I have this old Weber performer and I am trying to determine its manufacture date. The fin is a very nice replica but otherwise everything looks original including what I believe was called the Thunderbolt fin system. However, there is something unusual about the colors. It appears that the magenta tint on the bottom and rails was added after lamination. Does anyone know of any other Webbers where color tints we’re added on top and not into the laminating resin?
Ohhhhkay, first off it’s Wonder bolt, not Thunderbolt. They actually came in two sizes, the smaller ones are quite rare.
Next, while I have seen tinted hotcoats, I’m not 100% sure that’s what it is. Looking at the photo and the tail, it’s darker along the rail. The bottom is remarkably uniform, so either it isn’t a hotcoat or the sander did an amazing job getting it precisely right.
Somebody could have added it later, the pinstripe isn’t as precise as I’d expect on a Weber factory job.
hope that’s of use
doc…
Doc is correct, it’s called a wonderbolt. A Tom Morey invention that was used by Weber, Con, Morey Pope, and others.
Early Performers had glassed on fins. By 1966 they were using the wonderbolt. Waveset became the standard system on Webers by late 67 or so.
Hard to tell, but it looks like the board has a gloss coat. No way to determine if the tint is a second coat without seeing the board up close. I suspect it is not.
The original Perfomer label was black text on a red background, and just one word “Weberperformer”. Second run boards had yellow and black text on a red background and two separate words “Weber Performer”. So since this one has a wonderbolt box, but the later style label, it is a safe bet the board was made some time in 1967.
Original wonderbolt ad
Original Performer label. This is one of two waterslide decals I’ve had since the 60s. I have a large and a small one.
thanks all, I Quoted the previous owner as to the name thunderbolt, As I thought the wonderbolt system was the bolt through the deck. I stand corrected. The yellow and black label info is consistent with the previous owners opinion that the board was purchased in 1967 as is. This also leads me to believe that for some reason the magenta was added after lamination, as you can see where it has chipped off or has been lightly sanded or rubbed off. Possibly in late 67 as long boards were getting harder to sell the color was added to make it more in time with the psychedelic era and more sellable-Who knows? New pics below show color chipping And I actually feel the edge of the magenta color. Notice in the picture of the nose where the magenta has rubbed back And also curious is the thin thin strip of background color showing through along the edge of the orange stringer color where it meets the wood- as if that orange stringer color was also added and there was a slight Mistake with the tape off
Thank you I replied don’t know if I put it in the right place so please see above -or below!!
These photos you added make it quite obvious that the color was added at some point. Why, when, and how? Who knows?
Because I now know the person I acquired it from ( at no profit to him) got it from a good friend, who he knows bought it in 1967, as is, I’m going to trust that the color is "original " to that year. In the lamination-no. The “why” is the big question and one we can probably never know the answer to. That is why I originally asked if anyone knew of this happening to any comparable boards. I’m going to keep digging. Maybe I can find the name of the surf shop, likely in NY who sold it. Thanks for input
A friend of mine had a Natural Art board that was built in the late 70’s early 80’s that had a chip in the gloss coat and it appeared that the tint was in the gloss. You could see the lam coat as just the plain white of the foam. It struck me as odd at the time. Perhaps it’s a long lost glassing secret.
Thanks, Had a conversation with a surf shop owner in Saint Augustine Florida who said he had knowledge of Weber and a couple different other brands in the late 60s doing an occasional tint in the hot coat. Looking at this Board and hearing about its history, I have to believe that was done here
Greg Loehr use to hang here. I believe that he owned Natural Art. Perhaps he will chime in.
You’re on pretty good grounds that the tint was done as you say "on the hotcoat ".
No doubt about that. Would like just to know the why and when for sure
When I said “when” I meant: in this case. Not sure what “here” you were referring to where Greg hung. Don’t think he was ever owner of NA tho -thanks but we need Weber info
Correction: When I said “here”
Greg shaped for NA in the late 70s. The founders were Pete Dooley, Scott Busbey, and George Easly. Pete and Deb Dooley still own the label.
I am saying you are most likely right in saying that it was done when the board was built.
Have you tried contacting Shea Weber?
Ohhkay, before I worked there, the shop I worked at for something like forty years sold a lot of Performers… I was working at the gas station out front then, I saw them.The vast majority were clear, anything fancy was usually a snazzy stringer like this one has…
I say the vast majority, but there were others. Anybody remember racing stripes? Or those wide diagonal color things. I remember one ‘team’ board, a special for the owner, that was orange bottom and rails and something on the deck, might have been orange all over except some stripes nose to tail that were either clear or white. Friggin’ board weighed a ton.
Now, the color on those was generally opaque pigment color, on top of the lamination and on top of the hotcoat.No other way to do some of that. Mask 'em off and have at it. You could feel the edges running your fngertips across them. Good for production, I imagine, if it wound up sanded a little thin it wouldn’t show, unlike a tint. That was how they did color, not in the lamination, not in the hotcoat. And opaque. For production reasons, like I said. Weber was smart, you made money by getting boards out the door. They had the first relatively simple shaping machines, so Harold Iggy just did the final work.
Now, I don’t recall seeing a Performer come through tinted,or color in the lamination. But that was fifty five years ago and in all honesty I’m not completely sure I remember what I had for lunch yesterday. The later Stratos, Feathers, Skis, sure, the Stratos especially, I think the Weber glassers had discovered LSD, some of those were just weird. Though again, most of the later production Weber Skis we got came through clear, maybe a fancy colored foam stringer.
G&S and others, I think they got into colored laminations earlier than Weber did. I have a G&S kneeboard, early1970s,green moslly opaque bottom and rails in the lamination as I found out fixing it.
Okay, that’s real neat, doc, what about this one? Why a tint surface coat like that? A few possibiities:
First, somebody ordered it that way from Currently Unknown Surf Shop in New York or wherever. Entirely possible. When it came to color, you could order anything you wanted, the custom order form was cool like that, almost like a coloring book. You pretty much got the standard shape, but color you could play with.It cost extra, of course.On top of a standard clear board.
Second possibility - somebody ordered it something like that from Weber, at their shop, and then something happened. They got drafted, they didn’t like it, they got married and moved inland where they were subsequently eaten by bears, whatever. So Weber had this board they needed to unload…
Third possibility - it was an experiment, or a mistake, and Weber had this board…
Now, you need to understand something about California board makers back then whose boards were carried by East Coast dealers. We were, as they say on the farm, sucking hind tit. We ordered boards and they sent us what they sent us. The order would be one thing and what we got something else. But we took them and sold them. We were small fish and they were big ones.
A West Coast shop probably wouldn’t have put up with it, but they sold a lot more boards and they sold them all year. Our season was more like a hundred days with lead time and shipping around half that. We needed something to sell. And we sure as hell were not gonna send anything back.It would cost more to air freight one board back than the thing cost us in the first place. And we were all shoestring operations competing with each other. We did what we had to do.
Anywho, that’s my guess.The guy who really would have known went and died on me last year, much missed.
Hope that helps
doc…
Which touches on something I heard a while back. It is claimed that Weber sold more Performers on the east coast than he did anywhere else.
So, while EC dealers often got the ‘seconds’ or were made to accept whatever came off the truck due to the hassles of returning unwanted stock, I don’t think actual sales volume was much of a factor. It think it was more of a proximity thing, and possibly a little west coast snobbery?