How To Make a Surfboards..

1. IDEA

You need to know what kind of surfboard you want. Pick a board that suits your style of surfing and the type of waves that will be surfed. You need to have an idea of the size, thickness, weight, number of fins, degree or amount and location of the rocker.

2. BUY A BLANK

There are about 10 general sizes of foam blanks that you buy. Pick one that is the closest in size to what your board will be. The blank is molded poyuveance foam....softer in the middle with a harder crust on the outside. Down the middle of the board is a piece of wood called the stringer that gives the board strength and "locks" in the rocker contour or shape.

3. PATTERN/TEMPLATE

You can either draw the pattern onto the blank or use a template to form the curves on the board. The pattern helps you determine how the desired dimensions will flow into or connect with each other. The pattern tells you how wide and how thick the board will be. It gives the overall shape to the board. A board can be made equal on both sides or made asymmetrically.

4. SHAPE

hand saw was used to cut the outline the board from the foam blank. It is pretty easy to cut. Then we would use an electric planer to smooth the surface of the blank.

5. BOTTOM

The bottom was worked on next. The bottom was smoothed out and the rocker was shaped in. The outline shape was checked and corrected. We would get one side right then take a piece of paper and trace the shape and do the other side.

6. TOP

Then we would work on the top of the board, shaping the desired thickness into the blank.

7. RAILS

Next we worked on the rails or outside edges. A good shaper can do all of this in about 3 hours. It's good to take a break and then come back and look at the shape one more time before adding the fiberglass.

8. SMOOTH EDGES

Next, using sandpaper we smooth out the rough edges. The planer that we worked with left straight cuts so we had to smooth them out.

9. FIBERGLASS/RESIN

You would take these sheets of fiberglass and lay them over the blank.Then you mix the resin with the catalyst or hardener and pour it over the glass. You can either paint your blank first and glass clear or add color to the resin. My favorite color was orange and green. Yellow was also easy to work with. Light blue and blue tints were the hardest to work with The resin hardens in about 1 hour. Then you turn the board over and glass the other side, overlapping the edges and trimming.

10. FINS

Next you would add fins. In our day we used only one fin and we used to make it ourselves out of fiberglass. They used to have these kits that you could buy to make your own fins.