The problem with the internet is you have to separate the good information from the bad information. With surfboard building it seems to me there is a lot of bad information that gets put out there as truth and less & less good solid info. Hat’s off to the few who have put good solid info and videos out there to help others. Good luck to everyone as you wade through all the crap in search of the few gems out there.
Pretty much everything I did was pre-internet so I guess it did not happen
I know what you mean. I can’t count how many times I’ve seen websites that put themselves forth as knowledgeable or even an authority on a subject, when they don’t know shit.
Self proclaimed experts with no foundation to back it up. One example was a website that posed as an authority on surfing in my area. Their wave ettiquette section said:
“The person closest to the shoulder has the right of way.”
What the fvvvvvvck???
And these are the kind of people who are seen as experts by those who know even less.
The blind leading the blind, as they say.
When I started out there was no internet. The only things I had to go on were the few things I absorbed in a couple visits to a shaper and the book pictured below. The book was outdated when I got it …I think mid 70s…but it gave me just enough guidance to work it out from there. Still have the book by the way.
By the time I had internet access (1997) I had stopped making boards and doing repairs on a regular basis. In a roundabout way, the internet is part of the reason I don’t do repairs for money, any more.
My personal favorites are the youtube videos where people demonstrate assbackwards techniques. But hey, if ya got a video on youTube, you’re an expert.
There was one youtube vid where a young girl gave ding repair “lessons”. She said “Put the resin on the fiberglass, and wait until the fiberglass melts.” I guess she thought the resin dissolved the glass?
Another one that kills me, and i’ve seen it more than once, are the surfshop employees doing “how to choose your first surfboard” videos. Blatant mistakes, like calling anything with a split tail a “fish”, and even better- making comparisons between epoxy boards and a “fiberglass board”. These are shop salesmen and maybe even shop owners spouting this stupidity.
So true, Mako. There’s a few on Sways that give a lot of design advice that don’t surf well enough to be doing so. “Put a little vee here going into a little convcave over there” from guys that couldn’t notice the difference. I’ve been surfing for over 40 years with no breaks and I consider myself a life long ‘recreational surfer.’ Therefore, I give very little design advice. Only within my narrow reality. Kooks shouldn’t be giving design advice, but on the Internet there is very little way to check credentials. Kooks should be spending time in the water getting better, reading, paying attention, and learning. Mike
I dunno, but IMO it’d be too easy if all the advice was only good all the time. And its been my experience that plenty of really good surfers are capable of giving questionable (euphamism for bad) design advice, too.
So I think it’s great that all this information is here, and each one of us gets to sift thru and exercise our own bs-ometer and find what works for us.
Maybe you can’t tell a lot about an anonymous poster, but in the few years I’ve been here I’ve learned who posts generally helpful stuff, and who doesn’t.
"The problem with the internet is you have to separate the good information from the bad information "
… it’s the same deal with [real]** life , **too…
I guess that is how discernment and wisdom develops for us as humans.
" separating the wheat from the chaff " … is what someone else said , MANY years ago …
That’s nothing new, there’s always good and bad info outhere. All I do is learn from the pro’s, or good garage/backyard shapers. The “ideal” way to learn would be to work for a shaper. But it’s not easy because they might not be hiring, they also might not lhave any openings.But surfboard shapers don’t just teach anyone who walks off the street, so some may just start shaping on their own…there’s really no rules as surfboard shaping is not an “exact science.” Also, there are also different varieties of board’s, so many different theories on shaping that there is not one “cookie cutter” method to shape a board. So all you can do is take what’s useful and leave the rest…
I saw one featuring a young girl, maybe same one, on how to make a surfboard: she downloaded a file, tweaked it a little, and sent it off to the shop where, she explained, they would cnc it, scrub it, and glass it. There you go, that’s how you make a surfboard, any questions hahaha .
Here’s where I’m coming from. I’m talking about DESIGN. Not building methods. I rarely surf nose riders. So I don’t give design advice about nose riders. Doesn’t mean I don’t know something about nose rider design. Just I’m a dangerous kook on a nose rider. I’ve never surfed Sunset Beach. Probably never will at this point in my life. Someone wants design advice. It should come from someone who actually has surfed or surfs Sunset Beach. I’ve read all about big wave guns, etc Doesn’t make me qualified to give advice in that realm. Lots of people do, tho. I’ve been hanging around here for over 10 years. I get a pretty good idea of what people surf and where they surf. And I wonder why a middle aged weekend surfer who’s probably never surfed outside southern Calif. is giving design advice to someone that wants to charge Puerto Escondido. I think it’s BS. That’s all. Please continue. Mike
I haven’t been here anywhere near ten years, but I am somewhat aware of the controversy regarding gun design - ha! Never gave any gun advice, that I can recall, but I did ask for some once, and that in itself was enough to piss some people off, LOL.
I built a gun for a friend to take to Hanalei, despite never having surfed Hanalei. I did talk with Robin Mair, 'tho, via pm, before building it, and he was nice enough to share some insight with me. I was grateful for his help, and Robbie Dick and a few others, who shared design insight with me. According to the owner, the board ended up working fine. The board is now back in so. cal.
Sometimes you can find design imput on other sites, some shapers will put it on their website. Here’s a quote on Nathan Fletcher’s Maverick’s gun by Stretch, from the RedBull website: “The Fletcher gun has the wide point exact center with more volume pushed towards the nose. It’s a relatively low entry rocker into a continuous curve with increased tail rocker gives the board easier paddling, control and mobility. The rails are relatively thin in conjunction with Stretch’s “Aztec Pyramid” deck profile. Thickness under your chest stays prominent with a flat deck out from the stringer before doming over. Rails retain thickness up into the nose and foil out to an ultra thin and sensitive tail. The bottom is a vee in the nose to flat then panel vee out the tail.”
Rusty also has a lot of design advice available on the internet, http://www.surfline.com/blogs/talking-design-the-board-blog-with-rusty-preisendorfer_26649/
To me, this stuff is gold.
Hi Huck. I think you are helping me make my point. Mair, Stretch, Rusty can give pretty good design advice. It was wise of you to consult them. But, I wouldn’t presume to give big wave design advice or build a Hawaiian gun for someone other than myself. And I don’t think others like me, a hobbyist, should either. I think Mako’s original point was sifting through all the bad advice and BS on the Internet regarding design, etc. I wanted to point out that there is a fair amount of that right here on good ol Swaylocks.
No argument here 
I’m talking more about people giving tutorials, videos and advice portraying that they are experts but clearly demonstrating bad techniques. Many of them I wonder if they are still counting their completed boards on one hand with fingers left over.
I make no claims at being an expert. Just a backyard hack here but some of the stuff I read and see on the web regarding surfboard construction just leaves me shaking my head. Some of it even defies basic common sense and logic. I wonder how many beginners out there follow this crap as gospel and wind up getting terrible results.
Ah in my day if you wanted advise, you begged and the usual was “what ya writing a book”?
Too hassled, sometimes you watched, went home and made your own “cobalt bomb” HA!
Utube is crap and me wonder if home build airplanes are on there, now that could be sick, eh?
IMO it goes deeper!
…hello Mako, regarding pre internet days, that book was very poor in information and techniques; there s an enhanced version that is slightly better; still incomplete and so so.
Hello Rooster; Rusty, Stretch, etc have that knowledge due to they are (were) seasoned shapers and have first hand contact with the best riders plus have teams; not due they are great chargers, also, very good surfer does not mean very good designer. Reminds me what s exactly is to be a very good surfer; K Slater rides on those small boards in the Pipeline are top notch; however I remember J Buran in 84/85 or so in an impossible tube there (and Lopez rides? who s better?)…also, there s a video with Slater and one of the Malloys in Jeffrey s solid wave but with close outs, bith riding fish; both riding good, but the Malloy rides and performance were superior in every aspect…but still all talk about Slater…who s better? Is really Slater or the others great designers?