Thick Lizzy Surfboard

Product Description

Grain Surfboards is excited to be working with well-known Santa Barbara surfboard shaper Ryan Lovelace to offer a wooden rendition of one of Ryan’s favourites, the foiled-out mini-glider he calls the Thick Lizzy. This board came from Ryan’s desire for a midlength to be fun in flatter faced and lower quality surf but that could also perform without restriction in tighter pockets and pumping point breaks.

Ryan Lovelace burst onto the scene in recent years, turning heads, winning shaping contests and creating some of the coolest mid-length shapes you can get. Even though the wood Thick Lizzy is a meticulous copy of Ryan's shape, surfing one will provide a completely different experience than you get on the Lovelace originals. Expect a slight difference in weight which, we believe, is an asset for a board of this style.

Starting with a board 100% hand-shaped specially, Grain took a 3D scan of the entire surface, turned it into a frameset and began the process of building prototypes to perfect the wooden construction. Grain are working with Ryan to offer more sizes of his Thick Lizzy in wood in the coming year.

The Thick Lizzy features an almost identical 50/50 outline, glider style 70/30 down rails and a double concave through the tail. It rides high on the water's surface and is fast to get on plane through flatter sections but provides lots of hold and bite on the rail to handle steeper surf. It's foil and deck shape makes it really walkable for a midlength, so it can be cheater fived for miles! The Thick Lizzy rides like a smaller board due to the constant curve in the outline and decently progressive tail rocker while still falling into that ‘flat and fast’ category.

This Grain Home Grown surfboard kit is manufactured in the UK by Fyne Boat Kits using locally-sourced sustainable Paulownia wood. It comes with all the components that go into the board, including:

• Machine-cut keel and frames
• Top and bottom planks
• Rail strips
• 10.5 inch fin box
• Leash plug
• Air vent
• PEC epoxy bio-resin
• Epoxy fillers
• Wood glue for the planking
• Sikaflex EBT+ for gluing the planks to the internal framework
• Fibreglass fabric
• Protective gloves
• Mixing cups
• Brushes
• Detailed instruction manual

The included manual shows how to make a simple rocker table from basic materials you can salvage or obtain locally. A rocker table helps form the board to the correct rocker.

Some things you'll need are not included in the kit, such as tools, supplies and fins, but most of it should be available locally or from Fyne Boat Kits.

These kits are designed to be built by anyone with the room to do it. Previous wood working experience is not necessary – all you need is a little patience.

Rocker table lifts set

The optional rocker lift kit forms the perfect platform for building your board. The CNC-cut parts form a contoured mould that defines the rocker and precise bottom shape of your surfboard, ensuring that it comes out exactly as designed while simplifying the building process so that you can enjoy the experience of building at home even more.

The set contains one form (‘lift’) to fit under each frame of the surfboard on your glue-up table. These lifts are CNC-cut to the exact contours and rocker of the board you are building. The set includes an instruction manual to help you build a glue-up table and assemble the rocker lifts.

Keel and frames set

The internal pieces needed to build your Grain Home Grown Surfboard. Includes one keel (stringer) and all the frames for your board. Each piece is cut and numbered to precisely match up with its place on the frame. Also included are nose and tail templates, construction notes and a 54 page instruction manual that covers the building process.

The frames set is intended for people who have built a board of this style before and are familiar with the process. It does not include the detailed instruction manual that accompanies the full kit.

If, after buying the frames set, you decide that this is more than you can manage, we'll credit £90 of the purchase price towards the full kit, minus the frames that you already have.

Full size plans and manual

The plans include full-size templates for the keel, frames, nose and tail; board outline; construction notes and a 54 page instruction manual that covers the building process.

The plans are intended for people who have built a board of this style before and are familiar with the process. They do not include the detailed instruction manual that accompanies the full kit.

If, after buying the plans, you decide that building from scratch is more than you can manage, we'll credit £45 of the purchase price towards the full kit.