McCallum Surfboards

What’s your name, age, and where are you from?

My name is Jeff McCallum. I'm from San Diego, and I'm 43

How long have you been shaping? 

I shaped my first board in 2001 so 23 years ago. 

What was the first board? 

A single fin, eggish thing that was about five eight, and it looked like a potato.

What made you decide to shape a board?

Because I started surfing around then, I hadn't been surfing for long, and I wanted to ride different stuff. By the time I'd order something to the time I got it, I wanted to try something else. So it was faster and easier for me to make one versus wait for someone else to do it.

What kind of surfboards do you specialize in? 

People ask me that a lot, and I would say it's alternative shortboards. I don't make a ton of longboards, now we make a lot more midlengths, but it's mostly alternative boards.

Did you have any shaping mentors? 

I worked for Chris Christensen for a couple years, but he wasn't necessarily like a mentor as far as he didn't like hold my hand through the process a ton, but it was more, you know, shape this, I'll critique it, or watch me, watch me shape, and then [I’d] go shape another 100 boards, and then he could watch me again. But it wasn't him saying "this is how you hold a planer" and do this or that. There's a few guys at the shop that built boards, and they kind of helped me a little bit more than that, with the hands on stuff. But that was more like glassing and board building versus shaping.

Did you get proper critiques though? If your tail was too thick, your rails were too boxy or something? 

There wasn’t a ton of that, [it was] mostly negative, like “your outline is…” or “there's a wobble here, wobble there”, it was just more of fending for yourself. But then what you’d do is get better when he would ask you to do stuff. I never got to shape for him. There were guys that did and they were in the same line of progression as me, like he worked as a fin guy, the hot coats, you know, so I knew it would eventually go to that, but I never stayed that long to do it. 

What was your first job? 

Just like errand boy, sweeping, running errands, grabbing lunch.

What other shapers inspire you? 

I like some of the San Diego guys. Michael Miller is super cool. There's an old guy named Larry Crow. He's actually the resident pin line guy, but his whole approach to shaping was always unique. He just did his thing. He's never owned or ridden a tri fin in his entire life, all single fins. He's like, full 70s guy, but he was super cool. I actually got kind of disconnected from the whole surfboard world for a while. I don't know if it was good or bad, but I just didn't pay attention to a lot of other people, but the local guys I see and appreciate. I like Stu Kenson too, his kind of performance, alternative stuff was really neat.

I feel like he was really early in the alternative thing, right?

Yeah. I think he was a ghost shaper for Rusty for years, but I don't know his whole history though. 

Of all the guys that I know that were just pretty mediocre surfers, every single one of them got a Stu Kenson fish, or what was the brand that they did back in the day - Kane Garden? Yeah. They got a Kane Garden fish & every single one of these guys swears to this day it was the best board they ever had. I think everyone went off banana short boards, and then got on these Kane Garden fishes, and all of a sudden they were like “this thing paddles fast!”. Yeah, we deal with that a lot. We get a lot of super former shortboard guys, and then they would be riding those and get one, they'd be super stoked, but then you try and make a second one, and that level - that gap, was different, and so they weren't as fired up.

What surfers inspire you? 

There's a local guy named Dylan Jones that I like a lot. He's like, super soul, super underground. He's an amazing surfer, and he's just a badass dude. He's rescued me, and four people that I know of from Blacks - like saved our lives. But he's just badass, and also the humblest guy ever. Super friendly. 

Do you keep any of that inspiration in mind when you're shaping new designs? 

From him? Not too much. Or from other surfers? Not too much from the surfers directly, but, but surfing for sure, which translates to my stuff. He's just so positive and fun to be around that you want to be that guy in the water, even though I'm not always that guy. You know, you want to be friendly and cool versus grumpy.

So do most of your boards that you shape come from personal stuff, like you're looking for a new feeling and you'll shape the board for yourself & then release it out to world?

90% of the time that's where it all comes from. If you're a shaper, you have to ride what you shape. Surprisingly, some guys don’t. 

To be honest with you we work so much with Ryan, but there’s some things that he shapes that he's not capable of surfing and they still go really good. 

He’s a great shaper though. There's some guys that aren't great shapers, don’t ride what they shape, but are great surfers. There's a fine line between you want your shaper to be a good surfer, but not a great surfer. Or there’s different levels - like Burch is on a high, high level. 

I think there's a very small percentage of people who can surf on that high of a level and shape on that high level. You can count how many guys out on one hand. 

He's an outlier. He can shape really well. But then there's great surfers that don't shape that well, but can ride anything, and their boards are… they see it. But then there's guys that surf good - good enough to feel things, you know. So it's a weird fine line and pendulum sort of thing.

I know you have some travel plans after here. 

So in a couple weeks I go to Australia, and it's the same sort of thing I used to go and do a lot. I did 77 boards in seven days, that was my record. I don't think I can physically do that anymore, but I want to go to places and set up licensing and show people how to do what I do, and go from there. So next will be Australia, and then after that will be Europe, and then one more location. And you have shops already in those two countries? Australia, not so much. I went there nine years ago, but I didn't set up any shops. But in Europe I've been there nine times, so that will be easier. I haven't been there since 2017 or 2018.

What are you currently riding? 

I've been on this sort of egg thing. I've been stuck on eggs and variation eggs for a while, since 2017, and all my stuff started at one place - a PDX was the first thing. Then everything kind of all evolved from there, like more wave specific designs, but that's sort of my meat and potatoes. It all evolved from that - various small wave eggs.

What’s your favorite board at the moment?

My favorite at the moment is that TA. It's a thumb tail sort of egg. And it's just… it works. If I was going to go to Fiji, I was thinking about going there on my way to Australia, I would take one of those, 7’0”, thin, little bit more rocker than normal, than home, but basically a thumb tail egg - a twin fin egg. 

What is your favorite wave in the world? 

It's Black's Beach, for sure. If that boy wasn't there, I would have left San Diego a long time ago. But it's got a lot of faces. It can be big and scary and gnarly, but it can be fun and playful. And I've been surfing there pretty consistently since 2005. I got a big day there back then, and I kind of committed to going every big day since. I've missed a couple obviously, over time, but the last two years I missed a couple with family obligations, but that place is cool. It's got a lot of soul, a lot of history, and it's can be scary, but it can be really fun. It's a bit of an anomaly for Southern California. Yeah, it's a wild place. In a world of lots of soft reef things to have a super heavy deep water canyon, it's pretty wild. Pretty rad. There's big stuff - there’s big fish. I've seen whales inside the lineup. When you look towards Scripps, you know, there's that deep zone inside of where people sit. Wow. It was probably a juvenile but, yeah, there's a lot going on in that canyon.

What else are you into besides surfing and shaping? 

Right now I'm big into family life. I’ve got two little kids, that takes up a ton of time. But for fun, I'm into rock crawling and I build cars and modify cars, and welding and metal fabrication. It's similar in some sense, but it's also different in some ways, but it's a good distraction. 

What's one song that's stuck on rotation in your playlist?

Lately I've been into old school hip hop but I find all the stuff they sampled, and I listen to all the original songs. It's been fun, but I don't listen to a ton of music anymore because it's been 20 years of shaping and music and podcasts. It used to be books for a minute, and then now I listen to sports radio, because it's a little bit different and local and just something to listen to.

What is your favorite slice of pizza?

I like the pepperoni and garlic. It might be odd… We get to attest that we had it and it's pretty darn good. I would do it again. There's a place by me that would give you full giant cloves of garlic on it. The whole thing was covered in it, they were cooked. Seemed like a lot, but it was really good. That's what got me on that. The pizza here is amazing, too. It's so good. In Mexico everyone's eating tacos every day. Pizza is tacos, you know, pizza to here is tacos to Mexico. And it's the one thing when I'm away that I crave. It's pretty unique here too. We have some good pizza at home. I feel like now you can get good pizza in a lot of places, but it's like fancy, Neapolitan style pizza, but that classic, bigger Jersey, or New York style sliced thing doesn’t make it to places. The crust and everything's so good. Although Best Pizza next to BT donuts… It ticks the boxes. Oh, that's what's called, Best Pizza? Best Pizza, yeah, worst name, best pizza. We have a place called Best Donut, and it's the best donut. Anytime someone sells for claims, though I'm like, is it really? But yeah, you guys blow our donuts. There's no good donuts… everyone just does fried cupcakes with holes in the center. At our Best Donut, if you go there at like nine, the glazed old fashioned is still hot.