James Mitchell takes his electric planer from the shelf and, with skill that comes only from years of experience, sets to work shaping a slab of polyurethane. He shaves a millimetre here, a millimetre there, periodically running his hand over the surface to check his progress. It's more art than science, done largely by eye and by feel. Satisfied that he's got the right shape, Mitchell takes out a hand planer and repeats the process. Then he takes out a sanding block, and repeats the process.
This takes a couple of hours. Once he's happy with the surface of the board -- slightly concave on top and convex on the bottom, with a bow from front to back -- Mitchell takes out a saw, a pencil and two templates cut from wood. He uses these to finalise the board, cutting the slab into the shape we all associate with a surfboard. Once done, the board, a mini-gun designed for the large pounding waves found at San Francisco's Ocean Beach, is ready for fibreglassing.
By: Roberto Baldwin,
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via Wired.co.uk
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-07/09/soul-of-surfing-boards
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