Know Your History: Simmons Sandwich

1949 Bob Simmons Sandwich

Surf History

Simmons was one of the first to use resin and fiberglass cloth

Surfersvillage Global Surf News, 11 March, 2013 : - - The California Gold Auction Advisory Committee presents #8 in a series of sneak peek videos. On the auction block is a 1949 Bob Simmons Sandwich. This particular board is a single fin which suggests it is one of the earlier sandwich surfboards built by Bob Simmons. Not many of these boards exist.

In the early 1940s, Simmons dropped out of the California Institute of Technology where he had learned about aero- and hydrodynamics. He started applying these radical new principles to the surfboards he shaped. These surfboards were made of balsa wood with a spoon-like nose, a thin squared-off tail, and calibrated rails.

He was also one of the first to use resin and fiberglass cloth which had been developed during WWII. This added both strength and a light weight to his boards. He also invented the first Styrofoam core surfboard.

Because the resin would melt the Styrofoam he put a plywood veneer on both top and bottom, and balsa wood on the rails. Some of these boards had twin fins and channel bottoms. These Styrofoam balsa surfboards were called "sandwich boards" and could weigh as little as 25 pounds. He sold about 100 of these boards in 1949.*