An oil painting of a whitewashed shaping shed on a cliff top, its red sliding door open, surfboards racked against the wall and foam blanks stacked under a lean-to, a eucalyptus behind and the sea at sunrise beyond

Shaping bay

A whitewashed shed at the top of the cliff road, with its door open to the swell.

7:36 am on the cliff road

A white foam surfboard blank with a dark wooden stringer, half shaped, resting on two shaping stands over a drift of foam shavings and a hand planer

Built by hand

Every Ondra starts as a polyurethane blank with a cedar stringer. No machine cuts the shape: Inês draws the outline from her own templates, then planes and sands it under side lights until the rails read true.

Tomás glasses it with plant-based resin, and the board rests in the dark room for ten days before it meets water.

01Shape: Outline, planer, sanding block. About six hours a board, done in one sitting so the curves stay one thought.
02Glass: Two layers of four-ounce cloth on the deck, one on the bottom, laid with resin that is mostly pine.
03Sand: Wet-sanded by hand to 400 grit, then a final gloss coat buffed until it holds the sky.
04Rest: Ten days on the rack in the dark room. A board that cures slowly lasts for years.

Every board leaves with a bar of wax and a fin key.

A round bar of pale surf wax half wrapped in coral-red paper, with a small brass fin key beside it

A narrow road winding along a cliff edge toward a small white shed, a pale-green van with two surfboards on its roof parked on the grass verge, the sea below

Visit

Open on Saturdays, 9 am to 1 pm, April to October. Closed when the swell is too good, which is rarely announced.

The cliff road, two kilometres past the Ferro lighthouse. Park on the verge and follow the smell of resin.

Write to the shed