Homemade surfboard

EricaMN.

EricaMN.

Active member
i have experience with pressing longboard decks as well as epoxy-resin fiberglassing. so long story but i fractured my skull so i cant do much for a while and i am planning on surfing a lot this summer. i am gonna buy some EPS foam soon and i am wondering if anyone on here has ever made a surfboard.please share everything you used and be specific+++K
 
If you want something you can successfully get up up and have the joy of making something that worked go for it. IF you want something that's actually going to be decent don't bother
 
i have personally never made one but my buddy did and it was cool kind of a bitch it seemed for him. cut out his shape in the foam. then the work comes in. you need a light table with lights coming from the side of the wall rather than the cieling so you can see the cuts you make when your shaping the board. you neeeed to pay attention to symmetry. you like get a chisel type thing im not sure what its called and you just shave the board down to its desired size. use high grit sand paper with your hand no power sanders once you have the shape to refine it keep using higher and higer sandpapers til its smoooooth like butta. then you apply the epoxy strips coated in fiber glass lay them on the board get out any air bubbles repeat until content then you have a board. the idea of its easy but its painstaking and my friend would bitch if he fucked up during shaping and you have to measure everything perfectly make sure your fin placement is perfect or your board will turn to one direction. good luck but honestly i went out today and there was a guy in the line up and i was like thats an interesting board who shaped it for you it had a funky like triple swallow tail thing on the tail straight weird shape but he was like i shaped it myself it took me a damn long time and i fucked up my fin placement i keep turning right i cant cutback left and turning left takes way to much effort. you should find a local shaper and see if you cant work with him on a board for you so you can really get technique and he will fix your mistakes for you. goodluck
 
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One of these? i built one last summer, shaping is a bitch. I used a belt sander and one of these shaver things made for foam. SYMMETRY IS KEY, symmetry is definitly the hardest part of building, shaping a close second. Make sure you get the right surfboard fiberglass cloth too, and dont forget putting a wood stringer in it either or else it will become floppy. Practice spreading epoxy before hand, or else you may get cracks and bubble, water can get in, and it will most likely weigh 60 pounds and not float. Drilling for fins is also a key part and its one of the harder parts as well. I suggest building a skimboard first just to practice, then move up. good luck
 
thanks everyone, my friends dad is a very good carpenter, so when i am shaping the board i will likely have him assist. and i will more than likely head to my local shop to get help with setting the fin
 
Goodluck. I really want to try something like this, probably longboards. How hard is it to make a longboard?
 
Once you build an efficient press, it's incredibly easy. Look up the dimm press on vimeo. It's pretty easy to build, mine took 1 hour, and they are really good, and as you press more boards, the shape gets better. You'll see what I'm talking about when you see the vid. And once you get good and start pressing a bunch of boards, you could even start selling them locally. I did this and made some good money
 
ill by one off u if you make any good ones. i am also trying to make a board. one like this though:http://www.surfindustries.com/surfboards/meyerhoffer_pill.php
 
That's a pretty easy shape, similar to the ones I build. I say you should try and build one, I build 2 or 3 a summer and I use them for a bit then sell them. Each board i alter the shape and dimensions to try and dial down a shape that I really like and one that feels solid, I havnt gottena perfect one yet but I'm close.
 
bumping this on up. i'm going to start on this process here in a week or two. instead of foam, i'm leaning towards a hollow wooden board.

there's a few really good resources i've found in my research, i'll share them here.

foam boards (but has really valuable information on glassing and hot coating): http://www.surfersteve.com/introduction.htm

designing your shape (free program): http://www.akushaper.com/download

the next couple are more geared towards making hollow wooden boards.

really good guide: https://sites.google.com/site/surfingwood/

hollow wood template program: http://jedail.free.fr/programs/HBTM.jnlp

anybody on here ever make a wooden board?
 
I shaped my first one this summer, 5'7"x18.5xway too thick. Twin fin, MR template fins.View attachment 565862

I think it surfs fine. It's not a high gloss finish, it's not glassed with super light glass and it's not signed by merrick. But it floats and I have fun on it. And it preforms they way I intended.

I've never done a chambered wood board before, but check out grain surfboards. They seem to do it right. There's also some threads on swaylocks on this type of construction. I do want to try a wood board, cause even a 5'4" will destroy chop and be super smooth because of it's weight and momentum. Just don't get hit with it.

Don't do your glassing in hot weather like I did, cause it made it very stressful. Also check out boardcad for an alternate computer program for design. And here's a swaylocks link
http://www2.swaylocks.com/forums/rails-first-wooden-shortboard

 
if anyone cares to check out my building process, you can look up the hashtag #hwsdiy on instagram. here's how far i am as of this morning, hopefully layin on the bottom skin tomorrow.

569635.jpeg
 
When I shaped my first few this summer, I used pink insulation foam from home depot just to figure out how to shape rails and how to use all the equipment. A 8' by 2' by 2" piece costs 35 bucks and shapes just like regular eps foam. I started by making a planing hull shape, essentially a really big bodyboard with no fins, meant just to go fast and use a lot of the rail to turn.

I came up with a template for the outline one side on a piece of wood, then traced it onto both sides. I cut the block of foam down to roughly the shape that I wanted with a saw, and then used strips of sandpaper attached to 2x4s to trim down to the exact shape that I wanted. For rails, I measured out the bevel of the rails (in my case 1/8 of an inch because I wanted them to be hard), and drew the distance on either side of the board, then sanded to the line with my blocks of sandpaper and mellowed out the edges by running a piece of sandpaper across the rails to round everything off. I didn't end up glassing it, because I just wanted experience shaping and you have to use epoxy resin to glass the pink foam, and it's ridiculously expensive. I had so much fun shaping it, the board ripped, and I'm working on shaping more as we speak.

Hope that helps.
 
I fractured my skull too! both temporal bones a month ago. I lost my sense of smell and 50% of my hearing. My hearing is supposed to come back I don't really miss the smells at all.

longboard crash

what'd you do?
 
http://www.surfersteve.com/introduction.htm

ive made about 25 or so boards now, and ive found this to be the most comprehensive guide to get going. if youre doing it just to fuck around and try it go ahead, but if youre tryng to save money by building one, you wont. your board will be nothing of the quality of a professional shape. everything has to be basically perfect.
 
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