Vintage Surfboard Rehabilitation: A Documentary in Words and Images (Part IV — Reproducing the Weber Feather Logo)
The logo on the BLACK SHEEP Weber Feather was washed out and faded, which isn’t an issue on a board that isn’t being restored. The issue was that the large delamination on the board was right under the logo. I needed to cut out the glass around the logo to address the delamination.
Initially, I had planned to just re-glass the logo and glass back onto the board, with extra cloth to strengthen the section. As with the t-band stringer section (discussed in Part II) , things weren’t so simple. I expected to find a faded logo sandwiched between two sheets of cloth and sealed in the glass. What I found was entirely different.
The Feather logo rests under the lamination, not between the cloth layers. Most of the printed layer was stuck to the delaminated section, while the rest of the logo material was fixed to the foam/stringer. As water got into the board and the deck delaminated, it seems that the color faded from the logo. Or, possibly, the logo itself helped contribute to the delamination.
None of this prohibited a more basic repair, but it provided the opportunity to bring a little more color to the logo. Since the board needed to dry out, preventing any rapid action, I decided to take on the challenge of replicating the logo.
Cleaning the mildew and loose material from the logo on the foam also made it possible to better date the board, which was truly interesting.
Once things were a bit cleaner, I could see the installation instructions for this GLASS-ON SLYD EZE type of decal. I was able to search this information in conjunction with WEBER decals and turned up the following image of a vintage WEBERPERFORMER decal.
This was a real find because the serial number on the Morse Decal included a manufacturing date (1/67). Returning to the BLACK SHEEP Feather’s decal remnants, I was able to tell that my Morse Decal was manufactured in 10/67 (see below). The BLACK SHEEP had to be glassed after September, 1967, and it’s conceivable that it’s actually a 1968 board.
I never would have found this information had I not elected to get into a logo reconstruction as part of my rehabilitation of the board.
Finding and Making a WEBER Feather Logo
Dewey Weber Surf Boards currently builds a Weber Feather based on the original template. I initially thought they would be a great resource for a logo. A close comparison of the original logo with the contemporary logo, however, reveals at least one not-so-subtle difference: The F in the original logo stands noticeably separate from the eather. This separation is removed in the current Feather logo.
Fortunately, the Internet contains a few good quality images of the Weber Feather logo on vintage boards. At the time I was searching for an image to work from, Island Trader Surf Shop was selling a stringerless vintage Feather and had a very helpful close up of the logo.
Matching the actual colors of the original logo using web images of boards that are nearly fifty years old would be impossible. But I could hopefully create a decent replica of the original colors — or one that would look presentable.
I opted for the current Weber Feather logo’s colors. Although the yellow is a bit more mustard-like than the color in the Feather logo at Island Trader, it is really close to the color of the logo in Stanley’s Surfboard Logo Library. And who knows WEBER red better than Dewey Weber Surf Boards?
The graphical elements of the logo involved some relatively straightforward work in a graphics program. Begin with a couple rectangles, then bend the sides of one rectangle inward to achieve the desired bow-tie effect.
Fonts were another challenge. My font library contained the exact font used in the original Feather type: Commercial Script. The WEBER font, on the other hand, proved too challenging. I had some close fonts, but nothing quite as “stretched” as the WEBER. Efforts to tweak those fonts proved unsuccessful. I ended up starting with an image of WEBER and carefully reworking it until I decided enough was enough. (I give it a B-, mostly because of the W.)
Since I possess an original board with a physical logo, I was able to determine the exact dimensions for the logo.
Printing the Logo
The next step was printing because I needed the digital image turned into a physical logo that would work under the glass. Advice is a bit mixed on surfboard logo printing.
At Classic Bing Surfboards, I found images of a computer-developed reproduction of an original logo and silkscreening. The site offered no information about the print medium, but rice paper was apparently used for vintage logos — at least some of the time.
Speedneedle on Swaylocks, in a discussion of logo recreation, recommended the following medium:
Use “Acid Free Tissue Paper” from an art store, lightly tack it to a piece of card and run it through a printer. Fix the ink with a whiff of aerosol clear laquer [sic] before laminating.
I elected to try Speedneedle’s recommended approach, sourced a little tissue paper from the art store, and brought it all to the local print shop to have the logo laser printed.
My local printer owed money to his service guy and was unwilling to risk running tissue paper through his $5000 commercial printer. I left the shop somewhat disappointed, but this turned out to be a good thing. I went home and trolled the internet a bit more to explore ink jet prints and polyester resins before discovering that laser prints don’t play well with resins. Ink jet is the way to go, and I have an ink jet printer. I plugged my computer into the printer and ran about 8 copies of the logo, just in case.
Glassing the Logo
Intent on avoiding a problem with colors running or the paper falling apart, I tested the logo in a lamination situation before attempting to glass it onto the board.
I glassed a copy of the logo to a piece of cast-off US Blanks foam procured from Charlie at Maine Surfer’s Union. Perfect? No. Pretty damned good? Yup.
I ended up using white acrylic paint in the bowtie area around the yellow logo field prior to laminating it to the foam because the paper turns clear when wet with resin. The brushstrokes show a bit, but the whole thing came out nicely. Satisfied with the quality, I moved on to the board itself.
Logo and Delamination Repair
Next up, showtime! The board itself ended up with a seemingly endless delamination that emanated out from under the original logo and towards the tail. Altogether, I ended up with exposed foam roughly 12" wide and about 16" long. This was no minor delamination. In addition, the glass around the stringer replacement delaminated quite a bit over winter as the board dried out in the den. I was working multiple issues, and I had no hands-on experience with any of them.
My first attempt at laminating the logo to the board didn’t pan out so well, partly owing to my failure to fully address the delamination problem well beyond the original area. And it turns out that the Morse Decals instructions glued to the foam bled through the tissue paper. I should have sanded that whole thing off, but I didn’t. The result is something like a double image of the logo, with some instructions showing through.
I’m pretty disappointed with the final product. The lamination isn’t all that hot, and there’s a lot going on under the logo itself. C-, at best.
The good news — if there’s any good news in all this — is that the board is now solid.
It’s not the most attractive repair. But I knew I was not taking on a restoration. The point of this project has always been to rehabilitate this vintage pintail and return it to the ocean. She’s ready to rock and roll.
I enlisted my daughter’s help in repainting the BLACK SHEEP label on the hull. We used acrylic paint, and I quickly hotcoated over it. It worked perfectly. And to help me spot my position on the board as I turn to drop in on a wave, I made good use of that golfball-sized hole by adding a little deck art.
I filled the deck hole with some left-over US Blanks foam and painted an acrylic eye over the patch before I hotcoated the whole board. I love it.
Once the whole thing was hotcoated, I decided to add a glass-on leash loop to give me the flexibility of primetime summer surfing without drilling into a vintage board.
But How’s BLACK SHEEP Surf?
None of the work here matters, really, if BLACK SHEEP isn’t surfable. So I took BLACK SHEEP out on May 25 for a couple sessions at my local break. In the morning, I paddled out for some clean 3–5' waves in a crowded lineup.
In what has to be the ultimate coincidence, I ran into Charlie from Maine Surfer’s Union in the line up. I’ve never seen Charlie at my local break before, but there he was for the clean surf. I made a point of telling him I was surfing BLACK SHEEP, but he had already noticed. We surfed together for awhile before I headed off to work.
That evening, I headed back out for 3'+ sets that had become a bit disorganized by the shifting winds. There were only three people in the water, one guy on a fish, another guy on an SUP, and me on BLACK SHEEP.
This WEBER Feather is a board that represented the height of the longboard era, and it rides like it. It was probably shaped by Harold Iggy, the head shaper at Weber Surf Boards back in 1967. Solid, stable, and responsive, it has enough rocker to get me into a steeper face, pinched rails that hold in the face, and a tail that gives the 9'6" tons of maneuverability. I even got up near the nose a couple times.
I had thought BLACK SHEEP would mostly live in the rafters of my den, but I can’t put it back in the house. Instead, it’s in the shed on the shaping stands, waiting for the next session!
Part I — A Documentary in Words and Images
