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Tiki History Gallery

Dave blowing blanks when Tiki first started up in South Wales during '67. Castle foam was the later replaced with Bennett (Aust) foam under license in '72. Barry Bennett himself stayed 6 weeks to get us up and running which resulted in a pivotal streamlined system with 80 blanks a day output, and a record 130 in a day for an urgent shipment.

Dave Blowing Balnks

'73,VW pickup en route to the spanish border...35mph, 145 blanks & 43 boards & 4 rolls fibreglass...18 hrs drive, stopped by police at 5am outskirts of Bordeaux.The underbody locker had 60 skateboards and was a handy wine smuggling space on return.

Tiki's first factory show area with 10 boards in '75

Tiki 1st Factory

1969, Emma, the surfing dog in front of a spectacularly (in those days) short 6'6

Emma the Surfing Dog

Croyde , '69.... Dave took this shot to the Surfer mag office when in Calif. They would have published it if it hadn't been 'grainy'.

The Hewitt Brothers, spectacular airbrush artists who sprayed 100s of our boards. Arriving from Aus we'd found them in London designing record covers (yes. vynil L.Ps).They didn't take much persuasion to come to Devon for a couple of seasons.

Hewitt Brothers

Roger Cooper, Glassing. He later went on to form Hi- Jumpers

Roger Cooper - Glassing

Denno, top squash player, ferral Aus who finished to perfection the glosses

Checking for quality

Checking Quality

The shaping ' pit'

Denno glueing the centre redwod stringers, a messy job but someone has to do it.

N. 10 south st... Braunton, the first surf shop in town

10 South Street

Dave, Tim & Allan Brookes, who later joined forces with Chapter Surfboards.

Dave, Tim & Allan Brookes

Spraying, this sometimes took quite a few hours per board

The yellow peril, must have been around '76

Tim H. and daughter Amy around '72

Tim & Daughter Amy

Right to left, Allan, Dave and Tim on a bit of grass waiting for the factory to be built ('71). Up 'til then Tiki had been from garage to wool depot to small workshop in amongst private houses who didn't take to the resin fumes & sanding dust. By the side of the 'bit of grass above was a 200 sq foot site hut where for 15 months we had to work. Moving into the factory with actual running water and s p a c e was a big step forward.

Allan, Dave & Tim '71

Our apprentice 'lightnin' helping to load 'wave eaters' in '72

'Surfboards Great Britain' a '69 design.

Surfboards Great Britain' a '69 design

...Clive Rodell, sponsored Cornish surfer, now residing in Australia

1981 Fluro fashion in new (then) factory showroom

Al Atherton holding a state of the art number

Local Pub setting for Xmas Card

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