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Stoker Machine
- Thread starter teeroi
- Start date
I could have sworn those boards were made by a shaper named Fowler.
Stoker V-Machine Surfboards – Stoker V-Machine Surfboards (stokervmachine.com)
I cut a few versions and did some design work for Steve Talley aka "The Flash."
I cut a few versions and did some design work for Steve Talley aka "The Flash."
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Going way way back there was a thread about these boards on Swaylocks. Based off of pictures from that thread I made this board. With the tail so wide and with the V I went with a quad. A wave catching machine.
For sure. I was there from 1999 -2002. Randall was always hanging around Sands and Deveroux...
Chad is a great guy to be on Tavarua with.
I think this happened shortly after my first trip there. Gnarly.
I think this happened shortly after my first trip there. Gnarly.
There's a good reef story to have you second guessing yourself when you oughta just GO!!. Also, how about the old saying about being safest by bailing in the tube, "safest place to be on a wipeout"? Time also stands still with your face dragging forcefully across the sandbar, that's the extent of what I know about it and I'm good for ten more years myself I hope.
Owwwwwwutchhhh!
Owwwwwwutchhhh!
Going to share what Bruce Fowler had to say about the Stoker story on another forum. Maybe I can get him to join here.
The Stoker website: "The Real Story Behind the Stoke".
Well now, that's an interesting recall of how things went. It might be suggested that there is some "bad blood" between stoker & myself, and I would be hard pressed if I denied that there are definitely some less than warm & fuzzy feelings between us.
If you read his story, he has himself set up with making one of the first shortboards ever with his teacher from "The Deveraux School" which he calls a 'private school' located on Coal Oil Point (Deveraux) just north of Isla Vista. His inspiration is seeing GG's "Innermost Limits of Pure Fun". Jeff Kruthers, his teacher at Deveraux, worked for Bing for a time when he lived down south, but by his own admisison, was never a career shaper. He worked with his wife Wendy at "The Chart House" and at Deveraux before progressing to Real Estate and becoming parcel owners at Hollister. Jeff owns a longboard I shaped him that he told me "it is the best surfboard I have ever had along with one Brewer". He has had that board for years, which got a radical twist in it from being stuffed somewhere on a hot day, and he told me it seemed like it worked EVEN BETTER, then he ordered another one from me asking if I could duplicate the twist in it somehow! He also rides a 7'4" V Machine that I made him that he knee paddles because he has rotator cuff issues that don't allow him to prone paddle anymore. He can knee paddle the 7'4" because, unlike so many of us, he still weighs the same weight as in high school and he told me he can still wear his PV Surf club jacket!
But, the point here...... oh, yeah, bad blood.... Randy, Randall, Rostoker, Rodstroker, Stokie....... whatever you wanna call him, decided because of our rift, he would leave 7+ years of my hard work, bankrolling, shaping, redesigning what I consider a knockoff of "The Gypsy" (which was one of the pictures hanging on his wall in his I.V. cubby apartment next to a foto of me by Steve Bissell with hair down past my wazoo)... anyway..... as his enabling buddy Matt Wessen said "I've seen this thing just sit and quagmire for 15+ years or something, and it never got a life until you got involved." So, when you help out a friend that approaches you..... the same kid that rode my coat tails from age ten, rode in my car to every surf, came along with me when I was invited to a very small screening of George's rough cut of "Echoes" with 6 or 7 of us there in Montecito including Nat and I think it was Alby (Falzon)..... oh, and also having Randall LIVE under my parents roof when he fell upon hard times........ well, I think you get the picture.
As one of our very close friends that has known both of us forever, she said "c'mon Bruce, you know Randy, never a bad word for anyone, but he has always been a leach, he's spent his life mooching off of you".
Cut me out of your convenient truth, but the history is there, documented, matter of record of countless guys (and women for that matter) ripping on boards that I shaped, refined, and made available to people worldwide while doing everything from soup to nuts, A to Z, answering all the questions, shaping, building 100% until I could hand off to Haakenson, running boards in to Hawk's, picking them up, packing, shipping, handling all deposits, keeping customers regularly in the loop (not something all shapers are famous for)...... promoting "HIS" so called design while building his brand. There wasn't ONE of those guys around doing it next to me....... they were at the beach surfing & working on their tan. The reason his label/brand took off was there was finally someone that worked at it like a job..... me.
So when I was told "Randall's surfboard company", "Stokie's surfboard design" I clarified it a few times for people and said "What surfboard company"? To the best of my knowledge Randall has never shaped a surfboard. Where is his surfboard company? You mean my place, Haakenson's or Anderson's? Business license? Tax returns for all those checks I paid him after we agreed to $50 per "Label Royalty"?
Clarification: Randall Rostoker owns a LABEL. He "popularized" a shape that has been commonplace since the late 60's or early 70's....... how many surfboards did you see or ride that had a nose rocker of 4' to 5", flat bottom with some vee in the tail, wide rounded diamond or something similar around 20", 21" 22"? I mean, you stick a logo on it and that becomes YOUR design? I don't think so.
Randy is a talker, not a shaper. He's a nice guy with his own m.o. - a very easy to like guy that for whatever reason everyone ends up feeling obligated to help him. I'm like a big brother to him and I see it differently, I once said all his enablers remind me of the story "The Emperor's New Clothes". Seems to me he's helping himself just plenty. I got fed up.... I'm the little kid in the story that saw the Emperor parade down the street buck naked. It's just a matter of perspective on what you wanna believe. For a guy that has lived off the gov't. tit and his dad's social security he has done just fine, but when you forget to thank people that are making your life immeasurably better, enabling you to live a pretty carefree lifestyle traveling & surfing every day there are waves... - by working their ass off putting money in your pocket for doing nothing..... well, how would you feel?
The Stoker website: "The Real Story Behind the Stoke".
Well now, that's an interesting recall of how things went. It might be suggested that there is some "bad blood" between stoker & myself, and I would be hard pressed if I denied that there are definitely some less than warm & fuzzy feelings between us.
If you read his story, he has himself set up with making one of the first shortboards ever with his teacher from "The Deveraux School" which he calls a 'private school' located on Coal Oil Point (Deveraux) just north of Isla Vista. His inspiration is seeing GG's "Innermost Limits of Pure Fun". Jeff Kruthers, his teacher at Deveraux, worked for Bing for a time when he lived down south, but by his own admisison, was never a career shaper. He worked with his wife Wendy at "The Chart House" and at Deveraux before progressing to Real Estate and becoming parcel owners at Hollister. Jeff owns a longboard I shaped him that he told me "it is the best surfboard I have ever had along with one Brewer". He has had that board for years, which got a radical twist in it from being stuffed somewhere on a hot day, and he told me it seemed like it worked EVEN BETTER, then he ordered another one from me asking if I could duplicate the twist in it somehow! He also rides a 7'4" V Machine that I made him that he knee paddles because he has rotator cuff issues that don't allow him to prone paddle anymore. He can knee paddle the 7'4" because, unlike so many of us, he still weighs the same weight as in high school and he told me he can still wear his PV Surf club jacket!
But, the point here...... oh, yeah, bad blood.... Randy, Randall, Rostoker, Rodstroker, Stokie....... whatever you wanna call him, decided because of our rift, he would leave 7+ years of my hard work, bankrolling, shaping, redesigning what I consider a knockoff of "The Gypsy" (which was one of the pictures hanging on his wall in his I.V. cubby apartment next to a foto of me by Steve Bissell with hair down past my wazoo)... anyway..... as his enabling buddy Matt Wessen said "I've seen this thing just sit and quagmire for 15+ years or something, and it never got a life until you got involved." So, when you help out a friend that approaches you..... the same kid that rode my coat tails from age ten, rode in my car to every surf, came along with me when I was invited to a very small screening of George's rough cut of "Echoes" with 6 or 7 of us there in Montecito including Nat and I think it was Alby (Falzon)..... oh, and also having Randall LIVE under my parents roof when he fell upon hard times........ well, I think you get the picture.
As one of our very close friends that has known both of us forever, she said "c'mon Bruce, you know Randy, never a bad word for anyone, but he has always been a leach, he's spent his life mooching off of you".
Cut me out of your convenient truth, but the history is there, documented, matter of record of countless guys (and women for that matter) ripping on boards that I shaped, refined, and made available to people worldwide while doing everything from soup to nuts, A to Z, answering all the questions, shaping, building 100% until I could hand off to Haakenson, running boards in to Hawk's, picking them up, packing, shipping, handling all deposits, keeping customers regularly in the loop (not something all shapers are famous for)...... promoting "HIS" so called design while building his brand. There wasn't ONE of those guys around doing it next to me....... they were at the beach surfing & working on their tan. The reason his label/brand took off was there was finally someone that worked at it like a job..... me.
So when I was told "Randall's surfboard company", "Stokie's surfboard design" I clarified it a few times for people and said "What surfboard company"? To the best of my knowledge Randall has never shaped a surfboard. Where is his surfboard company? You mean my place, Haakenson's or Anderson's? Business license? Tax returns for all those checks I paid him after we agreed to $50 per "Label Royalty"?
Clarification: Randall Rostoker owns a LABEL. He "popularized" a shape that has been commonplace since the late 60's or early 70's....... how many surfboards did you see or ride that had a nose rocker of 4' to 5", flat bottom with some vee in the tail, wide rounded diamond or something similar around 20", 21" 22"? I mean, you stick a logo on it and that becomes YOUR design? I don't think so.
Randy is a talker, not a shaper. He's a nice guy with his own m.o. - a very easy to like guy that for whatever reason everyone ends up feeling obligated to help him. I'm like a big brother to him and I see it differently, I once said all his enablers remind me of the story "The Emperor's New Clothes". Seems to me he's helping himself just plenty. I got fed up.... I'm the little kid in the story that saw the Emperor parade down the street buck naked. It's just a matter of perspective on what you wanna believe. For a guy that has lived off the gov't. tit and his dad's social security he has done just fine, but when you forget to thank people that are making your life immeasurably better, enabling you to live a pretty carefree lifestyle traveling & surfing every day there are waves... - by working their ass off putting money in your pocket for doing nothing..... well, how would you feel?
