1. Your Name: Cody Riechers
2. Your Brand name: no brand name, I'm not selling anything
3. How did you hear about us? internet a while back
4. How was your initial experience at Foam E-Z? as good as it gets. I got everything I needed and plenty of good advice from Grant. He's as handsome as he is helpful.
5. Why did you want to build your own board? I wanted to build this board because I was bored and it was the first second quality longboard blank I've seen that I wanted to use.
6. Shape of finished board? 9'1" pig
7. Size of finished board: Length 9’1” Nose 16ish” Width 21ish” Tail maybe 17” Thickness around 3” I wasn't very precise in my measurements and I didn't write them down. I didn't even use a proper template. I played connect the dots on the blank with the flat side of some template sitting in the shape box.
8. What blank did you use? 9'3"y second. I flipped it around to get the rocker and outline I wanted to fit.
9. How was your board building experience? getting better every time. There's a noticeable bump in the outline on one rail and my sanding wasn't perfect, but there's less to complain about than my previous boards.
10. Did you use videos, books, web, other? I read lots of stuff on Swaylocks. Plenty of ideas worth stealing there.
11. What do you wish you knew going into this project? The tail was going to delaminate pretty quickly with a dark fabric inlay in a hot van.
12. What would you recommend to someone else for their first time? Realize that it's going to talk a lot of time and money to build boards. if it looks bad, it might still be fun to ride.
13. What tools did you find most useful? Good lighting and a good pad on my sander. Being able to use the Hitachi planer instead of my cheap Harbour Freight was weird at first until I got the hang of adjusting the cut's depth.
14. Where did you run into trouble? When I thought I was almost done shaping the blank and turned on the sidelights for the first time and realized it was a bumpy mess.
15. What kind of fin system did you use and why? I made a big thick plywood fin and glassed it on. I still haven't bothered learning to do fin boxes. Plywood is way cheaper and easier than fiberglass.
16. Did you glass the board and what was that experience like? Glassing went well. It's the longest board I've glassed as well as the first time with Volan, but I didn't run into many problems.
17. Where did you shape and glass your board? Shaped at Foam E-Z and glassed in my backyard.
18. What type of board do you want to make next? Something short and fast.
