In 1976 Steve Forstall decided he wanted to become a Surfboard builder. He had been working at the Islander surfboard factory in his home town of Pensacola Florida and found he had a gift for building things. Especially things that took a bit of artistic talent. He named his first surfboard line ” Rock Lobster ” doing only a few before moving to Central Florida and working for one of the hot surfboard labels of the time… ” Spectrum surfboards”.

For some, a move like this, in an industry like surfboards, with someone of Steve’s intelligence, would seem like a case of extended childhood. To Steve… surfing, surfing art and Surf boards had become a passion and passion had turned to determination.

The early eighties were on fire for all things surf with the growing popularity of the infant professional surfing tour and the second wave of surfing popularity. Add to this an entire high octane and colorful generation of a post punk musical renaissance called ” the New Wave ” and for someone with Steve’s talent…life in the surfboard business began to look bright.

Not only did he have a natural ability to shape boards, glass them and airbrush them…he could surf. Something that only added to his credibility.

Though he began is career shaping performance short boards, Steve had a life long reputation as a really great long boarder. In fact, it could be said that Steve was one of the first board builders to shape modern long boards to be ridden in a similar performance fashion as the modern short board. He was doing these types of boards years before they began showing up in Surf Shops as the latest best thing.

Never a retro shaper, progression has always been one of Forstall’s key attributes. If he was going to shape egg surfboards or long boards one of the key ingredients would be progression and not regression to something already tried and found wanting. If he couldn’t make a positive contribution to the boards he was building he saw little reason to fool with it. Being a well traveled surfer, but mostly creating boards for his home breaks in Florida you might think Steve only a shaper for gutless surf, but Steve has shaped surfboards for the likes of Cheyne Horan, John Holeman and a host of other elite surfers.

Among others things, Steve studied and continues to perfect his work with epoxy resin and the creation of his own line of surfboard blanks for use with epoxy. Says Steve, ” until you learn how to make your own blanks, your not a complete surfboard builder. ” Learning how to make surfboard blanks has taught me as much as my over thirty years mowing foam.

” One of the weaknesses in the industry has always been the surfboard blanks themselves. You could only shape what the blank would let you have with regards to board design and some of the blanks have made it pretty hard over the years, ” he said. “At times it has been frustrating, but learning how to carve a nice board out of the old blobs of foam we used to call surfboard blanks helped when they finally got better and when I began to make my own. ”

When Clark Foam closed, many surfboard builders didn’t know if they would be in business, so I began looking at other possibilities. Making my own blanks started out as a possible way of survival, but as it’s turned out, it’s become just another learning experience to help me become a better craftsman and surfboard builder. ”

Looking back on his previous experience, he says that during some of his formative years at Spectrum surfboards he remembers a time between 1986 and 1991 where he shaped a thousand surfboards a year. Only to be followed by a divorce and move to Hawaii’s north shore for a trial by fire.

This trial would be a stint of sanding boards in a shack with a leaky roof for an entire winter with Country surfboards. It would rain every day and the winds would blow forty miles an hour. The pay was low and the chills constant, and it helped prompt a move back to his home in Pensacola.

When he returned home, he began shaping surfboards in a factory with Local shaper Steve Stack and producing surfboards for a couple of shops in the area. That lasted for awhile, but he ended up with his own factory in the rear of a surf shop called Kai just opened by his friend Noel Whitman.   As he remembers, this was a great set up. Noel would speak to them in the front and bring the board customers in the back and they would buy. Everyone left with a smile on their face. Factory shops were not a majority and that set up would add a bit of magic to the sale of each surfboard.  During a seven month stretch we sold 170 surfboards.

In many ways it was the classic surf shop tale. The shop was in a gritty side of town, with crack dealers across the street, theft, and a host of strange characters.

There was a kink store two shops down and housewives would drive up in their Mercedes Benz, come in the shop and ask for strange items confusing us with the kink store (which didn’t have much in the way of a sign). When they found out we were a surf shop… some of the looks on their faces as they made quick exit would leave us laughing for the next half hour.

During this time in Pensacola two things happened that would make a major change in Steve’s life. One was a chance encounter with a just out of school graphic artist who was designing tee shirt logos for the shop. He not only designed a logo for the shop, but would design a logo for a name Steve had come up with for his own board line. The name he had come up with was coda and the design turned out to be the artist’s rendering of the actual coda symbol. We both knew it was right on the first attempt. It just popped and it’s the symbol he still uses to this day.

The other and most important thing that had happened was running into his future wife Cindy. They had known each other for years, but a chance meeting at a grocery store on his way to his parents house turned into romance and the couple soon married. Steve’s life was now on solid ground, but he was beginning to get the urge to move back to central Florida for the warmer weather and more consistent surf, which he did within the year.

His life had pretty much come full circle, but the second time around in central Florida had Steve with his own label and creating boards on his own terms. Years have gone by since that move 12 years ago, and many changes have taken place in the board building industry, but the one consistent among the many phases of Steve’s shaping life has been dedication to being unique in what he does, and by doing it at the height of quality and professionalism.

Whether Steve is shaping his unique Lazor eggs or fooling with some of the underground movements such as the nugget or mini Simmons….his love of the art comes through. His boards all have a tightly finished look and ride in their own way. In a time where some board builders are struggling for sales, Steve’s orders keep coming in.