R.I.P. BRUCE JONES

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• Bruce Jones was a true pioneer in the Southern California shaping scene.
  

Bruce Jones, passed away on January 14. He was 69 years old. Bruce was one of four brothers brought up in the 1950s by good-natured parents whose experiences from The Great Depression resulted in a distinct frugality, which translated into a lot of coastal camping for the family, mostly north of Los Angeles. While driving south along Hwy 101 past Santa Barbara, Bruce got his first glimpse of real surfing one day in 1959 -- a dozen or so guys trading off head-high, glassy rights at Rincon. A year later, Jon Jordane (who would eventually become a famous sailboat racer/ navigator) drove a 15-year-old Bruce to his first session at Upper Trestles, right around the same time Gidgetinfected the masses via the big screen.

"It was a beautiful summer morning in 1960 -- glassy, shoulder-high, lots of kelp, and crowded," remembers Bruce on his personal blog. "I was overtaken by the grandeur of the whole experience. In my cut-off Levis, I paddled out and just tried to stay out of everyone's way, ended up not catching any waves and after a couple of hours paddled in. That afternoon we went to Doheny and I stood up and rode my first wave."

Totally possessed, Bruce was soon camping and surfing the California coast with his brother with unbridled stoke. With the original Hobie shop just up a ways in Dana Point, the two would often trot up the hill to spy on the employees. "We would go to the back door and peer in at the workers and the blanks," remembers Bruce, "just amazed at what they were doing."

Eventually, Bruce found himself immersed in boardbuilding's Golden Age, mixing it up with would-be legends Phil Edwards, Dale Velzy, Terry Martin, John Gray and Ralph Parker, among others. Cutting his teeth in Hobie Surfboards' gluing department, Bruce soon worked his way into rough shaping before moving into the actual shaping room.

Relocating to Huntington Beach in the mid '60s, Bruce found his voice shaping for Vardeman Surfboards and became known for his work on the Jackie Baxter Models, which would eventually become rare California collectibles. He literally moonlighted at Gordon Duane's Gordie Surfboards, which is where he actually refined his shapes and developed his attention to detail. A brief stint ghost shaping for Dick Brewer on Maui followed in 1969 before Bruce returned to the Mainland to build boards for Russell Surfboards in Newport Beach and Ole Surfboards in Sunset Beach. It was at the site of the latter where Bruce launched his own business in 1973, Bruce Jones Surfboards, as a fully functioning surf shop at 16927 Pacific Coast Hwy (now Huntington Beach). Running his own manufacturing facility nearby in Costa Mesa, CA, Bruce kept all work in house to maintain a close eye on the boards as they went through each phase of the construction process. Shaping all boards himself while a diligent loyal team waited to glass, sand and finish the shapes, Bruce prided himself and his team on offering a combination of fine shaping, beautiful color design and a very precise fiberglass/finish coat to create a quality product that stood out.

Besides his impressive boardbuilding legacy, he leaves behind wife Sheila, son Brock, and daughters Whitney and Kaitlyn.