Swellcycle team rider Tyler James proves the boards work well in the air, too. Photo: Swellcycle
Imagine a world where your local shaper makes not only your magic board, but also the digital specs to make it again. Where you can set off on a trip across the world and have that exact same board already waiting for you there, freshly printed and ready to surf.
That’s the future envisioned by Patricio Guerrero, the co-founder and CEO of Swellcycle, a Santa Cruz-based startup that’s developing 3D-printed surfboards using cutting-edge manufacturing technology paired with sustainable materials.
As befitting those space-age ambitions, they’re working on that future in a shop that looks less like a shaping bay than a rocket factory. A futuristic workspace devoid of the whine of planers and toxic foam dust wafting through the air – replaced instead by the quiet humming of 3D printers.
To better understand what exactly is going on in that factory, and what it could mean for the future of surfing and shaping, I spoke with Guerrero.
THE BEGINNING OF SWELLCYCLE
It all began at Santa Cruz’s Steamer Lane. It was a sizable winter day, and a leash snap sent Guerrero’s board into a cave, to return with six inches missing from the nose. He spent the next two months sanding it back down and re-glassing it.
“I noticed this pile of trash growing next to me,” he recalls. “I thought it was recyclable, for some reason, so I put it in the recycling bin, and the city would not accept it. I had to move everything to the trash and I was like, ‘Okay, this is all going to the landfill, crazy.’”
He had stumbled upon an industry wide problem. The fact that, despite the connection that many surfers feel with the ocean, pretty much every piece of equipment they use is disastrous for the environment. “This was something that I was exposed to during my engineering as well, just the amount of waste created in the development process of a product, R&D especially,” continues Guerrero. “So I’ve always had that in the back of my mind, thinking that there should be a better way to do this. With some of my experience with 3D printing and advanced manufacturing, I was like, ‘Well, we should be able to apply this to the sport that that I love.’
“I reached out to two of my good buddies, one that I studied with at UC Irvine. We started the Hyperloop competition team there. My other buddy, who I lived with in Newport and surfed all the time, he was actually the first person to make me a custom board. It was the perfect combo.”
MAKING A 3D-PRINTED BOARD
Like any other board, a Swellcycle craft starts with a shaper. Using existing shaping software like Shape3d or AkuShaper, Swellcycle creates a 3D model, which then passes through the company’s own proprietary software to create the internal structure of the board.
That internal structure is itself a unique quality of Swellcycle boards. The designs use a series of stringers to form air-filled compartments that create buoyancy, rather than traditional foam. The density and shape of those stringers also allow Swellcycle to control physical properties of the board such as stiffness and weight.
“I like to say that we are unlocking the ability to design the board from the inside out, which is a unique manufacturing process that is really only possible through 3D printing,” explains Guerrero. “That internal structure gives you really interesting performance characteristics. The same outside board could act totally different depending on the internal structure. Flex response, center of mass, how it pivots.“
Another interesting side benefit of the Swellcycle’s design and 3D-printing process is that the blanks come with the fin and leash plugs built in. No longer is precise fin placement left up to a glasser, but rather built into the design by the shaper – up to the tenth of a millimeter. This also allows them to build in extra reinforcement around the fins, meaning the fin boxes rarely tear out.
After all that, the Swellcycle designers have a conversation with the shaper and the customer to make any tweaks to the design, including the outside shape of the board, before it goes off to the printers – custom-made machines that can print an entire shortboard or mid-length in one go, or a longboard in two parts.
What comes out of those printers basically looks like your run-of-the-mill blank, though they are made from bio-plastic, a material derived from sugars such as corn or sugarcane instead of fossil fuels (which, again, they had to develop themselves). After some sanding and finishing to fill in any small holes, it’s ready for the glasser.
View this post on Instagram
HOW DO I REPAIR THAT THING?
As an admittedly average surfer, who has spent an inordinate amount of time glassing and sanding various self-inflicted dings and holes, my immediate thought upon seeing Swellcycle’s printed boards was, “How would I repair that thing?”
According to Guerrero, though, that’s not as much of a problem as the space-age design of the board would make it seem. For one thing, he says that the multi-stringer construction makes them more durable than a foam craft (and a video of them trying and failing to sink a board by hitting it with a hammer would seem to back that up). Once the inevitable ding does occur, though, the answer is just an Amazon order away.
“In my opinion, they’re easier to repair because all you need is a 3D-printing pen, which is like 20 bucks on Amazon,” says Guerrero. “Then you can go in and fill the hole, depending on how big it is, and then you sand that down, glass it, and you’re ready to go.”
View this post on Instagram
BUT CAN IT SHRED?
At the end of the day, though, it doesn’t matter how much better they are for the environment, how durable they are, or how much control a shaper has in their design. Surfers will reject all of those ideals and conveniences if the boards don’t actually feel good underfoot.
So how does a Swellcycle board ride?
“It’s a little hard to answer, because it really depends on how the lattice is made,” answers Guerrero. “The same outside board could ride totally different depending on how you make the lattice flow inside of the chambers.
“In general, people say that it feels like a traditional PU/epoxy board, but, depending on how you make the internal structure, it’s extremely versatile. As we develop this process further, eventually we’ll be able to mimic the feeling of different boards, like wood or EPS, and eventually even find new feelings that no one has ever felt before.”
THE FUTURE OF SWELLCYCLE (AND SURFING)
Looking towards the future, Guerrero and company are focusing on taking one step at a time. At the moment, they’re looking to add to their existing roster of shapers who have partnered with the company – part of the process of getting both shapers and surfers comfortable enough with the technology to adopt it. After that comes the work of fine tuning the printers to be reliable, user friendly and affordable enough to be distributed around the world. They’ve also just begun to raise money for the next round of innovation.
Still, it’s impossible not to dream big, when thinking about this technology. In nearly every way, big and small, Swellcycle presents a radically new picture for what both surfing and shaping could look like in the coming years. “The big picture vision is that we are able to make these printers affordably, so that we can license them to other manufacturing shops that want to use this process to make their products more sustainable,” describes Guerrero. “At the end of the day, it would be awesome if Stretch [Riedel, a local shaping legend who glasses some Swellcycle boards] had these printers and Pure Glass and all the manufacturing shops and even smaller shapers, like garage shapers. Maybe they just want one printer and it would fit in their garage, or if a manufacturer wants to be able to pump these boards out, they would buy six printers for the same cost as a CNC machine. They’re extremely affordable, and that’s how we make a real impact on our waste and how the surfboard industry relates with the environment.”
To Guerrero, this isn’t just a pipe dream, but a vision of what’s to come. And his infectious confidence is hard to argue with. “It’s totally the future. There’s no doubt about that,” he says. “It’s just about how we’re going to get there and who’s curious enough to try it.”
