Surfer Meets Scanner

For years, the craft of making a surfboard has lured waves of artisans who turn slabs of raw material into a sleek shape. It’s an art that requires time and experience and many, many mistakes, experts say. These craftspeople carry on the art form’s traditions, handed down from older days when Polynesian Islanders found ways of carving up koa trees and making them float.

It’s probably the last arena where anyone would expect computer automation. And yet, surfboard manufacturers in Orange County and other coastal areas have grudgingly turned to digital scanning shops that can create dozens--or hundreds--of perfect boards.

One shop in particular, Kahuna Kalai Limited in Carlsbad, handles most of the work for board makers in California. Two shops in San Clemente, Stewart Surfboards and Rip Curl Surfboards, rely solely on the San Diego company for this digital process.

“It takes the guesswork out of the art,” said Bruce Duggan, co-owner and general manager of Kahuna Kalai. Last year, the shop made more than 15,000 boards.

Traditionally, a surfboard shaper starts with a piece of hard polyurethane foam, or “blank,” that is cut and scraped into the final shape of the board, then coated with fiberglass. Because each blank is cut by hand, it is unique.

Digital systems, like the ones used at the San Diego shop, can re-create a popular board. The manufacturer will send a surfboard to Kahuna Kalai, where staff will measure the board and scan half of it into their computer system. The software takes that information and makes a mirror image of the board.

At that point, the computer routes this data to a cutting machine, which carves into two foam blanks. Once the foam comes out in the shape of the board, workers take the pieces, seal them together and apply the fiberglass finish.

While critics say the machines take the magic out of the craft, many shops rely on the system’s speed and reliability.

“My brother Bill is the artist in the family, and he fought and fought the idea of using the machine,” said David Stewart, whose shop is the world’s biggest manufacturer of long boards. “Finally, he gave in. I think he’s realized that the machine is good at replicating an original board. But it’ll never be used to create something from scratch.”

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P.J. Huffstutter covers high technology for The Times. She can be reached at (714) 966-7830 and at p.j.huffstutter@latimes.com