Tristan x Todd : Connecting the Dots

[From Instagram to the Shaping Bay]
I think it all started with us chatting on Instagram. I can’t really remember how I first found Tristan’s profile, but we began messaging sometime around 2020. I had already been intrigued by Tristan’s shaping style and the craftsmanship he puts into his boards. His work definitely had my respect from early on.

I didn’t actually meet Tristan in person until 2022, when I was invited to shape at UWL in France. Coincidentally, Tristan is from La Rochelle, where UWL is based, and he was good friends with Renaud Cardinal, who started UWL. After spending about four weeks shaping at UWL, I went down to Biarritz for a little over a week. My friend Jean has a factory there, and it turns out Tristan had also been using Jean’s factory for a while before he got his own space. I also knew Clovis from before, so it felt like a lot of those connections were overlapping in that area.That whole network probably played a role in how our paths crossed.

The funny thing is that when Renaud sent me to meet Tristan for the first time, he asked me to bring him a microplane surform blade. That was the first time Tristan and I actually met in person. Later, when I started working with Angelo at Jeff Hull’s in 2023, I realized how connected everyone in that circle was. Between Jeff, Jeff’s wife Shannon and Angelo, Tristan, Fob (a glasser in France), there was this whole network of people bridging California and France. It was pretty cool to see how all those connections came together.


From left: Jeff Hull, Tristan “Fantastic Acid”, Todd Pinder and Angelo. Photo taken during Tristan’s event in Japan.

[Developing and Perfecting a Design]
Obviously, Tristan is a very focused, detailed guy. In some ways, I'm jealous. Kind of how he concentrates on a certain design, and kind of develops it, perfects it, where I can be kind of shaping so many different boards at one time. But, I love seeing how much research, and he puts into any kind of shape, whether it's something completely from his mind, or maybe paying homage to the Malibu chip or hot curl or something.

[The First Collaboration — and More to Come]
We had talked about collaborating before, and I’m sure there will be more in the future. This one was more of a quick collaboration while Tristan was here in Hawaii. I asked him to shape two boards based on what he felt would work best here — two models in his style for Hawaiian waves. The idea was for Tristan to shape them and for me to do the final finish work on the boards.

Looking ahead, we’ve talked about doing more projects together, maybe next time in France. Tristan and I share a pretty similar network, and we both travel to many of the same places. So there’s always the possibility of meeting somewhere along the way and working on something together — for example, I might shape boards somewhere first, and Tristan could come after with his laminator to finish them. That kind of collaboration is something we both find really interesting. We also have a few ideas for projects here in Hawaii that I won’t get into too much detail about yet.


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