Having a surfboard blank, the first step in making a surfboard is shaping the darn thing. Most people interested in surfboards shaping is the part they're most interested in.

The finish of a surfboard is the last step. It will be either sanded or polished. People interested in making surfboards are seldom interested in the last step of making them. Shaping a surfboard is considered the creative part. Though I'd argue that if the board is CNC cut then the creative process is done already and finishing the CNC cut is more labor than creative. Sanding and polishing a surfboard definitely fits into the labor part of surfboard construction... So who cares about that?

In the old days we didn't polish our boards the way we do now. The process of glossing a surfboard ( the final coat of resin ) leaves a seam along the rail apex that needs to be sanded and then polished. In the old days the seam was sanded and then just the rail was polished, we called it rubbing rails.

Now the whole board is polished from rail to rail, nose to tail, deck and bottom. And it's a lot of work. especially if you want to get all the tiny scratches out from the very fine sand papers that are used before the rubbing compound is applied and polishing starts.

In my area Cooper Fish surfboards really set the bar high for polished surfboards through the fine work of Jeff Pupo's very shiny without a scratch polish jobs.

I've never really liked polishing.... it was stressful. Aside from being hard work and taking a fare amount of time, and back when we started polishing the whole board many boards had glass on fins, some with 3 glass on fins. If you caught the polish pad on a fin while it was spinning at 5000 rpm the board could get thrown across the room from the force. Those heavy Milwaukee grinders can do some serious damage.

Now with the removable fin systems it's not so stressful. There is some time to the process but the end result... a shiny new surfboard... it's worth the effort. I've got these cool ear muffs now that have an audio input so I can listen to music while polishing. Smooth jazz... I remain focused on the job unaware of the time passing and relaxed. It's still hard work though.

D.R.