There has never been a better time to become a surfboard shaper than right now.

Blanks, resin, fiberglass cloth, and all the tools required,

are pretty much readily available through surfboard supply shops around the world.

Some of those shops even rent out shaping bays and offer lessons for aspiring shapers.

And while shapers traditionally have been somewhat proprietary and closed-door about their processes and techniques,

the last two decades has really seen a trend towards an open source policy.

In 1996, John Carper's Shaping 101 video became the key reference blueprint for countless burgeoning shapers who lacked the ambition to ever enter

the sanctums of their local shapers bay and ask for a playbook. Then came Swaylocks, a message

board slash form in the mid-2000s where shapers could communicate, post photos, ask for advice.

The early users of Swaylocks probably never thought to

even protect the platform nor vet its users because who would possibly care to read about

technical details of kick time of epoxy in varying humidities or wind a razor blade, a cut lap.

But as it turns out, many of today's well-established

board builders actually credit lurking on sway locks as being hugely formative in their early

years of shaping for gaining insights into this one-time closed-off world. So while the vast majority of surfboard shapers actually start

off as quote, backyard shapers, there were always barriers of entry for the first four decades

of polyurethane surfboard building that have evaporated in the subsequent two decades. Compound

that with shaping machines, contract lamination shops that will glass your shaped foam,

and access to direct consumers via Craigslist, as well as direct marketing via social media.

The very definition of surfboard shaper has changed, or perhaps at least needs to be defined

into separate categories at this point.

And despite all of the hullabaloo about imported surfboards, whenever I talk to career board

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