FAZE SURFBOARDS

Before Aquiva, I began building surfboards in Torquay when I was 17. I moved to Tassie in my late 20’s, built a small shaping / glassing bay in the backyard of our Seven Mile BEach home in 2016 and the rest they say is history.

In the Beginning. .

My first surfboard i owned was shaped and built by Howard Hughes in Aireys Inlet. It was a 5'10 thruster with the most epic air brush spray! I knew the Hughes family well and we spent most of our days after school in Howard's Aireys Inlet factory & showroom, pulling all the boards out of the racks and obsessing over Howard’s build quality.

We moved to Torquay in 1994 and I ordered my first custom surfboard from Micheal Anthony. Micheal was the head shaper for Rip Curl at the time, we sat down in the old Rip curl store, wrote down some dimensions on a scrap piece of paper. I still remember walking into Moonlight Lamination for the first time to pick up my new board. Ill never forget that smell and the amount of people working away like bees in a hive. It was fascinating!

in 1999 at the age of 18, I started board building for Maurice Cole. It wasn’t glamorous to begin with, sweeping floors, filla-coats and repairs but Watching and learning from experienced sanders, laminator's and other shapers was an epic experience. the factory was working at full noise, building boards for the American, Japan and France markets, as well as regular celebrity board pick ups from the likes of Tennis legend Mark Philippoussis and even Kirk Hammet of Metalica.

In 2005, I searched for further work as a contract board builder. Strapper Surfboards has been building surfboards in Torquay for decades and it was here I started working with Mike D’sas & John Robertson. At Strapper I was making everything from kneeboards to longboards and performance short boards for the likes of local surfers Jack Perry, Adam Robertson and Cahill Bell-Warren. I was also contracting out sanding work over weekends, sanding surfboards for Maurice Cole, Rousa and Mark Phipps in Ocean Grove.

2009 saw me move to Tasmania to be with my wife and ultimately start a family. For a number of years I was working late nights as a club DJ and promoter but I ended up working in the family abolone business. I was a boat deckhand for my brother in law who was an Abalone diver. we worked all around tasmania catching abalone. We spent a lot of time on Tasmania’s west coast surfing, fishing, these were some wild adventures but when kids came into my world, working away for that long had its disadvantages. So I needed to build something back at home.

2016 - faze begins in tasmania

In 2016 I started Faze Surfboards in the backyard of our home. I had been a sander, filla-coater but only shaped 2 boards during my time at Maurice Coles. After knocking out a couple of really unusual and whack shapes on the planer. I finally got the hang of the tools and onto a working design. Hamish Renwick is one of Tassies finest surfers. A solid unit that can throw down and stomp some huge punts. We came up with the Brainfaze model. Actually, the second iteration of this board was ridden first by Jadson Andre at the Sydney surf pro in 2018. The board went mental! Hamish and I managed to get some epic footage from around the local beaches ——> Check out the footage below with Hamish, Matt Kennedy and Friends.

I would go onto develop the Faze To Black with Matt Kennedy. With a more forgiving outline the board turned out sick and is still my go to for any condition!

The process

I was creating a small number of custom surfboards each year using traditional techniques and materials. I spent this time hand-shaping every board, getting to know my tools, templates and building techniques and procedures. Now, With access to world class shaping machines at the GlassLab, it has been a journey learning this new method as I have adopted the machine shapes with Faze Surfboards.

Present Day

It's now 2026 and I have moved Faze & Aquiva Surfboards up to the Gold Coast. Currently working at the GlassLab, its a beast of a factory with so many brands and exciting things on the go. I currently build surfboards boards for the likes of Sharpeye, arakawa, simon jones, dice, love machine, On Fire, Hayden Shapes, misfit and many more!

So What does is all mean?

aquiva has always had a strong focus on handcrafted surfboards. Experimenting with design and thinking outside the box, While faze Surfboards will continue to push into the high-performance realm and a strong focus for grom boards.

Just a Thank You to Vissla.

In 2018 and 2019, I was lucky enough to take part in the Vissla Sydney surf Pro at Manly Beach. For the duration of their contract, Vissla constructed a temp shaping bay at North Steyne. Shapers from around Australia old and new converged on the QS6000 rated event to shape and share the love! Huge thanks to Vissla for their support. That was such a hoon!!

This relationship continued in Tasmania with the construction of a portable shaping bay. We took this project on the road to multiple events across the state including The Bicheno Food & Wine Festival plus multiple surfboard exhibits around the state for many years.

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