Today we’d like to introduce you to Marc Sanchez.
Marc, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
Like most surfboard makers I started off just messing around with a blank and a few crude tools in a garage. I did a couple more that way and really fell in love with the process. Soon after though an opportunity arose for me to teach English in Taiwan. Fresh with the stoke of shaping boards I cobbled together tools and materials and set up shaping and glassing rooms in an old apartment that a local friends family had in Keelung, Taiwan. It was in the fish market district so the door would many times be blocked by pallets of fresh fish and the smell was not always great.
The only problem was though that the surf industry in Taiwan is a lot smaller than the U.S., so materials especially foam surfboard blanks were hard to come by. This leads me to shape my first ever upcycled surfboard out of an old longboard that was broken in half. When I got back to the U.S. myself and a friend got a space and started shaping again. One thing I quickly learned though was that surfboard making is a craft best refined through trial and error.
I always felt bad trying something I knew may not work or look right on a brand new piece of virgin foam. That’s when I thought to start seeking out broken surfboards and got into contact with Rerip.org. After talking with Meghan at Rerip I really began to understand how many surfboards go into the trash all the time. With these broken boards, I could experiment as much as I wanted and refine my process.
The thing I did not see coming was that people started asking specifically for the boards made from the Upcycled foam or broken boards. That’s when I decided to focus purely on making my boards out of waste material and bio-based resin. I am primarily self-taught aside from questions here or there asked other shapers and period of time that I had my workshop in the same area as Coconut Peets ding repair. While over there I learned things about glassing and working with resins.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
In the beginning, I was always worried about running out upcycled foam (broken surfboards), our primary building material. Now we receive boards from our customers, Coconut Peet’s Ding Repair, ReRip non-profit and others board manufactures. I realize now we could all be so lucky as to run out of broken surfboards. I always say I would gladly stop what I am doing if a more sustainable material was developed for surfboard construction.
This being said though our model is not one that will ever be like the current large surfboard manufacturers model. We sometimes struggle with conveying to our customers that the foam sometimes dictates what we make. They can not always get the specific minute dimensions they want. We focus on making unique quirky surfboards.
Please tell us about REECO Surfboards.
We primarily make surfboards out of waste materials, but we also use the waste materials that we create. We make smaller things like knives, wax combs and bottle openers. Those are made with the excess resin and fiberglass scraps. We try not to let anything go to waste, from the scrap resin to fiberglass scraps, to wood or containers. They can all be either reused in their original state or combined to make new things.
I think this is what we specialize in and are known for. Our mentality of thinking about waste differently. I forget who said it but they said: “WASTE is just raw materials we are just too dumb to use”. or something like that. We don’t want to be seen as one of those “greenwashing” companies or pseudo-environmentalists. I think people are getting tired of that. We rather just be seen as a company that is always trying to figure out new quality and unique ways to use ours and others “waste”.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
My favorite memory from childhood would probably have to be road tripping up the coasts of California, Oregon, and Washington with my family. We used to do that a lot.
Pricing:
- Knives $75
- Wax combs $10
- Bottle openers $25
Contact Info:
- Website: Reecosurfboards.com
- Phone: 858 522-9065
- Email: Reecosurfboards@gmail.com
- Instagram: @Reecosurfboards
Image Credit:
Drew Mcgill, Ben Pryce
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