BUILDING PROCESS

GETTING A HANDSHAPE CUSTOM SURFBOARD

The perfect surfboard, every surfer’s dream, handshaped just for you and perfectly fitting your size and your surfing, the board that will take your surfing to the next level and help you take your best waves.

But getting a handshape custom surfboard is a like analog photography, you have an idea of the result you want in your head, but you can never truly know what you’re going to get at the end. To avoid unpleasant surprises and go for it serenely here are a few tips to help you choose you shaper and your surfboard.

KNOW YOUR SELF AND WHAT YOU WANT

To be able to choose a surfboard and guide the shaper into your dream board creation, you need to know what to ask for. Simply saying “I want the perfect board for me” is not enough unfortunately and sometimes the shaper must engage in a tough questioning in order to guess what board you need. Knowing yourself, your surfing level and your expectations allow the shaper to adapt the board to your needs. Only experience will help you know what is best for you, surf as many different boards as you can and as many different waves as you can to find out what you like and dislike. If you have never surfed anything else than the foam board at your surf school, it might be a little too soon to get a custom board, there are dozens of surfboard’s brands who make evolutive boards to help you evolve as a surfer and know yourself better before taking the plunge.

ABOUT SURFBOARD GLASSING

To begin with, we will take a look at the most common styles of fiberglass cloth.

We'll check out the different ounces used, the weave patterns, how they all affect your surfboard and why shapers may pick one or a combination of a few for each individual board they build.

The most common material used in surfboards around the world is the E Glass in both 4oz and 6oz.
It is the go to standard for most board builders as it provides enough strength and performance for most people and most boards, and is cost effective for both the manufacturer and the customer.

It can be found laid up in a number of combinations.
For standard shortboards, you will commonly find two layers of 4oz E on the deck and one layer on the bottom. For a heavier footed surfer or alternative/retro shapes and some longboards, many board builders will choose to blend a layer of 6oz and 4oz on the deck, and maybe a 6oz layer on the bottom.
Sometimes even going to two layers of 6oz on the deck and one on the bottom, again, common on the longboards where you are trying to keep the weight down.

SANDING

HOW TO SAND A SURFBOARD

In our opinion, sanding is the most underappreciated and also the most difficult step of board building to master. Once again, you can go a long way to shorten your learning curve in sanding with good tools and technique, but there is no substitute for practice. Like shaping, you could do an entire sand job by hand, but you will get better, faster and more consistent results if you use a variable-speed power sander. Your sander should have speeds from about 0-3,000 RPM and accept 5/8” course thread sanding disc pads, such as Flex Pads that are very popular with experienced surfboard sanders. For a proper sanding job, you will need to have a hard or medium density pad and a soft density pad. As for sandpaper grits, you will want some medium grit (60-80) sandpaper or adhesive-backed sanding discs for your hard/medium pad and a progressive range of higher grit sandpaper or adhesive backed discs (120, 150, 220, 320, 400) for your soft-pad. You will also be doing some hand-sanding in the sensitive areas (rails) so you’ll want to have some soft sanding blocks with paper in the 120-400 grit range. If you are just using regular cloth backed sandpaper on your sanding discs, you need to cut the paper in the circular shape with scissors, and some temporary adhesive spray (3M Super 77) so stick the paper to the sanding pad. Finally, you want stability when sanding, so use your shaping rack (not glassing stands) for your sanding job.

The purpose of sanding your glass job is to flatten and smooth out the entire board by sanding off the shiny gloss finish, then to slowly build back the shine by sanding with progressively higher grits. Typically you start sanding by flattening out your fin boxes with your medium/hard sanding pad and 60-80 grit sandpaper. Before you even do this, however, it is a good idea to put some 120 grit sandpaper on your soft pad, and do a quick pass on the deck of your board in the areas where the board will be contacting your shaping rack. This helps keep the board from slipping on the rack while you are sanding the bottom.