SHAPING DREAMS
Shaping Dreams started as a simple idea, brought to life in an Esperance beach car park while escaping the prevailing onshore wind in our vans.
Glenn and I had both toyed with the idea at several points in our younger years. Always inspired by alternative surf craft & the uniqueness of surfing. Yet, like many things in life, so many interests and dreams are pushed to the side. The same went for us until that downtime, bored out of our brains, playing cards in the van while praying for offshore winds and waves.
Excited by the feeling that was once a fire within us as groms, it became an intense blaze with no sign of extinguishing. Both avid photographers and videographers, we felt motivated to document the process from start to finish. As each step began to fall into place, another idea seemed to spark. A few dodgy videos of shaping was never going to be enough. “We should make a movie” said Glenn, so, there you have it. One round of cards later, we had gone from never having shaped a surfboard, to intending to create a short film about it. Capturing the whole journey of shaping our first surfboards in the Northwest of Australia, with nothing other than our vans.
So it began, what was simply an idea was now in full fruition. We truly were shaping our dreams. Not only hand crafting our first surfboards, but also creating our first official short film. With some of our favourite brands jumping on board to support our dream, it became very very real…
“Have we bitten off a bit more than we can chew?”
We took those nerves as motivation, and the excitement began to grow.
Fast forward a few months of surfing and relaxing around the turquoise waters of Esperance, we began the migration north for the winter months.
A mere 2000km road trip to the tiny country town and home of the Ningaloo reef, Exmouth. The ascent north consisted of acquiring all necessary equipment to shape surfboards as we would be leaving behind any accessibility to such materials. An interesting and challenging task as we had no idea what we needed to do, let alone what tools we actually needed. With the vans neatly packed with some questionable smelling products, (if you’ve smelt surfboard resin you would understand), we were as ready as we could be.
Upon arriving in Exmouth, it became very apparent that although the south of the country had began to cool, early April this far north was still extremely hot.
Nonetheless, the excitement of shaping overcame the constant flies and dirt sticking to our sweaty skin. It was not long from pulling our vans into their new desert parking spots that we began constructing our makeshift surfboard shaping bay. Consisting of a cheap marquee, a few tarps and an ironing board duct taped together with a pool noodle and bubble wrap as our shaping stand.
With absolutely no swell forecasted for the following weeks, we could not find a better reason to get started on our boards as we prepared for the winter swells to hit the northern corner of Australia.
As we pulled the foam blanks from the back of the vans, it hit us that after several months of intense planning, the shaping process was actually about to begin.
Initially, nervous, we began to remove the hardened outer skin of the foam blank with our surform (almost a cheese grater like tool). Softly scratching the surface, back and forth repeatedly for an hour, with only a dismally small amount of foam being removed. It became obvious that we had no idea what we were doing. We expected the foam to simply fall away but were quickly humbled. After a cup of coffee, quick beach swim and a debrief, we attempted to attack the foam blanks again. This time with more menace and pressure. The harder strokes tearing the hard layer from its origin and revealing a softened core. With the outer skin removed, we created our templates which would resemble the outline of our future boards. To do so, like all professionals would, we used a cardboard box we found in the bin to trace our desired shapes onto. “Close enough” I said as we both laughed at our final templates. Tracing the outline onto the now softer foam, we could now physically see the shapes our boards would hopefully resemble.
Dictated by the extreme heat, working hours were based upon how close we were to heat exhaustion. However, with each stroke of the surform and sandpaper, the boards further began to resemble a real surfboard.
After many hours in our shaping marquee, which now smelt more like a rugby change room, our boards were almost ready. The last delicate step of shaping was the final touches to the rails, and the concaves on the underside of the boards. From all the advice we had obtained in the lead up to shaping, this was when we were told “ensure you have good lighting to complete your shape so you can see all the tiny imperfections”. So, in good fashion, with only a tiny rechargeable camp light and a head torch, we continued to shape into the night.
Surrounded by moths and other critters attracted to our lights, we finally achieved a point where we realized our foam blanks would never be perfect but we were both ultimately happy with the outcome. In what felt like smooth sailing and an overall enjoyable experience so far, we did always have an overhanging dread of the succeeding steps to come. Installing the fin boxes and glassing. Both of which could ultimately make or break the overall outcome of the board. A simple mistake could mean an unrideable craft and a waste of many hours covered in foam dust. However, we could not dwell on the what ifs, and with forecasted swell on the horizon, we only had a few weeks before we may be surfing our new boards.
Installation of the fin boxes was our first challenge to overcome and after putting the task on a pedestal for hours, it was surprisingly simple! We were so scared that the tool to carve the holes would simply eat the entire board, leaving us with a chunk of unusable foam. However, the sharp blades made easy work of the newly sculpted soft foam and carved through the blank like butter. This didn’t mean the fin box installation went without any hiccups though. When adhering them in place, we were required to resin bond the plastic fin boxes in the new cutouts. As this was our first time using polyester resin, we were unsure of appropriate ratios of hardener to resin. Ultimately creating a bit of a fire storm as Reece added a few too many drops of Catalyst hardener to his resin to secure his boxes, resulting in a rather haste placement, working very quickly to get the fins set in place before the resin completely hardened. We thought nothing of it until we went back 10minutes later to check the resin had properly set. Unfortunately, we noticed a significant dent in the underside of the soft foam surfboard. Reece had pushed too hard on the vulnerable material when placing the fins and now had a rather unique feature to his board.
After a quick google search and a message to some experienced shapers in a facebook group, we had somewhat of a solution. The most common bit of advice was to use a heat gun to help expand the foam in the dent. Unfortunately, we were in the middle of a desert with no means to obtain a heat gun. So, we improvised with a portable gas cooker and a small kettle from our vans. We intended to steam heat the board. Surprisingly enough, after making the marquee a sweaty hot box, the dent in the board popped back into shape like nothing ever happened.
Luckily escaping what we initially thought to be a disaster, we were now ready to tackle the dreaded task of glassing. Encapsulating the soft foam in a glass layer consisting of a fibreglass mesh soaked in polyester resin. A very sticky and messy job and only recommended to be undertaken in an enclosed environment with consistent temperatures and no external factors. Here's us, deciding to glass in the desert, with gusty wind carrying particles of red dirt, extreme heat and again, no idea what we are doing. We fortunately were offered a nearby cargo ship container to somewhat hide from the elements but that did not resolve all of the issues. Nonetheless, we persisted. With the fibreglass mesh now laid over the foam, our nervous and uncontrollably shaky hands began to spread the gooey resin. As the fibreglass mesh was being soaked, our nerves began to settle and our movements became more intentional, spreading the resin evenly and almost smoothly over the surface of the board. Once the board was completely saturated and the surface appeared to be smooth, we left the boiling hot container and hoped the resin would cure.
The next morning equally excited and anxious to see our newly glassed surfboards, we entered the now chemically smelling shipping container. Surprised by what we saw, our surfboards actually looked great. Excluding a few particles of red dirt, one of Reece’s curly hairs, and a few dirty finger smudges, the boards were relatively neat and tidy.
Now representing a true surfboard, all that was left to do was to sand the glass until a shiny smooth texture was revealed. Like all of the previous tasks, this was equally laborious and exhausting in the northern heat. With no power tool assistance, it was a gruelling effort to get the boards smooth. Motivated by the incoming swell, we persisted sanding into the night until there was nothing else left to do but wait.
An updated forecast meant we had some perfect conditions in the coming days for one of our favourite local surf breaks. At first light, we packed the boards in the back of our vans, bounced along the bumpy Ningaloo coast roads and pulled up in the beach carpark. Not quite perfect conditions, but a wave nonetheless. Overly excited, we raced back to the vans, slipped into our wetsuits, grabbed our boards and ran over the adjacent sand dunes. A surreal feeling was placing the board under our chests and paddling to the lineup. Just the fact that these boards actually floated felt like an incredible achievement. In the distance, a swell line built from the depths, feathering with the offshore winds as it approached the reef. Glenn was in the spot for the first wave of the set, paddling hard as I watched on, disappearing as the wave picked him up and he flew down the face, returning back to the top and sending gold spray in his wake as he made his way top to bottom the whole wave. Smiling from afar I snapped back into it, realising another set wave was right behind, looming up. I began to paddle. The wave picked up my board and propelled me forward, almost throwing me off as I stood up. Awkwardly finding my positioning on the new board, I began to race down the line. The board felt so stable and fast underfoot as I floated over two fast sections before lining up for a cutback.
This was what it’s all about, this feeling right here. A culmination of effort, passion, and inspiration that resulted in pure stoke. As cliche as it sounds, we had fulfilled our shaping dreams. But the point of this film was never about us, or our boards, but rather a true love for the ocean, friendship, passion, and an encouragement to pursue whatever it is that lights you up inside, regardless of how hard it may seem, so you too can pursue your own “Shaping Dreams”.