The California Underground is more than a concept. It’s a living, breathing network of the unsung heroes, the irreplaceable craftsmen who have dedicated their lives to this craft. It’s the shapers, laminators, hot coaters, sanders, pinline and polishers. The ones that build the boards and let the rest of us dance on water. These people rarely seek credit but deserve a spotlight. They do this work for the love of it, for the pursuit of precision, and for the culture it feeds. They are the invisible architects of surf progression, making up the backbone of surf culture.
It’s a scene filled with pioneers of tradition and creative renegades refining new theories. This is where homage meets evolution, where the line between a craftsman and an artist blurs. The ghost shapers that scrub out thousands of CNC cuts a year. The ones who clock out after midnight with resin on their hands and foam in their hair. These people are shaping how we tune into the ocean’s frequency. I realized I was part of the California Underground once my eyes were opened to the fact that many of my role models were names few surfers recognized. Some of the most talented shapers I’d ever meet, legends in my eyes, were just local craftsmen to those outside of the surf world. They didn’t have marketing teams or logos splashed across the internet. Their work wasn’t trendy; it was timeless. That’s when I understood: this was the underground.
My first mentor was Dan O’Hara of Solid Surfboards. He let me hang around, sweep up the factory, do QC work, dig through reject blanks, and shape some boards. He ran more high-key operations than most of these other guys. After putting in countless early mornings and late nights, Dan eventually gave me the reins to manage the factory. That meant servicing and running the CNC machine when needed, ordering materials, and jumping in on production when required. Sometimes, that would be laminating, hotcoating, sanding, QC work, or even packing and shipping. By the time I left working for Dan, I had scrubbed thousands of cuts. That period built my technical chops, gave me the experience and skills to work under other craftsmen, and reaffirmed my commitment to keeping my label hand-shaped and low-volume. I will forever be grateful to see Dan’s hustle and to have been given the opportunity of a lifetime to work under him.
The deeper I got into the craft, the more I met the true lifeblood of this culture. Jay Novak and Hank Warner were the first underground shapers I met; they were finish shaping for Solid Surfboards at the time. They quietly were building boards for multiple labels, seeking no recognition. Yet again, they were names I had heard while growing up and had a deep respect for. Then there was Joe Bauguess, “Mr. Mini Simmons,” a radical, particular, and calculated shaper. Always leaving the shaping room cleaner than he found it. He was one of the first people to allow me to watch him shape. Guys like Josh Hall and Michael Miller are now well-regarded and pushing Skip Frye’s design legacy. Even with their top-tier surfboards, they belong to the California underground. Local craftsmen like Larry Mabile, Stu Kenson and Bob Mitsven carry similar yet unique DNA, being incredibly refined and influential, yet largely unsung. I once made a channel bottom that had a super narrow pin tail, and I was really bummed with how the fin boxes had to be set because of the angle of the channels. I tracked down Stu and picked his brain for maybe 20 minutes, and the amount I learned in that short conversation was invaluable. Many of my encounters with these craftsmen have been brief yet have taught me so much. Years after meeting Jay Novak, I was renting a bay next door to his, and have some fond memories of him walking in to check out what I was working on, pointing out all the imperfections, and cracking jokes.
This carries over to Shoreline glassing. It is one of San Diego’s highest-quality glass shops, where, at the moment, I get probably 9/10 of my current shapes built. I’m honored to have these guys building my boards. The crew is some of the most underground, respected, and skilled craftsmen out there. You got Micah Beutz doing Josh Hall and many other talented shapers’ colorwork. A young guy like myself, an amazing shaper, thinker, and board builder. Micah has been building some unique radical fish for a few years now. Then you have Dave Washkowiak, a super down-to-earth, humble human, always giving me a unique well thought out perspective of things. And Jon (aka Knuckles), Wade Largent, Larry Crow and Paul Kelley. Being lifers to the industry, these guys are treasure troves of history and knowledge. They have taught me so much over the last few years while trying to be a fly on the wall and listen to conversations when dropping off or picking up boards. Wade is infinitely stoked about different shapers’ ideas, and you can tell by how he talks about surfboards that he loves tapping into what shapers are trying to achieve when he is sanding their boards. Paul is one of the best gloss and polishers out there. He spent about a month a few years back letting me sit in and watch him work, showing me his methods. I don’t think I was observant enough cause my polishes never came out with the same shine or nearly as scratch-free. A testament to the amount of time put in, and number of boards he has worked on. Give me a few thousand more polishes and maybe I’ll get there. I’m also deeply honored to have had Paul become a good friend and mentor over the years and even have him at my wedding. These guys work at the highest level of the craft yet remain humble and never will be the ones to claim their work to be of that caliber. They have taught me so much about surfboard design beyond the shape.
Another California Underground board member is the late Mike Griffin, who never signed his boards and never sought recognition. That’s how underground he was. For a period, I decided to follow suit. Until I realized that one day, it would be cool to turn shaping into a full-time profession. At some point, there had to be some level of putting myself out there. Kevin Connelly is one of the guys who lit a fire under me early on, and it broke my heart to see the industry not provide enough for him to stay in California. I think it was around when I was fresh out of high school that I went by G&S and talked to Kevin. Little did I know who he was then, but he showed me the G&S factory and treated me like a long-time friend. Darius Gross is another class act, shaping and building boards for quite a few labels while flying under the radar. Joe and Jojo Roper, both have given so much to the surfing community, both top of the class human beings, and San Diego icons. Then there’s the crew from Sunset Cliffs, in my opinion, San Diego’s, and even maybe California’s most influential crew: Steve Lis, Steve and Cher Pendarvis, Skip Frye, and John Holly. Growing up with family in Point Loma, I surfed there since I was 4; their stories shaped my understanding of this path. Exploring the nooks and crannies of the cliffs as a young kid, I look back and realize how much they have shaped who I am today.
When I was working for Solid, there was a fire from someone that tossed a cigarette into the recycle bin, burning the side of the building and cutting power to the factory. If you’ve been around OB long enough you probably have heard of Jim “Mouse” Robb. He was a part of the original ocean beach crew and an amazing human. He also was a retired electrician, and just so happened to be the same electrician who did the original wiring of the factory. Over the next few days I got to know Mouse and listen to some unbelievable surf stories. The kind that just makes you jealous of not being born any earlier. Mikey Ratt, owner of Pack Ratt Records, a vintage shop that is also a California surf culture historical museum, is a forever frother, keeping the culture alive, and keeping people educated. Guiding the lowered power movement Mikey is a huge advocate for traveling back in time and getting people to open their eyes to different forms of wave riding, like knee boarding and mat riding. The world needs more Mikey’s.
Alex Villalobos, a laminator known for resin mastery, helped open my eyes to the world of color work. I was in middle school then, and Instagram was still relatively new. I saw some of the stuff he was doing for Tudor and McCallum, and was blown away by his work. Touching on another laminator who helped pull me into the realm of high-end colorwork was Australia’s Thomas Surfboards, Jake Bowrey, another early Instagram influence. Being an unlicensed kid in Ramona, I found the internet to be a gold mine of influence that connected me to surf culture. I’d spend hours digging through hashtags, reading forums and searching for board builders around the globe. Finding inspiration of color work or funky looking boards I wanted to try. Fueling the creative itch that eventually led to me shaping my first board.
There are many influences and inspirations from California, Wayne Rich, and Dane Perlee, which are more recent influences on my design theories. Wayne Rich continues to inspire me; having brief conversations with him at the boardroom shows, being on the receiving end of his exuberant positivity, and looking at and feeling his highly refined and beautifully foiled surfboards is always a treat. Dane Perlee has significantly influenced how I think about board design in recent years. From introducing me to the Twinzer ideology to explaining his release-oriented designs focused on speed maintenance and tapping into new feelings. He has influenced a lot of my current design theories. Very few people are as tuned in to their craft as he is. An extremely intentional and out-of-the-box thinker. Not only does he shape extremely unique surfboards, but he is also very particular about how they are built.
I also think of artists like Jeffry Meyer, an airbrusher and amazing artist who is in another realm of stoke and positivity and always psyched to go surf. At one point, he was spraying batches for Solid Surfboards pretty frequently, and I got to watch how quickly and efficiently he’d work through a stack of sprays. And then there is Mike Beal, who has been airbrushing my boards for the last 6 years. He’s got some raw talent. He has done some stuff that very few are capable of. To top it off, he does it purely for the passion of being a part of the surf world while working a full-time day job. Mike has been around surf factories since he was a kid, shaping little foam surfboards out of scrap pieces of foam when he was hanging out at Diamond glassing while his dad Roger Beal was working.
I’ve never met Rich Pavel, but he and his boards are like folklore. He is another skilled craftsman who, to me, has a veil of anonymity around him but simultaneously has a cult following. This is a guy I have a ton of respect for. Mentoring many top-tier shapers as well as putting out beautiful boards. If our paths cross, I can’t wait to talk about design.
A few years back, I did a brief stint of shaping for Weston Holderman; that guy is top-tier at his craft. Many guys specialize in one process of building boards, but few are at the highest level from start to finish, and he is one of them. When I was working with Wes, even though he had employees, I got to see him do a little bit of everything. I believe it was around this time I shaped a glider out of Mikey Hurrins’ shop, Color Wheel, using Craig Hollingsworth’s shaping bay. Also around this time, I was delivering Mike a fair amount of Solid surfboards to glass. I witnessed his attention to detail and how his brain thought about production. This was right before he rebuilt his shop. Seeing this quality and his ability to remain humble was such a rad perspective. He was building boards for Hank Byzak, Jim Philips, Jon Wegener, and many more. But if you know anything about those guys, you know they’re particular about quality. Mike and Wes have an eye for quality and are wizards with their resin mastery. They continue to inspire me to push my capabilities and make the highest caliber boards possible.
Shaping a board from start to finish by hand is something I’ve never gotten over. It’s an ever-growing addiction, fed by the ever-evolving search for fleeting feelings. In the beginning, it was all about figuring out the tools. The first 50–60 boards were lessons in failure, each floating well enough to try and ride. But once the tools began to feel like extensions of my hands, the obsession took off. I was able to start testing my design theories, tap into certain feelings that I am after when riding waves, and begin refining my craft. Now, more than ever, I never stop thinking about rocker adjustments, bottom contours, rail shapes, foam distribution, deck foils, and fin setups. Every tweak opens a new door to performance or feeling. And the more I shape, the more I realize how much I don’t know. I’m deep down the rabbit hole and it’s never been so overwhelming in the best possible way. Each board I build today carries years of accumulated lessons, with every board teaching me something new.
People often assume boards can be easily replicated. But even with a CNC machine, you’ll never get two truly identical boards. That’s the magic and mystery of it. The same board cut twice can perform completely differently depending on laminating, sanding, minute fin differences, or even curing conditions. Just taking the way the weave of the glass lays on the blank or how the resin bonds with the foam during lamination completely changes a board’s flex pattern. Sure, guys are working with newer, more predictable composites that you can be more consistent with than wood, foam, and fiberglass. However, a board will always have subtleties that make it unique. This being said, I have hand-shaped and scrubbed identical boards, doing a side-by-side comparison, and my hand shape came out more accurate and true to the board that was being duplicated. So, if you have a magic board, Hold onto it and ride it until it dies. You might never find one that feels quite the same, but if you want to get as close to recreating a board as possible, I recommend having the original board builder make it for you.
There’s a quiet debate in the shaping world: how much can you borrow from others and still call it your own? My stance is simple, I want to build from solid foundations, so I’m constantly looking for boards that intrigue me. Many of my designs started with outlines from legends like Skip Frye, Pavel, Nuuwiha, Velzy, Lance Carson and so many others. From there, I inject my vision, tweaking almost every aspect of the board, from changing the outline curves, rocker, foam distribution, and foil. Sometimes, I blend outlines from three boards to create something new. Most of the time, I draw influence from those who came before me.
Innovation doesn’t mean reinventing the wheel. It means evolving thoughtfully from the lineage that got us here. All of our inspirations are what make each individual shaper’s boards so unique. For example, I have pulled influence from Maurice Cole, Rich Pavel, Jeff McCallum, and Dane Perlee in how I like to shape my rails. But all of their rails are uniquely distinct and have influenced why I have my own unique rails curves.
I consider myself a “toy” maker. It’s a playful label, sometimes frowned upon by purists, but I use it intentionally. No matter how refined, culturally rooted, or technically advanced, these boards are bridges to share joy and tap into nature’s frequency. These highly refined and artistically crafted vehicles are meant for stoke. I was talking with a good friend and talented board builder, Kyle Scialpi. He is one of the few guys I know thats my age and has an “old soul” not caring whats trendy. He’s on his own path. He has made quite a few beautiful boards that he takes so much pride in the work that he put into them that he won’t surf them. So they end up on the wall for viewing pleasure. This is so different from my view that surfboards are meant to be surfed; no matter how artistic or intricately well crafted the board is, it’s meant to be a wave-riding vehicle to transport us to new dimensions of stoke.
I’m like all these guys I’ve been talking about. I don’t care about recognition. At the end of the day, I just want to sustain this pursuit: keeping demand at a level that allows for experimentation, creativity, and quality without compromising core values. That’s the dream, enough support to build freely, stay small, and keep it soulful by staying true to being a surfer and shaper like all the guys I’ve looked up to since I began my journey as a board builder.
Most builders don’t choose to stay underground; the surf world just doesn’t shine a light on them. Recognition is hard to come by and even harder to maintain without someone criticizing you for it. This craft lives in the margins, where people care more about results than hype. That’s what makes it beautiful and bittersweet. Most surfers will never know the names behind the boards they ride. But it’s important to give credit. To honor the ones who are putting in the work. Because they love it. Because they’re wired for this kind of obsession and because there would be no surf culture without them.
The California Underground isn’t just a label. It’s a quiet movement. A way of life. It’s people who put in the work to build beautiful surfboards and spend years refining their skills because they believe in the purity of making something with their hands that ends up under the feet of someone chasing the pursuit of joy in the ocean. The innovators that are breaking traditional molds, providing us with new wave sliding and gliding feelings. To everyone out there sanding rails with makeshift racks, building boards out of your garage, laminating until midnight, and shaping in borrowed bays: I see you. I’m honored to be one of you.
If only I was a skilled enough writer to weave in all my influences, and mention more of the guys and gals who are a part of the underground that carry the industry on their backs, and those who have been a part of the journey. Sadly, I am not. Thank you for taking the time to read, and for those that went unmentioned, thank you for all of your guidance and inspiration, your dedication to the craft, you know who you are.
Chase Jacoway / 2025
