Have you been wondering what it’s like to shape your own surfboard? Depending on who you talk to, it could be a piece of cake or a daunting task that no man should do by himself. I wanted to find out. And when my buddies John and Frank offered to walk me through the process of how to make a surfboard, I couldn’t refuse.
But before we get into all the juicy details about how I made my own surfboard, I just want to let you know this is less of a “How To Make a Surfboard,” and more of a “How I (Poorly) Made a Surfboard That Some Thought Wouldn’t Surf, But Does.” You can learn from my mistakes, and hopefully avoid making the same ones if you decide to shape and glass your own surfboard.
I had been riding my Lunchtray a lot, which is super fun but not very maneuverable. And every time I took out my shortboard, it felt like I was surfing a noodle. So I decided to shape something somewhere between the two shapes. A fish has more volume and less rocker than a shortboard, so it’s easy to catch and ride mushy waves (San Diego summers hello), but still very maneuverable.
The first task was making a template for the outline of the fish. I got some “hardboard” (aka masonite?) from Home Depot for this, along with some PVC pipe to bend for smooth curves. Cost: $22.88 (split 3 ways)–$7.63
We made a similar outline to my friend John’s old fish because I rode that board and really liked it.
I bought my foam blank from Mitch’s Surf Shop, and if you’re in San Diego that’s probably where you will want to get yours. And I didn’t rent a shaping bay or anything for this part, we just did all of the shaping in John’s garage. Cost: $71.12
You’ll adjust your template towards the nose or tail of the blank, depending on where you want your rocker (the blank has rocker built in, so you don’t need to do as much sanding). From there, just trace the outline of the template onto the foam blank. Using a handsaw, cut along the outline on the foam blank, keeping the saw straight up and down (0h, and remember to wear a face mask or respirator… there’s gonna be lots of foam dust flying around).
Next, we brought out the planer and started shaving some thickness off the blank. Then it was time for the rail work. After making outlines for the rails, we took off foam with the planer and then the screen. Add $8.50 to your running total for sanding supplies.
From there, it was just a lot of slow sanding with various tools, making minor changes to the foam blank until we had the perfect fish shape. In all, shaping the foam blank took way longer than I expected—about six hours total, to be exact. And there were three of us! 😂
At this point, the boys decided we should just take our shaped blanks to a local glasser, instead of glassing them ourselves.
Until…
And this where the plot takes a twist, John and Frank changed their minds and said they would help me glass the board. But after waiting weeks for them to help, I decided to take matters into my own hands. Frank did let me borrow some much-needed tools for installing the fin boxes (template, router, and jig) and I made quick and dirty work of that. So after a quick run to Mitch’s, I had all the supplies I needed:
-Fiberglass cloth (6 yards of 6 oz cloth)
-Epoxy resin and hardener (stronger and lighter than polyester resin, and no fumes. Slightly more expensive)
-Squeegees/spreaders
-Two Futures fin boxes
-Latex gloves
-Black pigment
-Leash plug
-Five paint brushes
-Five measuring buckets
-Five stir sticks
Cost: $113.83 for all those supplies.
And now it was finally time to lay down the glass!
I brushed off the foam blank and laid down the fiberglass cloth. I cut the cloth so it hung a couple inches over the outline of the blank. Which brought us to the tricky part…the resin. The guys at the surf shop told me to use the whole jar of tint for this project (I think this was a big mistake and will tell you why in a minute). They also didn’t know how long the epoxy resin takes to cure and the label didn’t offer any timeframe either. So I just went ahead and mixed the resin with the hardener and the black pigment. Unfortunately, I forgot to tape off my fin boxes at this step, so after I poured resin in the fin box area of the foam blank, I had to fumble and tape the fin boxes with my messy gloves. I quickly inserted the fix boxes into the foam blank and spread the resin over them.
I was running out of time…
Now I had to spread the resin across the whole bottom of the surfboard, but I didn’t quite spread it liberally enough. The resin started getting thick as I was spreading it across the board, and that made it pull on the fiberglass cloth, so at this point, I had to stop. I quickly mixed up a small batch of clear resin and worked that around the rails, tucking the cloth under the rails as best I could. This somewhat salvaged it.
A few hours later, after the resin cured, I flipped the board over and cut off the excess cloth (laps, they are called) from the rails. It wasn’t pretty, but it wasn’t totally ruined. It was time to repeat the process for the deck of the board and this time I at least knew I had to work faster. I spread the resin liberally, worked quickly, and it went a lot better.
At this point, I wasn’t even sure if the surfboard was going to work. The rails were all lumpy and the first coat wasn’t very hard. And remember when I said I shouldn’t have used all that black pigment? Well, I think that’s why the resin wasn’t fully curing. I couldn’t quit now though so it was on to the hot coat.
The hot coat was much easier. All I had to do was brush a thick coat of resin onto the surfboard (I didn’t use pigment in this coat, so it cured fully this time). Of course, it wasn’t perfect. There were tons of little air bubbles. So after letting the hot coat cure, sanding the whole surfboard again, applying front and rear traction pads (goodbye wax), I had a fish surfboard that didn’t really look like the glass job would hold up to my surfing.
But there was only one way to find out.
I popped in my new twin keel fins and took my new fish for a paddle.
Surprise, surprise. It worked!
It was just what I wanted, something in between my Lunchtray and shortboard. Fun and playful, but still easy to catch waves with thanks to all the volume. I was surfing a board that I had made myself. And let me tell you, that’s a good feeling.
That being said, making this surfboard was a lot of work. I don’t know if the shaping or the glassing was worse, and it turns out my first self-shaped board might also be my last. Total cost: $201.08
So, what do you think? Do you still want to make your own surfboard?
Catch more from Ho Stevie! on Youtube. And the original post with more photos can be found online, here.
