather bad, a super fat and crooked potato 😉 I couldn’t offer him money, but build his website instead. That was the beginning of the Lisbon Crooks.

The Lisbon Crooks were founded with the idea of making surfboards for friends and people that didn’t feel like stereotypical surfers. The truth is that the surf industry is very narrow, and we are all a lot more than that!

ALFREDO, LISBON CROOKS

Alfredo: There was nothing that really represented the way we see things and look at surfing. With Lisbon Crooks, we wanted to give an opportunity to all kinds of people to get a surfboard for an affordable price – and just like they imagined it. We came a long way since those early years, but the feeling and the passion for the ocean and doing things different is still the same. Today we are shaping our surfboards in a professional surfboard factory at the Costa Caparica – together with a team that has over 30 years of experience.

 

Lisbon Crooks: How did you come up with that very particular name?

Alfredo: Our Australian friend Jamie just called me that, because of an old story about me as a teenage kid. I grew up in a neighborhood called Casal Ventoso, that doesn’t exist anymore. It was more or less like a slum in the outskirts of the city of Lisbon. We used to play football all day, but somehow, I had this obsession to the ocean. The first time I saw someone riding a wave, I knew I had to do it too.

Having no money for a surfboard, my only thought was going to the “rich kids town” and get one “borrowed” – I was 13 years old and not a particularly good boy. So I took the train to Cascais and came back home with a board under my arm. I covered it up in paint and went to the beach again. That was the beginning of the Lisbon Crooks. Nowadays, I can’t even steal an orange on the grocery store anymore 😉

ALFREDO, LISBON CROOKS

Busted: The only thing Alfredo is getting caught for today is tanning and surfing

Besides you two guys and your colleagues in the surfboard factory, who else is part of Lisbon Crooks?

Mr. Benga: We seem to make friends easily 😉 No honestly, we like to meet new people and build relationships. That is why we have lots of buddies and ambassadors around the globe. For example, one guy in Japan invited Alfredo over after only one encounter and showed him everything. Later we reciprocated by being equally hospitable in Portugal. With the Germans, the “Hamburg connection” is especially strong: First Tim from Kb. Klaubauter introduced us to the Saltwater Shop, then we organized a surf retreat together in Lisbon, and in 2019 met at the Vans & Waves Surf Festival in Denmark.

Alfredo: Everyone who has a surfboard or a T-Shirt from the Crooks is part of the gang. Crooks are everywhere and they love wine!

What do you love about surfboard shaping and doing custom shapes?

Alfredo: The possibility of making someone else’s dream about a surfboard come true. That was what motivated us from the beginning, and it’s still true!

It always makes me happy to make a surfboard for someone that dreamed about it. Even if it’s a pink surfboard with yellow dots, it will be definitely the best surfboard in the world for that person! This is why we do it. To know that for the customer, there will be no better feeling than putting their dream board in the water for the first time!

ALFREDO, LISBON CROOKS

Chris aka Mr. Meerdavon after his first session with the Lisbon Crooks fish

You cannot live from Lisbon Crooks alone (yet) and also have other jobs, like freelance design or tourism tours. How is the business developing?

Alfredo: We manage doing some things besides Lisbon Crooks, helping others with their own projects. Gladly we have friends and people that believe in what we are doing, and they have been supporting us a lot. We sold a few more boards and some silly t-shirts that our friends were always asking for. The truth is that we are very happy, because we are doing what we believe in, and everyone who buys from us is helping to achieve that feeling. We thank you and love you all!

Alfredo loves making surfboards – and surfing them as well

Mr. Benga: We are selling a handful of boards per month, mainly to foreign people from Germany and other countries. It’s tough to sell our surfboards in Portugal. On a testing festival, one local guy observed the boards, estimated the quality and then bought quietly. What I mean by that is that Portuguese people are not the biggest talkers, which makes giving shopping advice more difficult.

I also have the impression that some locals don’t value Portuguese work enough. They rather go for famous brands from America and Australia. That’s how I came up with the slogan “We are not from California” – after having noticed that one of the more prominent Portuguese shapers proudly presented a big and expensive shaping machine from the USA. It was funny when a handicapped surfer – whom we support with boards ­– wore a tshirt with exactly this slogan when he went to a surf contest in the USA 😉

BENGA, LISBON CROOKS

Mr. Benga: Support especially amongst local businesses is really important. For example, we give out surfboards to friends in surf houses at the Costa Caparica or on the Azores – for us it’s marketing, and their guests have good rides.

(2) Lisbon Crooks: Bringing honesty back to surfboard making

Sometimes you say online “our surfboards are the worst” which doesn’t sound like the best sales argument. Can you explain your intentions behind this funny slogan?

Alfredo: Well, the truth is that shapers and most of the surf industry is all about big egos and who is the best. For us, by saying we make the worst surfboards, we are also saying that we are not part of this surf industry. Fuck egos and who is the best! I normally say that we make surfboards for the smart and interesting people around.

We are very happy to know that there are some cool people out there, that are buying a surfboard and not a big penis.

ALFREDO, LISBON CROOKS

Benga: The Crooks stand for an alternative approach to surfing. A counter culture that doesn’t want to take surfboard shaping too seriously, or glorify it with big marketing talk like big brands usually do. It’s only a surfboard, for god’s sake, and everybody could shape that! In the end, a board is a board, and shapers all do more or less the same. The big shots let customers often pay an obscene amount of money only for their name, even though they use cheap blanks and produce in China or Taiwan. That’s vulgar!

You like to make fun of big surf brands and even have a board called “Hipocrita” – a clever pun on a very famous competitor model. Why should people go for a smaller brand like yours instead?

Alfredo: Well if you can be with Al Merrick or Hayden, go ahead and make a board with them, and have a beer too! Just don’t get something you think they are making personally, and then wonder when it comes from somewhere else, and they didn’t even know who you are.

Relying on smaller brands, you can actually have a close relation with the people that are shaping your surfboard. And this is what we should aim for, not only with surfboards, but clothing, vegetables, shoes and so on. Especially if a product is coming from someone we don’t even know or can’t see smiling happily when you are getting it from them – shop consciously, shop less and consume less.

ALFREDO, LISBON CROOKS

Alfredo: We don’t want to be a big surfboard brand, because we think that producing and consuming less is the key for ourselves and for the environment. The planet is full of shit already! We don’t believe in stocks, and we never wanted to produce too many boards, or more than you need. So we just do custom surfboards by order and only have ten surfboards available for test, rent and exchange – as well as some second hand boards.

Mr. Benga painting our new fish – by hand and free style

You seem to like wild paint and graffiti designs as part of your surf counter culture. Tell us where that comes from!

Alfredo: Growing up in the 80s and 90s, I think that was a reality for all of us: Spray cans, walls and trains. Our boards reflect a bit of that “just do it” attitude” – quick and cool. We don’t think too much about painting our boards, it just comes with the natural feeling of putting some color on them. But I have to admit that wine influences more than graffiti nowadays 😉

Mr. Benga: When we grew up in poor neighborhoods in Lisbon, it was still common being robbed and fight in the streets. Maybe that’s also explaining a little bit where the “tough guy image” with graffiti and feisty quotes is coming from 😉

Is your design also inspired by music? To make a guess, I would say it’s punkrock… Right?

Alfredo: We listen to everything, but obviously punkrock influenced us a lot growing up and working. But good Jazz and some classical music are good for the soul, too! We are very eclectic in our music choices and of course, Fado is sometimes also part of our beach soundtrack.

(3) Lisbon Crooks: Surf life and other passions

Apart from being busy with surfboard shaping, how would you guys spend the perfect day?

Alfredo: Starting the day at 7am with a surf session for 3 hours, next go and buy some fresh fish for barbeque for lunch with plenty of wine, followed by a nap outside in the shade. Then afternoon football match at the beach, and a last surf session until the sun goes down. Dinner out at a small Portuguese family restaurant and going for drinks at night. All this with friends, of course! A perfect day for us, that we are making happen quite often.

Once we thought about a name for a new surfboard shape during lunch, and the wine was flowing already for the guys (I am not drinking though). So the model named “Vinasa” was born!

MR. BENGA, LISBON CROOKS

Perfect day in the Crooks universe: Good food and surf, shared with friends

Mr. Benga: Good food is always very important in Portugal, preferably at small places around the corner, with a menu of fish or meat, as well as a nice glass of wine, beer… or in my case, Cola.

You are both from Lisbon, even though Alfredo is living in Porto now. Do you have favorite places to hang out?

Alfredo: Anywhere that has the ocean nearby is a good place to hang out, and in Portugal we can complain about a lot of things, but not about this one. The ocean is our backyard!

Your boards and shirts carry slogans like “surfers are suckers” – a message to the scene?

Alfredo: We really love everyone, but we just wished surfers could think a little bit more. The surf industry is really controlled by big corporations that just push stuff down your throat and take advantage of individuals to sell you the lifestyle. By using slogans like “surfers are suckers” we want you to stop obeying to commercialism and just think about being yourself when you go out in the ocean.

“I’m not a surfer, I’m a wave lover” states one of your new shirts. What’s the difference between those two?

Alfredo: The first one has a stupid competitive face and is destroying the waves, the second one is smiling while making love to the waves 😉

How do you personally regard the development of the surf scene?

Alfredo: It’s sad that we have more and more performance shortboards in the water. There is more competition happening the line up, and stupid people frequenting the ocean who want to be the next Medina. It sometimes looks like everyone is there to get a good score! We can’t wait for more wave pools to be built everywhere, so those suckers who don’t seem to love the ocean very much can get away from it.

Build more wave pools please, and the ocean will be a better place for wave love making 😉

ALFREDO, LISBON CROOKS

Wave love making: Sometimes it’s fun, sometimes it hurts

Last but not least: What kind of boards to you guys ride?

Alfredo: I love retro shapes in general – anything that rides smoothly.

Mr. Benga: Personally, I don’t like the stereotypical thruster as well, but rather single fins, twin fins or quads. I’m also more the fun guy in the water 😉

Thanks for the interview, Alfredo and Mr. Benga, and also for letting us visit you at the surfboard factory.

If you also want to get in touch with Lisbon Crooks, write them an email, talk via Instagram or meet them at their small concept store in Lisbon’s LX Factory! But before you go – give them a shout, they might be surfing

Meet the guy who makes cardboard surfboards

 

Over eight million tonnes of plastic enters the ocean each year, with many calling for those who do water sports to be more mindful of it.

One way to do this is to use recyclable, eco-friendly materials. For some it may come as a surprise that cardboard surfboards do exist and are completely useable, they’re just not very commonly seen in the outdoors.

Mount Maunganui local and iOS developer Chris Hetem decided to try his hand at following online instructions and create a cardboard surfboard.

Though the material of choice seems counterintuitive (water and cardboard don’t mix well) the polyurethane coating and fibreglass layer around the outside of the board seals the cardboard in and makes it watertight.

Hetem has also been experimenting with replacing some of the fibreglass with flax cloth.

Check out our Q&A with him about the design process below.

How common are cardboard surfboards in New Zealand? Where did you first hear about them?

I don’t believe cardboard surfboards are very common at all, whether that’s in New Zealand or elsewhere. They’ve been around for a while and there’s a few variations of them, but they’re still pretty rare to see. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen one ‘in the wild’ – just occasionally on social media. I first heard about them maybe two years ago and it’s something I’ve wanted to try making myself since then.

What is the purpose/advantage of a cardboard surfboard as an alternative material? Are they more environmentally friendly?

The main drawcard for me is the environmental friendliness and recyclability of it. Traditional surfboards are made from polyurethane foam and more recently EPS foam (expanded polystyrene aka styrofoam). Polyurethane is a highly toxic material both for the person using it and for the environment when it eventually ends up in the landfill. EPS isn’t quite as bad and can actually be recycled (though it often isn’t) and there are even surfboard blanks you can get that are made from recycled styrofoam which is really cool to see happening in the surf industry. Cardboard though is widely accepted at recycling facilities and often times compostable. So, the main benefit of using cardboard is less toxicity for the builder and the environment as a whole. That said, it’s still wrapped in fibreglass and saturated with an epoxy resin so there’s still room for improvement.

They also have quite a unique look about them, almost like beeswax. Is this one of the drawcards of them?

The look of them is definitely unique as you’ve said and is certainly a drawcard. They’re not completely see-through but with the sun shining behind them it’s really amazing to see the transparency of it and the internal honeycomb structure.

How do they differ in comparison to a normal fibreglass board?

The only real difference is the core material. As mentioned, traditional surfboards are made from polyurethane or EPS foam. So the cardboard replaces the foam, but the rest remains the same.

What instructions were you following?

The instructions came from Mike Sheldrake. He’s got a few different surfboard models, but the process is pretty much the same for all of them. The first step is to use various CAD designs to laser cut cardboard into over 100 little pieces. You then put these together, sort of like a puzzle, and form the skeleton of the board. Next comes the glassing, but since the board is hollow the first lamination needs to be done with a paintbrush rather than just the resin being poured on as would normally happen. The hollow nature of the board doesn’t allow for that so a slow, patience-testing process of painting on the first layer is needed. Once the first layer is down and you’ve got a solid board, you can finish it off as you would any other board. The instructions from Mike Sheldrake may seem a little confusing or overwhelming at first, but are actually pretty detailed and helpful once you get into it. You can find more info about each of the steps here.

What were some of the challenges faced along the way?

There were quite a few challenges I faced, starting right from the beginning. Finding someone with a laser cutter that was willing to cut cardboard was the first obstacle. Turns out most laser cutters around here (Mount Maunganui) are industrial sized lasers and are built for cutting wood, steel, and other “tough” materials. Basically, they would’ve burned right through the cardboard. The other obstacles I faced came mostly from glassing the board. I’ve never actually glassed a board before, so that alone was an obstacle. I spent plenty of time reading up and watching videos on how to do it which definitely helped, but there’s no comparison to hands on experience. The fact that the board is hollow certainly didn’t make it any easier either.

The trickiest parts I’d say were each of the tips (nose and tail) and the fins. Unfortunately when doing the first lamination I didn’t completely cover the tips of the tail, so patching those without any support from what would normally be foam was really tricky. Putting in the fin boxes was also a tricky one. Normally you would route out the foam and have a nice snug fit for the fin box to sit in, but that wasn’t the case here as it is mostly hollow. I ended up cutting away bits of cardboard with a knife and using extra fibreglass and resin to help reinforce it. It seemed to do the trick with keeping the fin boxes in place, but I’ve definitely got ideas about how I’d do it differently next time. Or maybe glass-ons are the way to go.

How did it go when you took it out for a ride? Any hiccups?

The first ride started out really well! The board paddled and caught waves just fine and was really fast and fun with great maneuverability. Shortly into my surf though I realized a bit of water being taken on. I quickly got out and drained it really well and luckily the cardboard was still fully intact. It turns out there were little tiny pinholes near the fin boxes that were pretty much invisible, but just big enough to let water slowly seep in. I just let it dry out for a few days, patched it up, and got back out there. It seemed to go much better the next couple times around, but eventually gave way again at the fins and unfortunately I ended up taking on too much water this time around with the cardboard getting too wet to maintain its strength. I owe this major hiccup more to my being a beginner at glassing more so than the durability of the cardboard. It’s all part of the process though and I’ve learned a lot since then.

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Uma publicação partilhada por Chris Hetem (@chrishetem)

What other alternative materials and designs have you been experimenting with for surfboards?

Besides using cardboard, a more ‘traditional’ board I’d make would consist of a bio-based epoxy resin, EPS foam (preferably recycled), and I’d replace some of the fibreglass with another type of cloth such as flax cloth. I’ve got my eyes set on other materials such as paulownia and cork which you see being used more and more. I’ve also considered messing around with 3D printing fins using an algae-based filament, but haven’t had a chance to dive into that one yet. Beyond that, I’m just trying to keep an open mind about different materials that can be used and different ways to reduce the carbon footprint of each board. There’s some amazing stuff happening around the world that with just a little bit of extra effort can keep heaps of waste from going to landfill.

Will you be creating cardboard surfboards for anyone else in the near future, or thought about turning this into a business?

I don’t intend to be making cardboard surfboards on a regular basis, but if anyone were interested I’d certainly be willing to supply a kit for the DIY board builder. It was such a blast to make and I’d definitely recommend it for a fun project if you’ve got some spare time. It’s just such a cool looking board and you really can’t beat surfing a board you’ve built yourself!


What do you do as a day job, and does this relate at all to the surfboards or is that more of a passion project?

My day job is as an iOS app developer and I do the occasional web design/development project as a freelancer, so this doesn’t really relate to that very much at all. Surfing has always been a passion of mine though and this is where a lot of my free time gets spent. I’ve only just recently got into building surfboards, but am loving every minute of it. Combining the use of modern technology, friendlier materials, and a more sustainable building process seems to be a nice convergence of my technical background, love for surfing and the ocean, and the amazing feeling of working with your hands when it’s not typically part of your day-to-day.

Twin Pin

Video from Slippery Saltwater Chronicles.
A few years back Kahana Kalama rode a twin pin shaped by local shaper, Jeff McCallum, for Kookbox Surfboards. The board became a staple in Kahana's quiver and he has always been fond of the form & function that the twin pin model provides.

Last month Kahana shaped his very first surfboard. Inspired by the unique shape of the twin pin model developed by the Mirandon brothers of La Jolla, CA in the late 1960s, Kahana tried his hand at creating a similar craft for the looming summer sessions at San Diego's beach breaks.

To see Kahana's first session on his twin pin shaped by Jeff McCallum visit : (www.vimeo.com/49556355)

Animations : Justin Elwell (www.instagram.com/justin_elwell)

Film & Edit : Evan Schell (www.evanschell.com)