Pacific Boardworks has only been open for three months, but the Torrance company has already has a well-developed sense of purpose.
“Quality control, that’s pretty much our job,”said Brandon Gutierrez. “We want to glass it without making a hard edge round, or a round edge hard,”
Pacific Boardworks pairs co-founders Gutierrez and Andy Prunauer at a space off Van Ness Avenue. Together the two have put together a shop known for its glassing, but that can handle every aspect of the surfboard production process.
And while the well-worn road between riders and builders is filled with competition, Pacific’s performance-oriented philosophy has already won significant business. The Torrance shop recently inked a glassing deal with Spyder Surfboards. They also glass boards by Sea Camel, Ferrara Shapes and others, but say that Spyder now provides the bulk of their work.
“Spyder, that’s our bread and butter,” Gutierrez said. “We’re really thankful to have that account.”
The team at Pacific is now glassing between eight and 10 of the Hermosa Beach manufacturer’s boards per week. Spyder owner and founder Dennis Jarvis had worked with Prunauer and Gutierrez when the two held previous jobs with other glassing and repair outlets.
He had been impressed with their work, and when he heard that they were launching their own shop, he was eager to give them a chance.
“Who you can work with has a lot to do with personal preferences,” Jarvis said. “The way I want my boards done may be different from, say, Al Merrick.These guys understand what I need done.”
Prunauer, a former standout on the South High surf team, has been in the surf manufacturing business for about 10 years, learning the trade with small local shapers around the South Bay.
“I went down to the factory with Jack Cirrito of Plastic Fantastic in Hermosa,” Prunauer said. “And I wound up going with [Shapes by] Hori. He was the one who really got me into shaping.”
Shapes by Hori, a long-time Redondo Beach shaper, used to shape Prunauer’s own boards. In what is doubtless a point of pride, Pacific Boardworks now glasses some of Hori’s boards.
Gutierrez, a San Pedro native, has also been in the shaping business for about a decade. He credits James See of Onion Surfboards as a big influence on his career path.
In addition to finishing other people’s shapes, Prunauer and Gutierrez each have their own labels, Proper and BG, respectively. The two can often be found out in the lineup when Torrance Beach is pumping, and cultivate an air of surfers making surfboards, rather than shapers who happen to surf.
Time in the shaping bay has given Gutierrez and Prunauer an intimate perspective on the techniques of some of the top manufacturers in the industry, including …Lost and Channel Islands. The high standards pair well with their desire to push themselves in the water.
“Andy and I tend to gear toward high-performance boards,” Gutierrez said. “We are all about making boards that work.”
Jarvis, a former professional surfer who began building his own boards while touring and competing, said he appreciates the way in which time in the water informs the business at Pacific Boardworks.
“Building a surfboard is an art,” said Jarvis said. “You can do a lot on computers and machines today, but with the glassing, there’s really no machine that can do that.”
