3/14/2023 0 Comments Aku shaper fishtail![]() ![]() “It was slow progress and we were doing okay as a company, but the machine development was taking much longer than expected. Kerry Tokoro of Kaneohe’s Tokoro Surfboards positions a foam blank in the Aku Shaper. Jimmy worked for nearly two years with a pair of Australian partners and his father, a professor at University of Hawaii, to put together a prototype and start selling. It had to be as easy as ‘just send the design and the machine cuts.'” I saw an opportunity but it needed a different approach. “The machine in Australia was fine, but not really something a typical shaper could use. Knowing that most shapers were more artists than technologists, he knew that usability was critical. But the machine itself was pretty rough.”Īs a former usability engineer for HotU, one of Hawaii’s dotcom darlings during the early 2000s, Jimmy learned that a software’s user interface was as integral to success as the base capabilities. “I saw the machine-shaped board and it was amazing. Being an engineer and a surfer, I was curious to check it out.”Ī few months later, during a vacation in Australia, Jimmy visited a factory with a more advanced, but still crude, machine that could shape a board in 15 minutes. ![]() “I had a friend who was a shaper and he mentioned a new machine that was on the North Shore. “I was towards the end of completing a Master’s degree program in chemical engineering at University of Texas and figured I’d head back to Kailua for a spring break rest,” Jimmy recalled when asked how he got started. But just as the board has advanced, the art of shaping is being advanced by Aku Shaper, a Hawaii-based company co-founded by Kailua native Jimmy Freese. Modern surfboards are lighter, less expensive and easier to produce, and incorporate curves and angles that make them unrecognizable against vintage boards.Īku Shaper’s computerized shaping machine dives into a surfboard blank.Įven with this radical change in materials and designs, the act of sculpting a rough-cut block of foam, or “blank,” into a final surfboard shape, or “shaping,” has remained an artform. As modern tools and materials appeared, surfboards morphed from wood to a block of foam with a central wooden stringer for strength, all covered with fiberglass and resin. Today, that artisan tradition continues, although much has changed over the centuries. It was an integral component of Hawaiian culture and boards were made only from revered trees, shaped by craftsmen into that classic surfboard form: long, slightly thinner at the edges, rounded at the front. At the time, he’e nalu, Hawaiian for “wave sliding,” was more than a sport. Surfing was enjoyed by the Polynesians well before Captain Cook landed in Hawaii in the late 1700s. (Note:  This article originally appeared on HuffPost Hawaii, where I write about Hawaii entrepreneurs.) ![]()
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