In my post Blumen Lumen malaise, I needed a project really badly so I made a surfboard.
My good friend and roommate Jeremy had made a few home built boards in the past and was itching to make a new one. I thought it sounded fun so I decided to make one too!
Starting with the shape of a board I already liked, I made a template then modified it.
We rented space at Sunset Shapers in SF. With some very helpful guidance from Jeremy and the shop owner I was able to make a pretty reasonable shape with no major screw ups.
We then took the boards home and turned our backyard into a glassing studio. I learned that you can print artwork on rice paper and glass it right in. I asked my good friend and talented artist Andrew Ghe-Huang to draw me a sweet fish and stuck it on the bottom.
Many lessons were learned the hard way during the glassing process. I had quite a bit of composites experience from my college days of building race cars, but even with that, this was the hardest part.
In the end it turned out great! It was very surfable though it handled like a pig, but I loved it anyway because I’d made it. It didn’t last long though… On its first trip out of the country to Puerto Rico, one of the swallow tails snapped off in a wipeout.