Downing Designs Salutes
The Shapers
Nine names who turned foam, fiberglass and a lifetime of obsession into the most coveted surfboards on earth.
We don’t surf. We fire and melt glass. Twenty-plus years of experimenting with glass in kilns, and bringing out the soul with technical lighting advances have taught us one thing about mastery: it looks effortless only after revision 52 or so.
These shapers also paid that price. Decades in the ocean. Thousands of blanks. Rails sanded until the curve finally matched the wave in their head. Their boards have carried world titles, Pipeline barrels and big-wave legends, and they’ve hung on the walls of people who will never paddle out. Like me.
This page is our tip of the hat. In order, the names that define the shape of the modern fiberglass surfboard.
No. 01 · Santa Barbara, California
Channel Islands
Founded in 1969 by Al and Terry Merrick, Channel Islands became the board the best surfers in the world reached for when the stakes were highest. Its riders have earned 20 world titles. Today it is privately held and employee owned, with Britt Merrick carrying the family name forward from the same coastline where it all started.
No. 02 · San Clemente, California
…Lost Surfboards by Mayhem
Matt “Mayhem” Biolos started with a logo scribbled on T-shirts and a crew of San Clemente misfits. He built it into the most culturally dominant performance brand of the modern era. Biolos won the Vissla Championship Tour shaper rankings three years running through 2025. His boards are still built by hand in the USA, with a custom art program that already treats the deck as a canvas.
No. 03 · Sydney, Australia
Haydenshapes
Hayden Cox shaped his first board as a teenager and never looked back. His patented FutureFlex construction, a parabolic carbon fiber frame, changed how the industry thinks about flex. The Hypto Krypto became one of the most loved boards of its generation. Haydenshapes lives where art, design and performance meet, with limited-edition collaborations and one-off commissions that treat the surfboard as an object worth owning for its own sake.
No. 04 · North Shore, Oahu
Pyzel Surfboards
It began in a backyard shaping room on the North Shore in the mid-1990s, when a kid down the road named John John Florence started ordering boards. Jon Pyzel’s shapes went on to carry Florence to three world titles. Along the way came Eddie victories and Olympic appearances. Pyzel boards are forged in the heaviest water on the planet, and it shows in every rail.
No. 05 · North County San Diego, California
Christenson Surfboards
Chris Christenson apprenticed under two legends, Dick Brewer and Skip Frye, and then built a voice entirely his own. More than 26,000 boards have passed through his factory, from refined fish and noseriders to the big-wave guns ridden by Greg Long and Ian Walsh. His philosophy is “many arrows in the quiver,” and he executes it with obsessive precision.
No. 06 · Southern California
Album Surf
Matt Parker’s Album brought an art director’s eye to the shaping bay. Its color, its curve and its sense of design make an Album board recognizable from across the parking lot. It is the modern alternative-craft movement in its most stylish form.
No. 07 · Encinitas, California · Est. 1959
Bing Surfboards
Bing Copeland opened his first shop in 1959 and helped invent the surfboard industry as we know it. He became known for curved stringers, meticulous craftsmanship and a 1970 world title under team rider Rolf Aurness. Today his protégé Matt Calvani builds Bing boards in Encinitas, and the vintage originals now sit in surf museum collections.
No. 08 · San Diego, California
Ryan Burch Surfboards
Ryan Burch shapes the boards other shapers study. His asymmetrical designs once made people stare; now everyone wants one. His hands touch every stage of a custom, from the first saw cut to the final hand-drawn line of art. His stock boards sell out, and the custom list is a waiting game worth playing.
No. 09 · San Juan Capistrano, California
Tyler Warren
Surfer, shaper and oil painter. Tyler Warren calls it the Magic Triangle, with each craft feeding the others. His art has hung in galleries from Japan to Europe to Hawaii, and his boards are just as likely to end up on a wall as under a pair of feet. He is proof that the line between surfboard and artwork was always thinner than anyone admitted.
Where the Board Leaves the Water
Ninety-nine percent of a surfer’s life happens on land.
These shapers own the water. We build for everywhere else: illuminated, kiln-fused glass surfboards made to hang in the living room, the lobby and the bar. They don’t float. They glow.
Questions
Frequently Asked
Who are the best custom surfboard shapers in the world?
Our list, in order: Channel Islands, …Lost Surfboards by Mayhem, Haydenshapes, Pyzel Surfboards, Christenson Surfboards, Album Surf, Bing Surfboards, Ryan Burch and Tyler Warren. Between them they cover world-title performance boards, big-wave guns, heritage longboards and art-driven alternative craft.
Why does a glass studio publish a list of surfboard shapers?
Because we build in their shadow. Downing Designs makes illuminated glass surfboards for walls, not waves, and every one of them owes its silhouette to the shapers on this page. This is our tribute to the people who perfected the form.
What is an illuminated glass surfboard?
It is a sculptural surfboard made from kiln-fused textured glass, lit from within by integrated LEDs and finished with a hand-built wood rail edge. It is a statement piece designed for display. It does not float.
Can a glass surfboard be displayed in a surf shop, showroom or restaurant?
Yes. The boards are made to hang in homes, lobbies, bars, restaurants and surf showrooms. Anywhere a surfer’s passion deserves to be seen on dry land.
Can I customize my glass surfboard?
Yes. Choose a Fish, Gun or Longboard shape, a glass texture or your own artwork, your fins, your wood rail and your LED lighting. Your logo can be sandblasted into the surface. Start with the board builder.
How do I order a glass surfboard?
Call Jeff Downing directly at 813.784.5211 or email [email protected]. Every board is built to order in Tampa, Florida and shipped nationwide.
Glass. Lights. Ambiance.
Start Your Board
Tell us about your space and we will tell you honestly whether a glass surfboard is right for it.
Call 813.784.5211. We don’t have office hours. We have phones.
Jeff Downing
Founder, Lead Designer & Custom Glass Countertop Expert
Jeff Downing of Downing Designs, is a Tampa Florida–based design studio specializing in custom Glass Countertops, Glass Bar Tops, Glass Vanity tops and Glass Stair Treads. With decades of hands-on experience, Jeff is widely recognized for delivering textured glass surfaces integrated with LED lighting to create dazzling abstract statement pieces.
“Glass. Lights. Ambiance”.