Surfing Waves

I am in the process of designing my first custom board. I wanted some outside advice on my design ideas so I am posting the scans of my notes.

BTW what is an appropriate concave depth for this board?

Interesting!!!! Most often the concaves go single at nose to double at tail, so I'm curious what your thinking is behind the concaves?
The board looks a little narrow from the mid point to the nose losing volume under the chest and having less paddling power and I suggest you look at the relationships between the stingers and the quad fin set up!

It would be if you haven't already had a good read around elements of surfboard design as some things cancel out or do not work with others.

With the concaves there is depth to consider shape of concave and the hardness of the edges hard and concaves become channel bottoms..... great boards when well done, dogs if they are somewhat off. I think the double to single concave will also create a major drag issue on the board, I suspect that you are trying to create a speed profile but IMO you will lose a lot of turning ability with this.

BTW don't take everything as absolute that I'm saying, others on the forum may have other ideas that will help.

Some of the pertinent facts you have not posted, surfing ability experience, weight and height they too are needed in a custom board design.


The real way to go is go talk to the guy you are going to trust with shaping your design,he will tell you directly what will and won't work and he what can and won't do.

let us know how you go exciting your first custom

There will be people here who can give you some good advice; and you might also want to ask the guys on swaylocks. And, as Jaffa said, the actual shaper - or are you planning to do the shaping yourself as well?

I designed a 'board once.
'had no idea what it would ride like until I built it.
I built it.
I rode it.
I liked it so much I now have all legal rights to it's design, name and logo!

Just go build it and ride it - and let us know.

After all, 'new things' happen by accident.

I'm about 5' 10" 170 lbs. As for experience, I'm good with a long board but have almost no shortboard experience. I learned on a longboard that I had to fix when I got it. I learned to surf when I was younger, but didn't surf for a while. Picked it back up last summer and it came right back. I plan on making the board myself, and as for the rear concave I plan on making it very smooth to avoid the channalization.

ToxicFox wrote:I'm about 5' 10" 170 lbs. As for experience, I'm good with a long board but have almost no shortboard experience. I learned on a longboard that I had to fix when I got it. I learned to surf when I was younger, but didn't surf for a while. Picked it back up last summer and it came right back. I plan on making the board myself, and as for the rear concave I plan on making it very smooth to avoid the channalization.

Okay . . . all the above is ambiguous . . . so stop procrastinating, go build the 'board you speak of and go surf it to whatever skills you have and enjoy. Hell, create a thred and give S-W an update each week / month or whatever to enlighten others such as you

The whole experience of making your first board is where every shaper of any level started , even the great ones. DO IT! Video and photograph your progress, post your results!
Have fun we will too. Then surf it.

Ok then, as soon as I have the money to start I will.

My 2p, it looks a bit narrow and thick. I have been looking at boards around 6'5" and most for easy wave catching are 20.5" - 21" wide and around 2.5"- 2 5/8" thick. Maybe stick with a egg shape to keep things simple. Have you had a look at the Firewire website, there's quite a bit of detail about their boards on there. Good luck