About us

 

Tucker Surf Supply is a family owned business. The owner, Brad Tucker, began his woodworking experience building homes and fine cabinetry in Northern California. Upon moving South to Laguna Beach, he began surfing every weekend with his son off of the Laguna Beach coast.

 

With his builder’s mind and love of a good project, Brad decided he wanted to try his hand at building his own board.

Brad started out shaping hollow wooden surfboards for fun in his cabinet shop using wood scraps from the wood shop.

 

After a few years of building his experience with wooden surfboards, in the early ’90’s Brad made his first kit meant to be sold. This first kit sold on eBay and we believe this to be the first hollow wood surfboard kit sold to the public from any wood surfboard designer.

Several sales followed and the group of novice to advanced woodworkers hitting the water grew on their own boards, guided by the experience Brad accumulated in the back of his shop.

Selling the kits funded his passion of building wood surfboards full time; he was stoked to be able to shift his concentration from luxury homes to wooden surfboards!

 

The best part about buying a kit from Tucker Surf Supply is getting the decades of trial and error experience from our team. We will walk you through the whole process, reminiscing about the times in the back of the shop when one process failed and another proved consistently successful. Brad’s passion is sharing this process with others and making sure that you’re able to make a board you’re proud to paddle out on!

 

 

From Woodworker to Wood Surfboards

 

The recession hit, cabinet work slowed. Facing closing the cabinet shop Brad looked to the surfboard kit sales.

Surfboard sales were marginal, but enough to keep things afloat together with the minimal cabinet work.

Then woodworking magazine “Wood Shop News” took notice and wrote an article about Brad and the “Recession Buster” surfboard business. After the Wood Shop News article was published is when the surfboard gig really starts gaining momentum. The word was out.....

 

To handle the extra workload of accounting and web design Brad partnered with another builder and woodsurfboardsupply.com was born. This took Brad to a level in which the cabinet business became the side job to the now larger and more profitable surfboard kit manufacturing.

 

 

Independence

 

Brad bought out the partners in late 2014.

He struggled with updating the wood surfboard supply site on his own even taking classes for web design at the local college.

When his college professor told him even she couldn’t figure out how the old site was put together Brad realized it was time to completely start over with a new company.

Tucker Surf Supply was born.

Brad is finally free to design and build surfboards as his lifelong passion for building watercraft with wood. No longer building cabinets at all. The passion filled hobby is the day job! Life is good.

 

 

Sustainability

 

Brad’s son Cache works for the company as surfboard test pilot and small board shaper. His wife, Ashley, works as marketing director and overall storefront manager. His daughter Kady helps out with social media. Tucker Surf Supply encourages using the most sustainable surfboard materials possible as we are serious about the environment and we know that most surfers are too! We encourage the use of paulownia wood for our boards, as it is fast growing and thus easily renewable. It is stronger than balsa. Our kits are made from a renewable source and we are available to guide you through making the “greenest” board possible if that is your goal! One of the best parts of building your own board is being able to modify any factors that are important to you. We get excited about helping people achieve their goals. Our goal is to make sure our customers have the most fun and be the most successful at building their board.

 

 

 

 

                                                  

 

 

                                         

 

                                                   Brad Tucker  

Lifelong woodworker, surfer, shaper, digital media and arts designer.

Credited to have sold the first hollow wood surfboard kit which started the industry.

Innovator of the “Tucker Method” of building an elevated frame (top deck first) without the use of a rocker table..

First to utilize shrink wrap rather than clamps to gently secure decking to a fishbone frame. 

Inventor of “Tucker Tabs” which is an improvement to Brad’s “Tucker method”

Directly awarded and/or built frames for wood boards that were awarded “best of show” in Sacred Craft, Boardwoon and other surf and art shows.