1970s
Ghetto Glassing
Before he shapes, Larry glasses. Working on Skip Frye boards teaches him how a rail, a cloth weight and a lamination schedule change the way a board feels.
Pacific Beach · San Diego, California
Speed never gets old.
From San Diego fishes to twinzers, Mini Simmons and long gliders, Larry shapes boards built to find speed — and keep it.
- First shaping job at G&S
- 1979
- Restored archive
- 19 models
- One shared story
- San Diego → France
01 — Legacy
Larry has never shaped to follow a trend. He starts with a line that works, then keeps pushing until the board finds something new underfoot.
Larry starts on the glassing side in Pacific Beach. At Ghetto Glassing he learns resin, cloth and rails, spending long hours on boards shaped by Skip Frye. In 1979 he picks up the planer at Gordon & Smith.
Xanadu, Swift and Kane Garden follow, then his own Third World Exotic label. Fishes, twinzers, Mini Simmons and gliders all carry San Diego DNA, but the way Larry places foam and makes a board run is entirely his own.
“Keep it fun, do not spend too much time watching trends, and make your own way.”
Curves, not recipes
It starts with the outline. The rest is tuned with the planer — then in the water.
02 — History
A life in lines.
Larry learned by doing: glassing first, shaping next, always close to surfers and the waves they actually ride.
1979
Gordon & Smith
Gordon & Smith gives Larry his first shaping job. Daily production grounds him in San Diego’s board-building tradition and gives him the repetitions to develop his own hand.
1990s
Xanadu
At Xanadu, Larry brings his understanding of fish speed into more demanding shortboards, refining rocker, rails and concaves without losing the flow at the heart of his shapes.
2000s
Kane Garden & Swift
The Kane Garden Fish becomes a reference. Alongside it, Larry keeps developing twinzers, gliders and hybrids under his own name.
2013–2018
French residencies
At Angoulins and later Shapers Club, Larry shapes on site. Every order starts with the surfer’s build, ability and the waves the board will actually see.
The legacy
Third World Exotic
White Pony, Ghostbuster, Honey Badger and Big Swallow are not retro reissues. They are different answers to one question: how do you keep speed without tying the board down?
03 — The shapes
19 ways to go fast.
All 19 models from the former French site, rebuilt from the archive. Open a shape to see its purpose, usual lengths and fin options.
The lengths shown come from the French archive. With Larry, final dimensions are decided around the surfer, their level and the waves they want to ride.
2015 archive · 2026 editionSan Diego ↔ Atlantic coast
The French chapter.
When Larry shapes in France, he does not copy California. He listens to local surfers and the waves they actually ride.
Between 2013 and 2018, his visits to Angoulins and later Shapers Club made it possible to order a Mabile shaped on site — and, just as importantly, talk with Larry before he picked up the planer. This site keeps a record of those visits, with every intention of adding another chapter.
2013First visit
2014UWL · Angoulins
2015French collection
2017Shapers Club
2018Winter residency
04 — In the workshop
Dust, hands, line.
A shaping residency without the theatre: raw blanks, dust, hands reading rails and long conversations around a board.
What comes next
A good board does not need a long explanation.
Paddle it, catch the first one, and the line becomes clear. Meet the guest shapers at the Club and start thinking about the next board.
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