I hope this post encourages people who are starting out building boards of any kind to keep going. You’ll figure it all out in time if you keep at it!
I’ve lurked here a while now before I had even registered. Finally did so I could post and offer some encouragement to others that are new and trying their hand at building. I’ve been in the SUP industry (yah I know) for almost 10 years now. Mostly as a sponsored athlete and business owner. Last year I took the plunge and decided to build boards, (I was spending between $10-20k a year on boards for the business). I used swaylocks near exclusively to figure out the process. (Loads of info from the magic search button!) It was a process to learn to build and I’m still nowhere near a pro but I feel I’m getting decent at building.
Things I’ve learned:
read read read! Scour swaylocks for info. As I said earlier that the search button yields a ton of info that has been asked in one way or the other.
Fail Fail Fail! You will never learn if you don’t fail. I had to build a few crap boards to figure out what I was doing wrong. It’s ok to fail as long as you learn from what you’re doing. Chances are most people on here have failed at some point in their building process.
Don’t go too cheap. A lot of people skimp on material which I know budgets are tight, they are for me too. But my first board was 1.5lb eps and I found it so much easier than glueing up lowes insulation boards. Find people locally if you can. I just glued up a couple pieces of scrap eps so a friend could try his hand at shaping. Gave it to him for a 6 pack. He’s hacking away presently at the foam making a beautiful mess.
Be proud of what you make. I have made some ugly boards when i started But I still paddle them as if they’re cased in gold. I enjoy the hell out of paddling around a beater board ugly as sin when it’s 30 degrees outside in Missouri.
Enjoy the process. I love nothing more than going in my shop (20’x8’) and attacking some foam by hand with either a handsaw, planer, or rasp. Its fricken awesome. And I’ve been able to have friends come over and teach them how to. I have free labor occasionally and generally they bring something to eat, smoke, or drink with them.
Here’s some pics of builds over the past year. The big Blue one is known as Greystoke and has a cool story with it. http://www.supthemag.com/features/340-miles-81-year-old-remarkable-story-don-sanders-mr-340-river-race/
The long light blue 16x25 i did a 230mile race in florida on.
the white ones in the shop are some of the first builds last year.
the one in the back yard was for a friend
the purple one looks good but has a lot of cosmetic blemishes
the last one is a white water prototype yet to hit the water
