Big Board Set

Recently, I ended up building three big boards at the same time—a 12'1 Zeppelin, a 10'10 Zeppelin, and an 11'11 Free Bird.


12'1 Zeppelin

It wasn't really planned that way. It was partly coincidence.

I had two custom Zeppelin orders for bigger boards come in around the same time. One of the 12' blanks I ordered wasn't quite right for the custom it was intended for, so I ended up with an extra blank. I'd also been thinking about doing a new glider model for a while, so it all just kind of came together.

I had two big Zeppelins to build, an extra blank to work with for the new model, and suddenly I was looking at three big boards.

At that point, I figured I might as well stay in big-board mode and do all three together.

In the end, I think that worked out really well. When you're working on boards that size, especially in a small shop like mine, everything takes a little more effort. Just moving them around is a job. I knew it was going to be kind of crazy, and it was a heck of a lot of work.

The two customs were a little more straightforward because I already had direction from the customers on things like color and glassing.


10'10 Zeppelin

The Free Bird was different.

It was the first one, and I wanted to do something cool with it. The design had been in my head for a while, but a lot of the details developed as I was actually building the board. The bolt cut laps, the inlay, the pin lines—some of those things started as an idea and evolved as the board came together.

That's one of the things I like about building a new model. You can have the shape worked out in your head, but once you actually see the finished board in front of you, you start noticing little things.

All three boards came out about as good as I could have hoped for, and I was really satisfied with them.

The Free Bird was the first one, so I already have a few subtle things in mind that I'll do differently on the next one. Nothing major. The next one will be a custom I'll be shaping in San Diego.


11'11 Free Bird

That's just part of it.

You make one, you see the idea become an actual board, and you learn a little more for the next one.

See Related Items
Zeppelin (Model Catalog)
Free Bird (Model Catalog)