I've been a sci fi geek my whole life. I've been a surfer since my teens. I'm old now, almost 50. A few years ago I was lured back into the water by my old surfing buddy. I was not the lean otterlike creature I had been in the late 70's or even the 80s and 90s when I had last surfed. The obvious solution both for my physical limitations and the small surf here in North Florida was a longboard. I bought a used 9'6" noserider that worked fine for me but within a year I was starting to dream of something of my own. I'd never owned a new board in my life so in 2011 I took the plunge, sold off my collection of clone troopers that had gotten way out of hand on eBay and went around and talked to some local shapers (guys who make surfboards).


After talking to a few about what I was thinking about I decided to go with Mike Whisnant. He's been making boards in this area for decades and I'd heard good things about his longboards as well as his work ethic. Talking to him I could see it was a great match, he was excited about my ideas and clearly open to me being very involved in the making of the board, right down to the design. More importantly he had the experience to make a custom board for me that would not only look good but also ride great for me.

Best of all, he took Paypal!

I put down a hundred bucks to lock in a slot and set to work designing what would be my first custom surfboard. I had a lot of ideas so I made a template I could use to sketch out ideas in colored pencil fast and dirty. Things got weird fast.


Yes. There was a thought at one point of having a sandworm eating the deathstar. Serenity also entered in there as well as a Trek logo. Mixed in there were the seeds of what would be my design. Of all my geek loves Star Wars rules supreme so I decided to go with a Star Wars themed board. You see lots of red. I like red a lot. Talking to Mike I found that if I provided digital files he could print out inlays on rice paper on a standard jet ink printer that would be glassed in on the board. The resin penetrates the rice paper and turns it transparent. The only limitation was size, a standard 8.5 x 11 inch sheet.


In Photoshop I did some hue and saturation stuff on some images for inlays.


And taking some ideas from the first roughs I'd done came up with this.


On my shaping day I met with Mike in the shop and he got to work. Taking a raw "blank"........


To a rough shape.........


To a shaped out foam in the space of about 45 minutes!


After painting and dropping in the inlays he glassed the whole thing then sanded it smooth. I had him put in a special socket in the deck for my GoPro camera to slot into.


A little shout out to Firefly on the tail.......


And the bottom of the board is amazing. I loved how he perfectly executed it right down to the cartoony look of the orange yellow splash of the Falcon as it breaks the pinline.


So there it is, my 1 of 1. There is only one like it and it's mine! mine! mine! And yeah, it rides like a dream.