Inside a dusty Encinitas workshop, master shaper Rick Martinez runs his hands along a foam blank, eyes closed, reading the curve like braille. He has shaped over twelve thousand boards in thirty years. Each one is different. Each one is a conversation between the shaper, the surfer, and the wave.
Modern surfboard shaping has split into two worlds: machine-assisted production shaping, which uses computer-controlled routers to cut foam to precise dimensions, and traditional hand shaping, where the entire board is created by hand with planers, sanding blocks, and decades of accumulated intuition.
The best boards often combine both — a machine cut that gets the blank close to the final shape, then a shaper’s hands to finish the rails, refine the concave, and add the subtle asymmetries that make a board come alive under a specific surfer’s feet. Come visit our shop to see the process firsthand.