Keep it simple.

I have been messing round with fixing and building surfboards for about twenty years now. I think my experience is a bit different from a lot of people here in that in the early days I had to work pretty much everything out for myself. Very little information and a lot of trial and error.There was nobody here who was willing to show me and also there was no internet!

I started off buying resin from a local boatbuilder. Three years later I discovered that there was a thing called “surfacing agent”. Later on I discovered that there was a bloke up in Auckland selling surfboard materials so I decided to have a crack at building a board. The only information I could find was a book I found in the local library first published in 1968!

I spent about six months trying to figure out what to do until I had two strokes of luck. Firstly I visited a shaper in another town and he happend to be glassing a board. In that fifteen minutes I learned the basics of glassing. Secondly I knew a guy who lived downstairs from a shaper and had gleaned some information. He showed me the basics of roughing out a board and from that moment I was away.

In the following years I have made 26 boards and fixed around 80 snaps. I have made guns, shortboards, longboards and a fish.

So getting to the point of this essay: The one piece of advice I can give someone who wants to make their own board is to keep it as simple as possible. There is a lot of complicated information swirling around this forum and for people making boards for a living I reckon it’s valuable. For someone making their first couple of boards I reckon most of the information here is just making what should be a simple process too complicated. Here is my advice in more detail:

1/ The shape. Make a basic short board with a rounded square tail and a flat bottom. Thruster.  Unless you’re in the top 5% of surfers in terms of ability you won’t notice all the other stuff that people harp on about. It just has to be thick enough to float you. That is by far the most important thing in a surfboard. Find a blank with a standard rocker and use it. Don’t try and alter the rocker. Cut a template from a board you surf well and use it. Don’t mess with the template. 

2/ Materials. Use a PU blank and Polyester resin. Epoxy is expensive and sensitive. Blushing, out-gassing, vacuum bagging, scrubbing between coats, finishing the EPS blank etc etc these are things you can do without. 

3/ No spray. Just make your board white. Draw on it with marker pens later on if you must.

4/ When you’re finishing your board go to 120 grit and then spray a can of clear satin acrylic on the board. Job done.

I accept that for some people using complicated and exotic techniques is part of the fun. I’m talking particualrly about wooden boards here. Don’t let me discourage you from this path if that’s your bag. I’m just saying that if you want to make your first board and you want it to surf reasonably well then keep it as simple as possible. That is my advice for what it’s worth. 

Failing that you could watch “Shaping 101”. I wish I’d had something that useful when I started out.

I’d also add a shaping lesson is a great way to start. I made 5 or 6 boards before I got a lesson with Richard Harvey, he showed me the simple process and after that my shapes got alot better. 

Newbie backyard hack here.

Marko foam RR epoxy is super simple and easy and is a great finished product.

Polyester isn’t worth the smell IMHO.

" I'm just saying that if you want to make your first board and you want it to surf reasonably well then keep it as simple as possible. "

 

yes, good point , 'spuddups' !

 

And ,

 

 what do they call those words [ eg:   mum , dad, yay , aha , bib ] ?  *

 

 yours is one , too ..... nice !

 

cheers !

 

  simple ben[eb?]      

 

 

* [ " palandrome" , is it ?]

As a home hacker I agree to a point my first board was pu blank an poly resin loosly copied another board for template never really sanded the hotcoat I still surf it once a week 3 years later. Works good.

Epoxy isn’t that hugly expensive the issues are not there if you don’t take short cuts. Due to the slower kick probably easyer to lam with as a novice. And it doesnt piss off the wife or neighbors.

 

Did you sort your eps fish?

Sound advice for first timers.

Yeah, I trawled this forum for some advice on finishing EPS blanks. In the end I ran the random orbital sander with a 120 grit lightly over the board. I ended up with a reasonable finish. The only thing is that the board has ended up at standard shortboard weight as I should have weighed the blank to see how dense it was. I thought it was one of those light EPS blanks so I glassed it 2x6oz on the deck 2x4oz on the deck. It’ll be fairly strong though I reckon.

I take your point with epoxy giving you more time to glass. My glass job on my board was my best ever. First time with epoxy and I’m very happy with the finish. The stuff I was using gave me about 35 mins to do the job so there was plenty of time to get things right. However there are a lot of ways you can stuff things up with epoxy and it is more than double the price of poly so I still reckon go with poly for the first time. 

I would have prefered to be “Spud” but somehow that was already taken on this forum. Spuddups is easy to remember so I used that. You will find me in that temple of higher intellectual discourse known as “surf.co.nz”. Enter at your own risk though, for there resides the indefatigable Roy Stewart.

Precisely.  I would add, use the tools you already have in the shed.

However, if you plan to use epoxy for most of your builds, I feel you should learn/begin with it.

If possible, use the materials that are most readily available in the area where you live.

 

A lot of quality  conversations on there even without roy  but the raicist one seems to be a pearler, or maybe the bastards thread. he seems a little unhappy since his board was broken.

  It seems to have been three days since anyone there went for a surf lol

Where did you get the bank from? psi had some preformed ones (like a pu blank) Was thinking about trying one

Yeah, it was one of ones from PSI. I don’t see the advantage with EPS though. It’s such a pain to finish. 

For the beginner in my mind there is nothing better than poly and sun cure.  The uv takes all the stress out of laminating and lets you focus on learning.  As you progress you can try working faster until you are comfortable with the process.  Then it’s time for cat and color:). Epoxy is great stuff but pricey.  Eps is ok but not my bag baby.  Keep it simple. Poly and uv additive in silmar 249 a or b.

nothing simpler than a machined Poly blank from your local cutter, UV resin and some sun

you can do a complete board in a day plus you can get a poly gloss finish unlike an epoxy

 

EPS, epoxies won;t smell but will take longer and require more stuff because of the post cure and contamination issues(fish eyes) you have to consider

Unfortunately it’s usually rather windy where I live so unless I get the full UV light set-up then suncure is out for me. I do use it for fixing dings though. So good when you’re trying to patch up a nose. 

Having just shaped an EPS blank I don’t see the point. So hard to finish. Better to stay with the PU even if you’re using epoxy I reckon. This sort of thing has been thrashed to death on this forum though. My point is that if you’re starting out you want to be shaping the material that’s easiest to work with. That has to be PU. 

Another thing I would like to talk about is the continued obsession with lightweight boards. My standard 6’3" shortboard is 3.4kg (about 7 pounds). This produces a hard wearing board for not much money. I reckon the top 5% of surfers (anyone who can land an air reverse or get barelled at ten foot Pipe) might be able to take advantage of a lighter board but for the rest of us I reckon it’s mostly in our minds. One time i had this really old resin that had thickened up over time. I read somewhere that you can thin it down with acetone. I did this but it must have made the resin soak into the blank or something, because somehow (I still haven’t figured it out) the board ended up being 800grams (nearly 3 pounds) heavier! Anyone who picked it up got a shock. At any rate it surfs really well and in bumpy surf it’s actually out-performing my lighter surfboards.

If you’re able to free yourself from the idea that you’re a good surfer and you need a light board then that makes production a lot simpler because you can stick with PU and use more resin and glass which makes sanding heaps easier. (Much harder to sand through, more room to move when correcting minor errors in how the rails have been shaped)

 

My first few boards all had concaves. Then I made one where I plain forgot to do the concave. I don’t think I noticed it 'till after I’d been surfing it for a few weeks. Basically as far as I could tell there was no difference. After that I just flagged concaves and decided that once again it’s something that only the very best surfers would actually notice. So that’s why I reckon forget about concave.

Check out this vid. This if fairly representitive of the general skill level where I live. There are a few rippers but mostly this is how most people surf.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bif8zzXmDw

Most people just able to trim and maybe do a cutback or top turn. In places where there are a lot of good surfers I still reckon the majority of people (maybe 70%) are at about this skill level. You just notice the good surfers since they’re the ones catching all the best waves at the best spots. Now the majority of the blokes in the vid are probably surfing boards with concaves, reverse v etc etc. Waste of time. All they need is something thick enough to float them and they’ll have just as much fun. We all would like to think that we rip but most of us tend to grossly overestimate our ability. 

I’m sure that there are people on this forum who are making their own boards and rip. My guess is that there are only a few. Now for an experienced shaper producing concaves and the like probably makes the shaping process more interesting. I reckon keep doing it if that’s what floats your boat. However for the beginner shaper who is also an average surfer I reckon forget it. You are trying to do something that wont make any difference to how the board surfs for you and can only result in making it easier to mess things up.

 

 

Spud, 

Well said.  Lot of complications to a relatively simple building process from pilots that will never know the differene.  Just saying… Mike