How to Choose the Bottom of a Surfboard

Video Transcript

"ABE TOKE: Hi. Welcome to Expert Village, my name is Abe Toke. I'm going to take you through step by step to shape yourself a complete surfboard. So now, it's a good time to really determine what type of bottom you want to have on the board. The bottoms vary from concave to double concave to V so there's a lot of different types. This board is going to get just a slight single to double concave, double being here, single being in the middle of the board a little more. I'm just going to plane that out a tiny bit with the power planer. And then I'll clean it up again with the shearform. So we'll do that and then we'll get to the rail. It's good to note though that you can cut this in with the shearform. It takes a little more work. What the technique is determine exactly where you're going to want the concaves and you can cut them in kinda just like this. And you do the same thing to the other side. I'm going to perfect with the planer it will get me there a little quicker. What this does is the concave is really gives the board--it loosened up the board. And what happens is when we have water sitting on here and a concave actually would be concave to rail to rail this way. And it allows you to really sink over the board a lot easier than if it were, say, flat or even a V helps you do the same thing in a different style which is just it allows you to help get the board over or under a rail a little quicker, a little easier. It's not quite stable but it makes the board nice and loose rail to rail."