Story Courtesy of Lloyd Steino, Deus Ex Machina Japan
Tappy’s shapes are all original outlines and rocker shapes with a lot of his inspiration coming from the rocker profiles of fish surfboards. As a surfboard shaper of 20+ years and a snowboarder for just as long, Tappy has a great understanding of how his lines and curves should flow in the snow. Tappy is constantly playing around with new design ideas on board blanks he cuts into new unique shapes to try out on the slopes.
When Tappy was invited to Deus Bali to shape surfboards at their Canggu factory in 2013, he also brought a collection of hand shaped skateboard decks, which he hand-painted at the factory. Burton saw the collection of hand painted decks on the Deus Blog, contacted Tappy and asked him to collaborate on their Burton Family Tree collection. Around the same time, not knowing of Tappy’s Burton project, I proposed the idea of creating Deus snowboards to him. This was the beginning of Deus Powder Tools and how it all came together the same year. As we look ahead, we want Deus Powder Tools to have a global presence, to be enjoyed on mountain slopes all over the world. We want people to enjoy snowboarding as it was in the beginning, the concept of surfing on snow.