those who build their own board

Greenlight! http://greenlightsurfsupply.com/
They've got the beginner kits to get you going.

 

Foamez.com has everything you'd need to make stuff if you want to do a different route than Greenlight. Blanks though are more $ to ship than they cost by themselves... I'd say check to see if any local shapers can sell you a blank.

Tools you NEED are:
Electric planer
Block planes
Sureform (6" & 12")
Sanding block
Wood file
Handsaw

If you dont want to spend big bucks on an electric planer, Harbor Freight sells a 30 dollar cheap one. You won't be shaping railbands with a planer yet anyways so it gets the job done.

The more stuff you can buy without it being shipped, the cheaper. For instance, Greenroom is half an hour from my house so I can get Marko eps, fiberglass, and epoxy resin. Search around.

 

swaylocks.com will be your best resource.

 

ive bought some blanks at a good price from http://pauhanasurfsupply.com
foamez and greenlight will have you covered on the glass and resin.
and if this is your first board go with probox fin systems, but you will need a router.
what do you wanna shape? EPS or traditional PU?

 

greenlight has a shop in belmar that is well equipped

 

eps is most durable, but is a little harder to shape than PU.
PU is really straight forward but the resin is more toxic than epoxy, but as long as you have a good respirator ($30 at home depot) and some gloves you'll be fine. PU is cheaper too.
i recommend shaping PU on your first board, get the shaping 101 by John Carper dvd, and glassing 101 dvd, your board will turn out alot better.http://www.foamez.com/shaping-101-dvd-p-72.html http://www.foamez.com/glassing-101-dvd-p-81.html

or if you want to go the eps/epoxy route http://www.foamez.com/epoxy-101-dvd-duo-pack-p-663.html

 

Greenlight Surf Supply all the way. Support the local places and they'll support you back. Brian is awesome and has everything you need.

 

Can somebody give me a rough estimate on how much it would cost to build my own board, and how difficult it is.

 

more or less around $200 for a board in the 6 footish range, and its very doable, just hard to get it perfect. guess it depends on your background with working with your hands. i had decent success and it was my first time working with fiberglass

 

got board this evening, left over blank result.

 

Plenty of info about that on Swaylocks...my recommendation is to keep it very simple for your first--flat bottom. You'll have plenty of other issues to learn/deal within the process...rocker and concave issues will overcomplicate the process for you.

My $.02...

 

ive never made a channel bottom board, but if you look closely at the pic of that blank you can see i put in deck channels. and how i did it was i took a right angle and drew a line down the deck of the board at the 3" mark, and then made a "u" shaped sanding block out of wood and just sanded on the mark until the channels appeared.
Now if i were to put in those channels on the bottom, i would draw a line from nose to tail of where i want the center of the channel to be. Then i would take my planer and follow the center of the line and take about half inch off at the tail, blending out to a 8th inch at the nose.
Then i would draw the out line of how wide i wand the channels to be on both sides and sand in between the lines from rail to rail starting with a sureform then with 40 grit sand paper on a flat 4" wide sanding block, ending with 100 grit.

you can ALOT of great info on swaylocks.

 

swaylocks for info/inspiration. greenlight for supplies. great to have that resource in nj, so show your support.

keep it simple as already mentioned. shaping what you normally ride is a good way to figure things out, both as a reference if you have it on hand while shaping and as a basis for comparison when you start riding your board. can't beat that feeling when you get a good wave on a board you made! it's hard work but well worth it.

 

Yeah man. You don't need to have fireworks on your website to be legit. That's what this whole thing is about. Getting to the core of it and doing it because you have a passion for it. Greenlight is a great resource for anyone and who knows, maybe with more local support like yours maybe his website will have fireworks.

 

stay away from phua hana the shipping is cheap . but it takes forever to get your blanks i mean for ever

 

Hey Superfish

Come on up to the shop and see just how legit it is. Yeah I did the website myself. We're all about the DIY mindset and sharing the stoke - REAL SURFING, no flashy BS. Take a deeper look into the site with all the in depth information and let us know how we can help you shape exactly what you want my friend.

~Brian
www.greenlightsurfsupply.com
Shape Your Surfing Experience