A couple of years ago I started to learn how to shape surfboards. A friend of mine, whom I met while living in Santa Barbara, Weston Paglia had been shaping for a few years by then and invited me to learn. I had always wanted to learn how to shape ever since I started surfing. Its an amazing hobby and art form; to create a complicated tool that allows you to maneuver over water out of a chunk of foam, what an awesome skill to have. Shortly after we started shaping together we had the idea to start a ding repair business. The ding repair business, though not in action today, wasn't too bad of an operation. We learned almost right away that ding repair wasn't in our hearts but changing something about the way boards are repaired and the materials used was something that struck us as interesting.
As surfers not only are we in love with surfing but we also cherish our environment and its well being. So why are all the materials used in surfboard manufacture so toxic? In shaping we use polyester resin (toxic if ingested, irritating to skin and eyes), Fiber glass (strings of broken up glass that cause irritation to skin), a catalyst (hardening agent, FLAT OUT DEADLY), and Polyurethane foam blanks (horribly to inhale and bad for the environment), now in all those materials which one to you looks friendly?
Now I understand that over the past 20 maybe 30 years we have become more aware has humans of our environment. Many of you might think that the damage is minimal, but image all of the surfboards that are being manufactured everyday and all of the boards that are breaking and being thrown away...IS THERE A SOLUTION?
Of course there is and today there are shapers out there that are testing products to replace those that we use today. This brings me to my point. After we started our ding repair business Weston and I decided to find alternative materials that we can use instead of resin, fiber glass and catalyst. In result we created Eco-Ding an environment friendly repair kit. Now this is just the start but the kit involves, a vegetable oil resin (made from 98% renewable resources), hemp or bamboo cloth, and bee's wax (ding filler). Again these materials are being used to shape boards but they have not been used as a repair kit. This is the first step in our project to change the face of surf board manufacturing and we would love for you to help us in our cause.
Please visit www.eco-ding.com and leave any comments or suggestions and give our product a try!
Thanks,
Matt and Weston
