International Surfboard Builders Hall Of Fame Inductee Details
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| Inductee Name Scott Busbey | Event Year 2018 | Inductee Location In Hatteras since 1977 | Inductee Contact |
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| Inductee Boardshop Surfintheeye |
Boardshop Link https://www.instagram.com/surfintheeye/ |
| Inductee Bio
When I was about 15, I rode up to the O'hare shop and custom ordered a new surfboard that I had been saving my paper route money for. I remember I ordered it with blue rails and a pinline. I believe it was $155.00and I was told it would be done in 2 weeks. 2 weeks went by and I rode up to get my new board and it wasn't ready, it will be ready next week, next week it still wasn't ready, this went on for several weeks when they got tired of seeing me and told me it still wasn't started but he would sell me an O'hare McRoberts model off the floor for $155 instead of the $175 they were charging for them. I was dying to ride my new board so thinking I got a steal I took him up on the offer .About a month or two later Nat Young wins the World Championships in San Diego and all of a sudden my 9'6" O'hare McRoberts model was obsolete. My friend just bought a 9'0' Jacobs, Mike Purpus model and his board turned so much easier than mine and someone let me try a Surfboards Hawaii V bottom, wow, it turned so easy! So I saved my money again and as soon as I could I went to the Weber shop and ordered an 8'10 Feather Lightweight. Picked it up, brought it home and was so excited, my father came home from work that evening and saw the new board in the garage asked me about it, I was so stoked on my new board but my dad wasn't, he hit the ceiling. I can still remember him yelling at me," I'm sick of this GD surfing, the board you had was perfectly fine! You're wasting all your money! You're never gonna make a living off this GD surfing!" He just didn't understand at all, unfortunately it wasn't much longer after that, that my 8'1O" was obsolete and then I really was out of money and boards were changing so fast a 16 year old couldn't keep up. So I started doing what I saw others doing, cutting a foot out of the center of your longboard and putting it back together to make it shorter or stripping the glass off of an old longboard and reshaping it. I had no idea how to shape or glass one but my dad was kind enough to take me up to the boat shop and buy some resin and cloth and ask questions about how to use it and he helped me glass the board I shaped. It was really horrible and rode like crap but it was a short board, so my friend down the street wanted to do the same to his so we did it. Each time we did one we learned a little more and before long I had people coming to me to re shape their longboards. I was good friends with Greg Loehr in high school and he was doing some of the same stuff so we started doing a few boards together, the more you did word would get out and you would meet others who were doing the same thing and it wasn't long until the boat shop started bringing in Walker blanks to sell and all the backyard stuff took off from there. It was during this time that I met Rick Holt and Pete Dooley who were learning the same way I was. They seem to be concentrating more on shaping and I was getting better at glassing so before long I had them paying me to glass their shapes. As I got out of High School and went over to BCC. I met a lot of surfers from up north that would come down for the winter to go to school and surf somewhere where it was warm, this is when I met Ted Brantley who talked me into going up to NJ with him for the summer and introduced me to Chuck Kunes who needed help finishing his boards. I knew some stuff but Chuck taught me a lot of the finer points and tricks and really gave me an opportunity to do work on a consistent level to get better at glassing and finishing. What a great summer up there, I met a lot of lifelong friends and surfed great waves in NJ all summer long. Going back to Florida, I reconnected with Pete Dooley and we started a small label "Contact". We were still doing boards in the back yard but as things progressed we grew and had to rent a place big enough to produce more boards. Pete was doing all the dry work and I was doing all the wet work. Along came George Easley who wanted to start a label Natural Art and wanted us to build them for him, Greg Loehr had been learning to shape more and he wanted to get more work and wanted to start shaping them also. Greg had spent the fall the year before in Hatteras and couldn't stop raving about how much surf there was and convinced all of us to move to Hatteras and start building boards there. We brought in Tommy Maus and Richard Price who had been in Santa Cruz working at Overlin's. Greg was shaping, I was glassing, George was sanding, Tommy was doing pin lines and glosses, Richard was polishing and Pete was managing. The boards were going great, they were being sold up and down the coast but winter was tough in Hatteras in 75 and the decision was made to move Natural Art Surfboards back to Florida. I went back with everyone but really wasn't ready to settle in down in Florida so after a year I taught my friend Dave Dedrick how to laminate and took off for Hawaii. I glassed a few boards there for friends but I never felt at home there and after getting married to my wife Carol we decided to head back to Hatteras in 1977. I was planning on getting a job doing carpentry but fate a fortune allowed Carol and I to open up Natural Art Surf Shop in Buxton. I was doing some repairs and some glassing then and was looking to bring some shapers in but my friends Lynn Shell and Mike Ryan convinced me that I should start shaping. They didn't feel like they were getting what they wanted from others and felt like I could do it. I feel like learning to tape off color laminations allowed me to see curves properly and I had been around so many shapers so I knew the process, I just needed practice. I started In The Eye Surfboards around that time and have been mostly doing customs for people ever since. I enjoy everything about building boards, from the blank to the finished product and keep involved in all of it not just shaping. I have taught many people over the years and they have gone on to other ventures in the surfing industry, hopefully using skills I have showed them along the way. It is still a small operation mostly focusing on custom work for people which is what I enjoy the most. I have been fortunate over the years to work along side and know many good people involved in the surfboard industry and have learned from all of them and continue to do so. It is truly and honor to be inducted into the Surfboard Builders Hall of Fame and look forward to meeting my fellow inductees and joining the others before me. | |||
| For the complete biography, go to: Scott Busbey | |||
Thanks to: daniel pullen; daniel pullen photography for the photo | |||
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