The Sandman : There’s little glory, lots of dust, in grinding down surfboards. But Bobby Jensen has no plans to retire.

In 1949, surfing was simple.

The few surfers who rode the waves along California’s then-pristine coastline wore tans, not Body Gloves.

With high-tech designs still a way off, boards were rough-hewn planks of redwood, cedar or balsa, and they were shaped in back yards, garages and at a little-known spot beneath the Manhattan Beach Pier called the Manhattan Surfing Club.

Nobody had heard of Gidget or the Beach Boys. And it would be several decades before a surfing pro tour or prize money would be around.

But Robinson (Bobby) Jensen was around, sanding surfboards at the club. And today, more than 40 years later, he still practices the art of grinding down fiberglass to a smooth finish. It’s a dusty, dirty vocation that, at age 60, Jensen shows no sign of giving up.

“There’s hardly anything worse,� says Steve Pezman, publisher of Surfer magazine. “There is no glamour or glory in the process.�

Jensen is revered by an industry that generally bestows praise on the person who shapes a board, not the person who sands it.

“He’s sanded more surfboards than anybody in the business,� says longtime friend and legendary surfer Dale Velzy, who gave Jensen his start at the now-defunct club, a place with a pool table and showers for its members--a gang of local surfers. “And he’s still good. He’s still the best.�

Seven days a week, Jensen--who is known as “Obe Kanobe�--steers his faded brown ’71 Ford pickup to surfboard manufacturers from Santa Monica to San Juan Capistrano, where he is hired to put the finishing touches on up to 15 boards a day.

He knows just about everybody who has been anybody in the business. His resume reads like a Who’s Who in Southern California Surfing Industry: Hobie Alter, Dewey Weber, Jack Pollard, Rick Stoner, Greg Knoll, Bruce Jones, Pacific Fiberglass, Malibu Plastics, Bing Surfboards, Wilkins Surfboards, Conn Surfboards, Becker Surfboards, Magic Glass, Windsurfer, Wayne Miyata Surfboards, Shoreline, Surf Glass, Natural Progression and Aquatek.

Yet Jensen remains relatively unknown, an unsung hero of sorts, a survivor who was “hanging out at the beach� when there were only a few hundred surfers in Southern California.

“It’s one of the only occupations, generally speaking, where you always stay the same age,� Jensen says. “You’re in an aura of youth--that’s something I’ve always liked. I guess I’ll never grow up.�

Jensen works in an industry that has done some growing up of its own. Innovations in board technology--borrowed from the aerospace industry--helped popularize surfing, which became a full-fledged fad in the late ‘50s with the release of the film “Gidget,� as did surfing-influenced bands such as the Beach Boys. Today, there are millions of surfers worldwide.

While surf shops up and down the coast have come and gone, along with a few once-popular surf breaks, Jensen has always made a good living sanding surfboards--an odd job, especially for someone who has never surfed.

He says he was so involved in bodysurfing and body boarding that he “never got around� to surfing.

“I’m like a mechanic who builds airplanes but has no need to fly them. Or a race car mechanic--he doesn’t need to drive the cars,� the soft-spoken Jensen says.

Still, he is considered among the best in the business.

Sanders, Pezman says, are “revered by the shaper and very much appreciated by people in the trade. But beyond that they’re not heard of at all. Jensen is a cult personage within a subculture, within a cult,� he says.

Jensen smoothes out a board’s rough edges after it is shaped, taking care to conform to the shaper’s original contours. It’s a painstaking craft, requiring a light touch on a very thin layer of fiberglass. If it’s marred, the surface is ruined.

“Sanding is like shaping,� explains Jensen. “You have to kind of feel what the shaper wants. You notice the flow the shaper has--each one is different. I respect what shapers do, and try to do what they do. That’s the difference between a good sander and someone who just sands.�

This delicate yet complex job is certainly not the most glamorous in the industry, nor is it the most lucrative.

While sanders are paid about $15 to $18 per board, shapers may earn $40 to $60 per board and $100 for long boards. Regular boards start selling at about $250 and long boards go for $350 to $500, depending on the shaper.

Wearing a red-plaid flannel work shirt and jeans, with a bushy, snow-white beard and round eyeglasses, Jensen looks every bit like Saint Nick. So much so that he might photograph himself for the family Christmas card, or apply to be a mall Santa during surfing’s off-season, except that he’s always working.

Jensen once sanded up to 35 boards a day during the peak summer months, June through August. Because the work is more technical now and, hence, more time-consuming, he sands 12 to 15 boards a day, fewer during the winter.

Although he worked for two years as a shaper at his own surf shop in Seaside, Ore.--the only time he has lived outside the Los Angeles area--Jensen prefers sanding.

“Shaping is high profile,� he explains, referring to the near-cult following of some shapers. “Shapers have to be able to communicate with people . . . to give them what they need and not necessarily what they want.

“I like low profile. I like to think a lot. Sanding, nobody bothers me. It’s too itchy.�

It’s also hard on the back, Jensen acknowledges. He wears a mask to protect his face and lungs from clouds of fiberglass dust that cling to his skin and clothes, making him look at the end of a workday like Santa in the middle of a blizzard.

Throughout his career Jensen has also helped build skateboards, sail boards, paddle boards, even fishing boards, and has helped develop prototypes for custom cars and sailboats--among them the Hobie Cat.

“I don’t know what it is about the water,� says Jensen, who grew up in Hermosa Beach. “It’s real, I guess.�

He now lives in Venice with his third wife, Bette, a bank teller. He has three children, Robinson Jr., 41, from his first marriage, and twins, Kimberley and James, 31, from his second marriage.

As for retirement, Jensen has no plans for it--ever.

“I can’t stand not working. Oh God, I hate that,� Jensen says. “Why anybody wouldn’t want to work--work is fun.�

Sounds a lot like something Saint Nick would say.

Before the Waves A surfboard starts out as a “blank,� a shell of polyurethane foam, which the shaper carves to the desired size and shape.

Then the laminator, or glasser, applies the fiberglass, which is molded to the board like plastic cloth.

When the fiberglass is dry, the sander finishes the job by smoothing out the rough edges while carefully following the shaper’s original contours.

Surfboards have evolved from the 14-foot, 120-pound solid wood planks of the 1940s to 6-foot boards of today weighing as little as 4 to 6 pounds.

Some things, though, haven’t changed: Surfboards are still made by hand.