Made in Sydney, by people who build wooden boards.

How it started

Sine Surf began in Sydney in 2020, when co-founder Emile Theau's brand-new surfboard snapped on its first surf. Back at the shop he was shown a pile of more than a hundred broken boards and told that's just how surfboards are made. That didn't sit right, and the search for a more durable, more sustainable board led to wood.

Wooden boards had fallen out of favour because timber is expensive and building them takes a lot of skill. Emile and I set out to change that: to make hollow wooden boards efficient enough to compete with mainstream boards on quality and cost. The answer was CNC machining — hollow Paulownia frames with internal stringers and solid wood rails, cut precisely and repeatably. Years of prototypes and test sessions in the Sydney surf produced the ButterCup, SunSpear, Garnet, Strider and Daywalker models.

Why Paulownia

Paulownia is light, strong and buoyant, with a pale, even grain that glues and finishes beautifully — and it's plantation grown. Working with it every day is why I also run Paulownia Timber Supplies from Hornsby, supplying sustainably sourced Paulownia across Australia as planks, sheets and blanks, with resawing, dressing and CNC machining for builders who need parts cut to size.

Why this app

Every Sine Surf board starts life in CAD before its frame is cut on the CNC. Building in timber asks different questions from shaping foam: volume and weight matter more, every frame part has to fit, and the numbers need to be right before you commit a sheet of Paulownia. Wooden Surfboard Designer is built around that workflow — draw the outline, rocker and cross-sections and watch volume and weight as you go. Then order the frame and we CNC cut it in Paulownia to your exact shape, with skins, rail strips, fin boxes and glue if you want them. If you have your own laser or CNC router, you can download the cutting files instead, or print them at 1:1 and cut by hand.

It's growing with features that matter for wooden builds: different thicknesses for frame parts and skins, CNC-friendly dogbone corners on slots, and templates that go straight from screen to machine. If you're building a hollow wooden board — at home, in a school workshop or in a shaping bay — I hope it helps.

Need the parts for your build? Sine Surf makes vented leash plugs, surfboard vents and fin boxes for wooden boards, and Paulownia Timber Supplies can supply the timber. New to board design? Start with the surfboard design guide or the hollow wooden build guide.