Homemade Surfboard Rack

I took a break from doing all the home remodeling to do some space organizing for my condo. The single biggest thing that I need to address is to build a closet organization system for the master bedroom, so what do I do instead?… I build surf racks for my wall to make it look less empty.

After countless hours (approx 3-4 hours) of meandering online for DIY projects, ideas, and information on how to build a surfboard wall rack, I realized that there wasn’t really anything out there to my liking. People make some really goofy/tacky looking homemade junk and are somehow proud of it. Another thing was the cost, they kept it cheap at around $40-$50 in materials, but I wanted cheaper. Why? …because I’m really damn cheap.

Here are some that I found online which I just could not see myself making and putting up in my condo:

These are great if you move a lot or need something portable. I simply cannot afford to lose that much floor space

These just look too tacky for me. I would never put anything like this up in my place.

This is the one I would have liked to build if I was able to. It looks great to have a designated spot in your backyard for surfboards and wetsuit but unfortunately my backyard is shared with everybody else. I would actually recommend this one if you were able to do it.

So, many of the online DIY ideas are decent but most of them just aren’t my cup of tea. I did a little brainstorming and figured that I wanted a display rack to not only keep things organized and off the floor, but to keep things sexy as well. I went down to home depot and picked up a bunch of items and got to work. The following tutorial-of-awesome will hopefully help any fellow surfers out there who are looking for a simple, quick and cheap solution which looks great…not your Mickey Mouse quality surfboard rack that looks frumpy.

There you have it. My materials: 1/4″ Dowel, 3/4″ Dowel, some wood pieces for stair moulding?, wood blocks, 1.5″ and 2.5″ long wood screws, shelf lining, and a bottle of water to stay hydrated.

These 13″ long wood pieces were cut down to 12.5″

I marked center holes at the end of the wood pieces and the base. Then I drilled a hole through the base and 1″ into the wood piece.

Then I took a water break.

I cut the 3/4″ dowel to 1.5″ length and the 1/4″ dowel to 1.25″ length

Using my 1/4″ drill bit, I put holes at the rounded side of the wood piece and the 3/4″ dowel

Connect everything just like the lego-maniac you were in your youth. Use a little bit of glue to make sure they stick well.

This is what you should have so far

You will be attaching it through the base like this using the 1.5″ wood screws which should be easy if you drilled a pilot hole.

Now you have an army of brackets and the first glance of how it will look against the wall. I caulked the joints where all the wood pieces met up but this is optional I guess.

I painted the brackets to match my accent wall with the left over paint I had

I cut strips of the shelf liner to cushion my board against the bracket. They’re about 12″ long and 7/8″ wide. I also cut a little piece to go on the dowel.

DONE! Now you have to hang it evenly. I spaced out the brackets about 32″ because wall studs are typically located 16″ apart. You want to make sure you find the studs and mount the brackets to them.

Mounted the first set, they are level!

I used the level to find the spot under the first set so they lined up straight. The wall display racks came out rather nicely in my opinion:

There you have it, two surfboard wall display racks for $32 and some change from Home Depot. Comes out to $16 per set for a sick looking display rack for your froth bone collection. I even have some extra material left over for more racks that I plan on making in the near future (update: Need to buy more shelf liner after Mother stopped by last night and thieved it from me). I have enough dowels for 3-4 more sets which can save on cost when I decide to build more for my long board and guest boards for buddies to stay over.

Until next time…stay classy San Diego.