Taj, Chippa, Gerr + More Pocket Jewels On The Gypsy Fingers

It’s hard to make a buck hand-shaping. Between input, overhead and labor costs there’s a pretty skinny margin leftover. 

Ever wondered why retailers and shapers get a little eggy when you ask them for ‘mates rates’? 

Read here to find out why it’s rude and undermines the labor and cost that goes into producing a new stick and bringing it to market. “Surfboards are not priced at a markup that’s proportionate to the work put into their creation,” concluded Bryan Dickerson after his deep dive into surfboard cost protection. Particularly when you consider the lifetime of joy they can potentially bring. 

Luke Daniels shapes out of his home in Brunswick Heads. He’s been building exclusively custom-built handshapes for a while, many with unconventional quirks to them inspired by a ‘look back to move forward’ philosophy that blends archival ideas with modern high-performance design. As a fair-dinkum ripper himself, he’s got a pretty acute sense of what works and what doesn’t.

Clearly, the boards work as evident by the surfing in Propa Ganda, and they’ve found their way under the feet of some of the best in the biz. 

You can check out his creations here.