I'm a guy outside Chicago who spends a few weeks a year in San Diego surfing, am an ok surfer but have never shaped, don't have cabinet-makers skills, and have no nearby surfboard shops to go into to ask advice . . . the last one whose first project should be building a hollow wooden board. I tried it nonetheless and now that I'm done it was awesome. My understanding of board features, characteristics and trade-offs as well as my appreciation for those who actually know how to do this has skyrocketed.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Why? #2

Increasingly frequent trips to San Diego meant I needed a new board. We live outside Chicago so hitting the local surf shops wasn't possible - the internet was as close as I could get.  I found Dennis Murphy in San Diego who shaped a foam/fiberglass 9'2" that's both beautiful and perfect for where I surf in San Diego. While researching, sites on hollow wooden surfboards kept pulling me back - Grain, Paul Jenson, Wood Surfboard Supply, Swalock's discussion threads, woodsurfboardplans.com. It seemed like the perfect project: compact enough to do in the basement utility room, complex enough to present serious challenges to someone who's not done a lot of woodworking, and if it turned out badly, only time and a couple of hundred dollars of materials in the dumpster. If it turned out well, it'd be a beautiful thing and I'd understand a lot more about surfboards.
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