The walls are dotted with images of surfing legends and rows of unshaped surfboard blanks line the tall wooden shelves. A series of finished boards are hung as art pieces around the shop, as light classical music echoes from the shaping rooms in the back. A respirator-clad Dave Chun shuffles around a newly minted surfboard, inspecting the fiberglass. It’s a work of art, with bright oranges and reds popping through the shimmering glassing. Years ago, Chun crafted me a board, a gorgeous 4’10 swallowtail with a perfect green glassing. It’s taken its beatings over the years, but it remains one of my prized possessions.
When I sat down with Chun in his shop to learn more about Bend Surf, I thought we’d talk about surfboard shapes, the process and the Bend surfing community at large. Instead, Dave told me a story — one of humble beginnings, craftsmanship and an obsession with the elusive perfect surfboard.
“My earliest memories are all around two things; sports, and making things,” Chun told me. Growing up with two working parents, there was ample opportunity for a young Chun to explore both. Born just minutes from the Pacific in Kailua, Hawaii, immersion in the water via surfing or spearfishing was a non-negotiable — and with a knack for craftsmanship, the intersection between the two was inevitable.
This intersection was brought forth by an unassuming worldwide catalyst. By the end of the 1960s, a revolution was taking place in surfing, and an Australian by the name of Bob McTavish was at the forefront. Chronicled in William Finnegan’s memoir, “Barbarian Days,” the appearance of McTavish on a sleek “shortboard” at California’s Rincon break sent the surfing world into a frenzy. These new boards were faster, more maneuverable and better adept at handling midsize waves than their longboard counterparts. By 1969, it was shortboarders making the cover of Surfing Magazine, and the effects of this revolution began to send ripples through the surfing world.
Twelve-year-old Chun and his surfing colleagues wanted in on the new wave. “We all had these longboards, and we wanted shortboards — and we didn’t have money for shortboards.” Thus, Chun’s shaping career began, aided by hacksaws and a complete disregard for the “beautiful longboards” that they had ridden growing up. There isn’t a picture that exists of Chun’s first board, but it’s no surprise that even after a 50-year hiatus, those rudimentary shaping techniques would remain ingrained in his mind.
It was during that hiatus that Chun’s creativity and craftsmanship flourished. At 20 years old, his inherent compassion and quiet calmness landed him a job in San Francisco as a counselor in a home for troubled youth, and after a four-year stint, significantly longer than the average six-week turnover rate of counselors, Chun returned home to Hawaii. It was there that he began to build things in earnest.
By the end of the ‘80s, Chun and his wife Meg were deeply ingrained in the fabric of the Kialoa Canoe Club. The sport of outrigger canoeing is synonymous with Polynesian and Hawaiian culture, originally used as the sole form of transportation between the island chains. A friend of Chun’s in the club was getting married, and as a gift, he decided to build a paddle. Paddles are a unique shape and a challenging thing to make, with most being crafted artisanally by “uncles in their garages.” Being a craftsman by nature, Chun took the challenge of making a paddle head on. “I figured by looking at it, somebody made the thing. Well, then I should be able to make it, too,” he says, chuckling at the confidence of the statement. His finished product was beautiful, well received by the newlyweds, and — surprisingly — incredibly effective in its use. However, as a craftsman, Chun recognized that there was more to be done.
Traditionally, the users of these paddles are towering masses of muscle, their physiques lending themselves to powerful pulling mechanics. However, Chun was neither of those things. With a freediver’s build, Chun’s form was out of place among his enormous crewmates — and his paddling suffered because of it. After the creation of that first paddle, he was empowered. To compensate for his smaller mass, Chun built his own paddle. With a narrower blade, he was able to match the stroke rate and force production of his crew without massive overexertion. Without knowing it, Chun was experimenting with hydrodynamics.
His exploration into paddle production and iteration caught on with the club, and soon Chun was constructing similarly modeled paddles out of his garage. It was rapidly becoming clear that this could not be a pure side hustle — but Chun was never in it for the money. “Money is not a significant driver for me. What I saw money as was a way for me to buy more supplies or to buy more tools to be able to build more. I have this compulsion to build.” Sometimes, a paddle wouldn’t be sold but traded — Chun laughed with me regarding a receipt for a paddle in exchange for lobsters and fish.
With Meg handling the books, Chun continued to create — and the business grew. In 1990, Kialoa Paddles was born. For Chun, the fun was always in making something better, and in 1992, following his move to Bend, he began to experiment with carbon — a new material for production. Months of iteration led to one glorious, finished product — a gleaming blade, lighter than the traditional wooden cored paddles yet equally as strong. It was a breakthrough in outrigger paddling and cemented him as one of the foremost craftsmen in the industry.
Today, newspaper cutouts and images of Kialoa history dot the walls of his Bend Surf shop. Chun sold the business in 2018 to Washington-based Werner Paddles, but the Kialoa spirit remains strong. In the years following the sale, Chun found himself with immense free time — and a need.
Following the completion of the Bend Whitewater Park which opened in 2015 , it became clear that traditional ocean boards would not perform on a faster and smaller standing wave. The foam riverboard options were slow, clumsy and lacked the performance of their fiberglass counterparts. It was this need for faster, more maneuverable boards that brought an end to Chun’s 50-year hiatus in the surfing industry. He began to create once again.
On a sunny Sunday afternoon I watch Chun work a foam blank into a rideable weapon of a board. Mozart plays in the background as he begins to shape, slowly and meticulously marking out the ends of the rocker profile. “The surfboard is one of the most wonderful objects a builder can make, because we can manipulate it in so many ways and tailor it in so many ways for what the surfer wants,” he tells me as he prepares the board to be cut.
His planer roars as he flits around the board, shaving off layers of foam with surgeon-like precision. Particles dance through the air, sticking to his arms and forehead. Chun would tell you that he’s not anything special — just someone who enjoys creating, but as I watched him work the board it was hard to believe his words. There are plenty of shapers who are more skillful, have built more boards, created revolutionary designs and come closer to unattainable perfection, yet it’s Chun’s dedication to craft and his willingness to step into something out of his wheelhouse that sets him apart.
“What I’ve always liked about craft is that craft rewards repetition. The more you do it the better you get at it, and you just have to expect you’re going to screw up a lot,” he says. After 300 boards, he still feels as if he’s at the tip of the iceberg — still screwing up, still creating things that are less than perfect.
No matter how many nearly perfect boards Chun shapes, he’ll never stop creating. “The main reason I build is how I relate to the world, how I relate to people…there’s sometimes a certain inability in me to see the good things that I have done in the things I make. I see all the things I did wrong. It makes me want to do better.”
This article appears in the Source July 16, 2026.
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