Since having access to the CNC machine, and after a few foam cutting jobs, I really wanted to build a surfboard.  I didn't know anything about building them, just that I certainly had the tools and ability, probably, to make one.

After a year of research in my spare time, I designed a board based on an existing board that was said to be good for the kind of beach break that we get out this way,  Tofino, Westport, Sooke, kind of waves.

In the end it cost me about $300 in materials, really close to the same as I could buy a cheap board for, but, this way I learned how to use fiberglass and got a better understanding of epoxy.  Not free schooling,  but an affordable class on surfboard building, one day soon I hope to get out and try it out and see how my experimental inset concave on the bottom reacts to the water.

First step of many,   I bought some Cedar from the Home Depot,  I wanted to get it from somewhere a little more interesting, but I couldn't find anything that fit the bill that was kiln dried.  So the depot it had to be.  I planed the piece down to 0.22" and epoxied it into place between the two chunks of 1.8lbs EPS foam.

Here the cured blank sits on the machine,  all set, zeroed and ready to start cutting!

The Bottom of the board,  first roughing pass, then finishing, and finally I cut all the holes for the FCS Fusion finboxes.  
This way they are digitally, perfectly positioned, and, I didn't have to buy or rent the expensive Router jig that you are supposed to use to mount them.

After some small planing passes to square up the blank relative to the bottom face, a similar operation on the top of the deck. Though a little simpler with no tool change and no extra details, Just the shape.  Now, it's all done on the machine and time to bring it to the "Shaping Bay" ie.  my dusty garage workspace..

And there it is.  After a little bit of time with the sandpaper, working from 60 up to 220 grit. taking out all the tooling marks and fixing a few blemishes.   Then another pass back to 120 grit,  I learned after the fact that 220 could be too smooth to get proper adhesion between the foam and the epoxy.   Now, ready for glass.

here is where you can really see the concave on the bottom,  It's probably considered a "deep concave" as it is 0.6" deep from the starting point, but its inset from the rails by 2.75" or so.  The edge of the concave starting point is also the lowest point in the water.  I can't wait to try it and see if it works.  There is a lot of information online about shaping surfboards,  but not very much at all about specific, if you do A, then B will be the result in the water..  Fluid dynamics are complicated.

In March of 2012, We bought a house and moved to Mission.  

While cleaning up all that the previous owners had left behind, I found a large piece of some kind of wood.    It looked like nice wood.  so I decided that I needed to make a serving tray out of it.