Published on March 17th, 2018 | by RB Team
Photo by Greenlight Surfboard Supply | 0Build Your Own River Surfboard – Greenlight Board Building Kit
Shape your own ding-resistant river surfboard with this innovative board building kit by Greenlight Surf Supply. The guys from Greenlight have assembled this building kit specifically designed for the needs of river surfers, based on a durable Engineered EPS blank and a special new Innegra woven fibreglass. Here’s how to get that specific shape of your dreams you were always looking for!
So, Greenlight Surf Supply is in the surfboard shaping business, what exactly are you guys doing?
Greenlight was founded in 2005 with the vision of comprehensively teaching and continuing to support surfers who want to shape their own surfboards at home. Through our unmatched talents of engineering, manufacturing, education, and communication in the surfboard world, we provide top quality materials, tools, methods and support to make surfboard building easy, fun, and affordable.
Being a DIY-focused company, we also design and build all of our machinery and processes to manufacture the products. DIY is in our DNA and we want to share the pride of the surfboard building process and the absolute stoke you feel when riding a board you designed and built for yourself and style.
This river surfboard building kit will get you on the wave in no time
What led you to found Greenlight Surf Supply? Tell us a bit about your story …
I couldn’t find what I wanted to ride on the racks at the surf shops so I started building my own boards in my garage. Materials were limited then so I glued up some insulation panels and glassed it with boat resin. Then I started developing EPS (expanded polystyrene) blanks and tools to make shaping foam easier. 13 years later and still having fun developing new products to make surfboards better.
Why should someone get a board building kit in the first place instead of ordering a standard surfboard?
Other than the cost of a building kit is less than ½ of buying a board off the racks, the #1 reason our customers make their own surfboards is the feeling of pride and accomplishment provided by shaping my own boards. There’s nothing like the feeling of riding something you created.
Your dream shape is in your own hands now
What exactly is included in your surfboard kits? What else (tools, materials) is required to get started?
We offer an array of surfboard, SUP, wake, and riversurf kits. There are “Starter Kits” that include all the materials, tools, instruction, and friendly Greenlight support as well as basic material kits if you have the tools and knowledge already. We also make custom surfboard blanks per customer’s specifications and can package them in to a custom kit.
Shaping a surfboard is almost considered an art of its own. How much know-how and experience is required to shape a board? Can anyone do this? What kind of skills are needed?
To have an idea of what you want to do on a wave, shape the board based on that idea, and then experiencing that feeling you crave when surfing the board … no words can describe it. It’s the highest level of surfing. It’s EPIC! ~ Dave Grimes
No one expects you to do it all on your own. That’s why Greenlight Surf Supply continues to build and support an extensive educational online library of video and step-by-step instruction to comprehensively teach surfers of any age or ability how to design and build their own surfboards. Our education-based approach takes the mystery out of shaping and surfboards by providing an unprecedented level of instructional resources available to you online 24/7. The Greenlight brand is widely recognized in the surfboard building community as the most innovative, professional, and trustworthy source for materials, instruction, and service on the web.
How much time does it take to shape a board based on your building kits?
You can shape a board in less than 4 hours and the fiberglassing process takes 4 days overall with the resin curing times. So you can build a new board in a week if you work on it about an hour a day.
How much flexibility do your kits provide? Some people may want to go creative, doing crazy tail shapes, asym shapes, different rockers, channels, bottom contours etc.
One of the benefits of our Engineered EPS blanks is that they allow any shape up to 24” wide to be carved out of the foam. Rocker adjustments, channels, and concaves are easily shaped in and we can also cut close tolerance custom blanks to any shape a customer wants. The blanks can be painted with acrylic paints before glassing or resin tints and pigments can be added while fiberglassing to give your board color and style. We include custom ink jet logo paper to print your own logos and special paint pens to draw detailed graphics on your board too. Infinite possibilities in design!
Infinite possibilities in terms of shapes and board art
Surfboard shaping can easily turn into a challenge … what could go wrong?
Building my own board with this kit was fantastic! So much fun and the board turned out pretty good for my first one. I liked how light the EPS foam is and it shaped nicely. Thanks to Greenlight for all your help and the great supplies! ~ Mark K.
Bottom line – everything is fixable while building a board. The best board builders know how to hide the mistakes! Things will go wrong on your first board but understand those issues will come out later in the process and not affect the ride. The biggest mistake we’ve seen is a bad outline cut which makes the board look like it’s your first one. We have a library of outline templates to choose and download online and if you cut the outside your template line and sand down to the line with our special RailRunner tool, your board starts out right and sets you up for success.
Do you offer a kit that is specifically tailored for river surfing? If so, what is included in this kit and which board types are covered?
Yes, we offer a river surfboard building kit with different size blank options to build and board style you want up to 6’0”. Resin, fiberglass, fin boxes, and custom logo paper are included in the kit. And while supplies last, we are including a new Innegra woven fiberglass cloth that greatly increases the ding resistance of a river surfboard.
Many river surfers prefer durable and resistant boards that can take a beating in a rocky river. How resistant are your boards and what options do river surfers have to make the boards more resistant (e.g. reinforce rails with kevlar, carbon etc.)?
The way our Engineered EPS foam blanks are made they can take a hit from a rock or another board and absorb some of the energy and bounce back rather than crumbling like conventional polyurethane foam blanks. The Epoxy resins we supply also have some elasticity to flex before breaking and letting water in. We also offer a new fiberglass cloth with Innegra fibers as well as a variety of fiberglass cloths and carbon fiber reinforcement to make the board as strong as you’d like.
Futures or FCS boxes, it’s up to you
What fin set ups are possible and do you support both FCS and Futures?
We carry both FCS and Futures brand finboxes and you can put as many fin boxes in a board as you want. Our River surfboard kits come with 3 fin boxes of your choice for a tri fin set.
In which sizes are your blanks/kits available?
Our stock blanks range from 4’11” Skimboard blanks to 12’ SUPS. We quickly manufacture each blank per order order for maximum customization in length, thickness, rocker, foil, and stringer setup. We can make any blank you want if it’s not in our catalog.
Are there any guides, (video) tutorials or manuals that come with the kit? How do you deal with people who need more specific advice or have questions?
Beginner shaping kits come with a video download shot in my garage over 10 years ago. No flashy editing or hi resolution, but tons of great information and tricks are shown for first time shapers in a home environment similar to what they’ll be shaping in. We are very proud of our online Surfboard Building Guide which is a comprehensive step-by-step tutorial for board building. In addition we have a Surfboard Design guide on the website that tackles all the physics and hydrodynamics of a surfboard so you can learn how a board works and design it to suit your style of surfing and the waves you ride.
Our online HELP CENTER currently has over 400 answers to customer questions over the years and is a tremendous resource for any board builder to gain more knowledge of the process. Lastly, as always, we’re eager to help anyone through email and get back with answers amazingly fast.
Board based on a Greenlight Building Kit
Where do you ship your kits?
We ship kits and blanks throughout the USA and Canada. We cannot ship resins overseas due to airline regulations but we ship fiberglass, fins, tools, etc. to international customers daily.
Use discount code RIVERBREAK for 10% off a river surfboard kit!
Contact
Website: greenlightsurfsupply.com
Email: info@greenlightsurfsupply.com
Facebook: facebook.com/Greenlight-Surf-Supply-187175107971108
Instagram: instagram.com/greenlightsurfsupply
Brought to you by
RB Team The editorial team of Riverbreak is a loose connection of passionate river surfers. As a group, we strive to give the larger community a voice on an international level – our mission is to connect river surfers around the globe.
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