Designing & Shaping a Surfboard

I had the distinct pleasure of shaping a surfboard with local San Francisco shaping master Gordon Guptill. We settled on a design direction that would suit my experience and style, then got to work over two shaping sessions.

Being my first time in a shaping room, and with the goal of having a kick-ass board at the end, Gordon took on the more critical operations while coaching me through some of the rough initial shaping and low-risk refinement work.

Working with such an experienced craftsman was a privilege, and Gordon was super patient to answer all my questions and explain everything in detail as we went along.

After carefully considering everything from my experience level to the waves I would be riding to my style & preferences, we picked a foam blank and began to define the outline of the board.

Refinements are made to the form from different angles with a variety of tools

I liked the idea of the board being highly visible in the dark Northern California waters and frequent fog, so went with a bright orange color. Here is the finished board after being glassed at Sunset Shapers: