Plane Shaping
Robin Morris
A comprehensive and in-depth guide to making a surfboard.
All the tricks, shortcuts and secrets revealed.
With this book you will make a surfboard to be proud of.
Produced & Distributed By Assegai Publishing
e-mail: southwestjbay@truewan.co.za
PO Box 1588 Jeffreys Bay, 6330 South Africa
All Copyrights Reserved.
First Printed In December 2003.
Reproduction: Walker Ah Hing; Port Elizabeth
Printing: PEB Port Elizabeth
www.assegaipublishing.com
With Thanks...
To: Thys Strydom, shaper extraordinaire and his able team -
Stephen van de Watt – the wizard spray artist ;
Norman – the lamination man;
Makriel – Mr Patience, for sanding and polishing;
and Christo – who does a bit of everything.
Thanx Guys!
Someone we all knew...
His name was Jimi and he lived in Electric Ladyland
Usually Stone Free he enjoyed Castles Made Of Sand
Met his Foxy Lady on the Rainbow Bridge with the Voodoo Child
Covered in Purple Haze from the Spanish Castle Magic
That dusted his Gypsy Eyes
Who Knows he had a Machine Gun
That let him stand next to the Fire...
Jimi says it was The Burning Of The Midnight Lamp
That flew him around The Third Stone From The Sun
But only on a full moon when The Wind Cries Mary
Can you still hear him whisper:
“Hey Joe, fly on Little Wing...!”
Contents
One - Surfboards
Two - Surfing
Three - The Right Premises
Four - Tools & Materials Required
Five - Shape Up
Six - Spraying
Seven - Laminating & Sanding
Eight - Dings
- One -
So you want to make a surfboard. Maybe you’ve surfed quite a lot already and know what it is that particularly works for you or maybe you’ve just started and decided to make your own board because it’s part of the stoke of surfing.
Whatever, it doesn’t matter. The intention with this guide is to try and make sure you follow the right process and make yourself the best surfboard possible.
Making surfboards is an art. Shapers are unique. Covered in foam dust all day, they emerge from their shaping bays with these incredibly flimsy shaped pieces of foam. Aerodynamic in every sense, each plug of foam is meticulously hand shaped into a missile of extreme beauty.
All the secrets gained over years of honing their craft go into every board. Each curve and hollow is processed with deft care to ensure that every board produced excels in performance, completely in tune with the magic of the ocean and her timeless energy.
Speed, stability, driving power-turns, its all there in the final shape. Not too much and not too little makes the difference. It’s a science gained through trial and error and every shaper will tell you his war stories of how he started out and what his first shapes looked like. How he burned his first shaped plug by mixing the resin too hot with the hardener when he glassed it and so on. The stories are legend.
Well those guys never had this guide to follow when they started out like you have. So, hopefully we can remove a lot of the stigma and secrecy attached to the manufacture of surfboards and provide you with a hands-on guide of what to do and how to do it.
All the materials, all the tools you’ll need, da worx!
If you give someone a set of brushes and some paints and ask them to paint a picture, they may not be able to create anything. It takes an artist, but if you give someone the tools and then also give them a ‘paint by numbers’ picture, it’s a lot easier.
Same analogy applies here.
The process that follows is not necessarily the law. Shapers from all over the world do some of the steps differently. Will even argue and contend some points and probably provide sufficient support for alternative methods that work better. They’ll offer some valid shortcuts.
That’s awesome...!
The intention here isn’t to be contentious. This is not the bible of surfboard manufacture.
For this guide, I was privileged to work with legendary Jeffreys Bay shaper, Thys Strydom. To-date Thys has made in excess of six thousand surfboards. He surfs regularly at the world renowned right hand reef break, ‘Super Tubes’ in Jeffreys Bay and still shapes and produces some of the finest surfboards the world has to offer from his factory – ‘The Surfboard Factory’.
This is a state of the art full production factory situated in Jeffreys Bay. The factory overlooks an awesome right-hander called ‘Kitchen Windows’. The view alone has to be an inspiration for any shaper. Thys provided all the technical background to make this guide possible. A lot of the surfing information came from talking to the pros and from creditable surf magazines like ‘Zigzag’.
To set the stage, surfboards come in all shapes and sizes so we’re going to start by getting a little more familiar with the sport of surfing plus we’ll go into some detail on surfboards in particular.
You basically get a different shaped board for every type of wave. For large waves you need a bigger board. For small waves the reverse. For fast down the line reef breaking waves you need a narrow board. For beach breaks, a wider board. This means you actually need a lot of different boards for all the different breaks.
Beware - Big quivers of boards cost big bucks!
The various classifications, the shapes, features and designs are all important. You need to take cognisance of all the aspects including your height, weight and surfing ability before you decide on your actual surfboard specifics.
Surfboards are loosely classified into the following:
The Fish – this is a short wide board with a wide swallow tail. It’s a high performance board, ideal for doing tricks and spins on small beach break type waves. It’s a lot of fun. It’s a little wider and thicker so it paddles well which means you can catch waves easily even though the board is shorter.
The Hybrid - This is really a larger Fish without the wide swallow tail and is more suited to your beginner to intermediate surfer. It has a lot more buoyancy, is longer, thicker and yet still very manoeuvrable. Suitable for most types of waves. It’s a good all round board.
Conventional Short Board - This means a standard shaped board not more than 7’2” in length. A good surfer will have at least two boards. Normally a 6’3” or a 6’4” as his standard all wave board and then maybe a 6’8” or 6’10” going up to 7’2” for bigger waves.
Mini Mal - More suited to older surfers. This board starts at around 7’2” and goes up to about 8’0” in length. The board is notably wider, thicker and fuller in shape compared to a conventional short board.
The plus factor here is that for the older surfer this board provides all the stability and manoeuvrability without being too loose in a wave. It will also paddle well which gives the older surfer and even chance of catching as many waves as the young guns.
The ideal shape for a Mini-Mal is to match the tail width with the nose. A soft Pintail will work far better for down the line speed going into hard, driving turns off the top than a squash tail which will be a little restricting when going for a big carve on a longer board like this.
Picture the shape of a fisherman’s spoon which is rounded on both ends but still retains a point. Same principle applies here for the ideal shape of a Mini-Mal. A well shaped, aerodynamic Mini-Mal can really perform. Will also move like a tank if not shaped correctly.
Long Board – Nowadays, used by surfers of all ages. More popular though with older surfers who prefer long boards, not only for nostalgic reasons but because the surfer is able to catch almost any wave due to the awesome paddling power it offers.
These boards start at about 9’0” in length and go right up to 10’6” with three stringers, and even added aesthetics like a wooden nose block and a wooden tail block. They are pieces of art and have an extremely loyal following.
On small wave days long boards are an incredible amount of fun because you can walk to the nose and do a whole bunch of tricks. There is even a pro long boarding world surfing circuit where the cream of the world’s long boarders compete at various surf destina-tions around the world.
The pro surfer’s long board is glassed super light and is ultra aerodynamic in shape. These guys throw their boards around in a wave like a short board.
Awesome to watch...!
Gun - This is purely a big wave board. Shaped like a bullet with a very sharp pintail, narrow width from rail to rail and quite thick. These boards are designed for speed on really big waves. Some of them have straps on the deck for surfers to strap their feet in, to prevent them from bouncing off the board on big waves.
Surfbreaks
Then of course you get a whole bunch of different breaks suitable for the above boards. Throughout the world the average coastline differs as it winds down the natural course and flow created from the land.
Each bay, each segment of coastline, each reef and every point is unique. This allows the ocean’s massive wave patterns to break with God like supremacy on every coast, producing radically differ-ent sets of waves in size, power and shape.
Originating from the two Poles (North & South) or generated way out in the ocean from a monster storm, majestic waves are formed, producing massive peaks that travel infinite distances to every coastal destination. Surfers wait in anticipation for these sets of waves to arrive at their particular break.
Like magnets, they’re drawn to the ocean’s deliveries and get to ride the endless lines of perfection. There are never enough waves to
satisfy a surfer.
Trippy stuff...
Kelly Slater enjoying some tube time at Super Tubes - Jeffreys Bay
This is what makes every surfer continually search for that next elusive wave, because no two waves are the same. A beach break will provide a short really fun wave with a few tubes and some radical snaps and turns.
Whereas a fast down the line reef break will surge the adrenalin to breaking point as the surfer searches for that intangible tube ride trying desperately to avoid getting crunched onto the merciless reef below where razor sharp coral awaits.
Then there’s the big wave day. Just the paddle out takes nerves
of steel. Even at six foot a powerful wave can hold a surfer down until his lungs are at bursting point.
Only to surface and take another one on the head...!
Or try free falling down the face of a big wave, hit the bottom and wait anxiously as the mighty ocean delivers a massive foam-ball on top of you with bone crushing force. The sound alone is like an
express freight train running just above you.
Going Big At Mavericks...
Scares the bravest of men.
Requires big goonies...!
This is however all part of it. Adrenalin charged, constantly searching. Surfers don’t refer to surfing as a sport. They call it a lifestyle because once you’ve been sucked in it’s very difficult to let go.
Okay, let’s go make a surfboard….!
If you’d like to read the remainder of this book then please visit: www.assegaipublishing.com
