Who is 42 surfboards?

Our shaper, is a fifth generation wood-worker who grew up covered in sawdust. And since the beginning, he has been get the woodchips out of his hair surfing and sailing. Riding waves since he was four or five, Lars Bergström began shaping boards for himself and friends in high school. Thirty years later, Bergström has a Ph.D. in Environmental Science, is based in Oregon, and is still shaping full time. The only difference is these days he prefers to shape wood.

The rest of the team here at 42 Surfboards is made up of lifelong surfers and longtime friends.

At 42, we consistently do things with our tools that the manufacturers didn't even know were possible. They are constantly coming to us and asking "How the hell did you do that?" Our answer is always the same: "We did it using your stuff." When we aren't blowing minds in the design world, we are surfers, skiers, sailors, mountainbikers, kiteboarders, watermen, parents, windsurfers, kayakers, carpenters, builders of chambered wood surfboards, and good friends.




Kassen Bergstrom skis as many days in the week as possible on her big fat Salomon Skis, surfs whenever possible, and keeps the rest of the team honest the rest of the time. Good enough is never good enough if Kass is watching.

Our goal is to build you boards that will last you a lifetime at the same time as providing a place where our team will be excited to work as long as they want.

Everybody here works at 42 because they love working to build the best surfboards possible. Not just the best wood boards, but the best surfboards. If we can continue to do that at the same time as having a positive impact on the environment and being the best place to work in the surfing industry, we feel like ours is a real success story. And you will continue to get the best boards in the world.

Here at 42 Surfboards, we’d like to give you something that is really hard to find these days. We’d like to give you a wood surfboard hand-shaped by American surfers. We’d like to give you a board that will last you the rest of your life.

At 42 Surfboards we are trying to build the best surfboards in the world. Wood is good and we’ll be happy to explain why any time you want to stop by.

So, call, email, or stop by. We can see if we have what you are looking for and get it on its way to you.

Life is short. You are good. Ride a board that makes you proud.

Looking forward to meeting you,

Lars Bergström and The 42 Crew
42 Surfboards

Why is 42 surfboards doing this?

We love trying to build the best surfboards possible.

Surfing has come a long way since those early days in California and Hawaii. But in many places, it seems that the soul has slipped out the back door. Maybe it moved north, maybe it got old, maybe it got cold.

We are only interested in quality and tradition.

We only want to build "Classic. American. Surfboards."

We only ride real live surfboards from real live wood.

At 42 Surfboards we hand-shape quality classic American surfboards backed by centuries of woodworking tradition. At 42 Surfboards we even build our own blanks so we can ensure that your board is made out of the best possible materials.

Here at 42 Surfboards, we’d like to give you a board that is beautiful, unique, and is more than something you just surf on. Although we know that you will love surfing it.

At 42 Surfboards we are trying to build the best surfboards in the world. Wood is good and we’ll be happy to explain why any time you want to stop by.

So, call, email, or stop by. We can hammer out exactly what you are looking for and get it on its way to you.

Life is short. You are good. Ride a board that makes you proud.

Looking forward to meeting you,

Lars Bergström & The 42 Crew
42 surfboards

What is 42 surfboards doing for the environment?

42 surfboards, both our offices and our shop, is powered by wind.

42 Surfboards is a member of 1% for the Planet , The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, as well as The Surfrider Foundation. We are also a supporter of The Hood River Waterfront Park. In 2007, each of these groups received almost 2% of our sales through One Percent For The Planet's donation program.

42 Surfboards are the most durable surfboards we know how to build.

We use the most environmentally-friendly materials we can find.

We use sustainably harvested wood and abalone. In the next couple years, most of our wood will come from trees blown down on the Oregon coast in the December 2007 storm.

All of our waste sawdust is composted and turned back into soil at a local nursery.

At 42 Surfboards the environment comes first. It is our whole reason for being.

It just doesn’t matter how groovy your van is or how bushy your beard is, if you are going through boards as fast as some of our friends are going through their sticks of foam, you’re just not walking the walk. At 42 Surfboards we are building boards that you will be able to pass on to your grandchildren. If you’re ready to give them up at that point.

42 Surfboards are hand-shaped from blanks that we build ourselves. Our blanks are as organic as they come and at 42, your surfboard blank isn’t going to kill anyone. Our blanks are built from sustainably harvested wood for a remarkably beautiful and strong surfboard that, with a little love and a little luck, will last you the rest of your life.

At 42 Surfboards, disposable boards just aren’t going to cut it anymore. Nor are toxic boards made from the same old poisonous soup that has been used since the early '60s. By hand-shaping local wood into beautiful high performance surfboards, our goal is to change the very paradigm of choosing a surfboard. Instead of choosing the quick and easy, the cheap and sleazy, the pop-out molded spray-painted cookie cutter foam toy, we want you to think a little. Think about the long-term cost. The environmental cost. The aesthetic cost. The social cost. And then go with the choice that is simply better by nature.

Surfboards haven’t always been our toxic little plastic toys. The historical time line of surfboard materials goes something like this: 4000 years BC - 1959, wood, wood wood wood wood wood wood. 1959 - 2006, foam. 2007 and onward, wood. We hope that you agree with what we are trying to do and that your own quiver will eventually look like the historical timeline: wood wood wood wood.

Life is short. You are good. Ride a board that makes you proud.

Looking forward to meeting you,

Lars Bergström and the 42 Crew
42 surfboards

How do 42 surfboards perform?

Surfing has come a long way since those early days in California and Hawaii. But in many places, it seems that the soul has slipped out the back door. Maybe it moved north, maybe it got old, maybe it got cold. Maybe there just isn’t space for it in the modern plastic pop-out that masquerades as a surfboard.

Today’s boards, while they are light and maneuverable to the point of being as jittery as a triple espresso with no breakfast, they lack beauty, style, soul, and durability.

But you can buy them at Sprawlmart. So that makes up for the missing soul, right?

Right…

42 Surfboards are not designed to be cheap. At 42 surfboards we strive to build the best surfboards you can buy. We don’t build plastic toys at 42. We hand-shape real live surfboards from real live wood.

42 Surfboards are fast, maneuverable, strong and designed to be durable on the order of generations, not months. 42 Surfboards are quality through and through.

At 42 Surfboards we build classic chambered wood surfboards.

At 42 Surfboards we build boards designed to be what you wish you were riding.

At 42 Surfboards we hand-shape quality classic American surfboards backed by centuries of woodworking tradition.

At 42 Surfboards we not only build our own blanks, we harvest much of our own wood. We do this so we can ensure that your board is made out of the best possible, most sustainabe materials possible.

A 42 Surfboard is designed to get you out the back as quickly as possible and into waves as early as possible. They are shaped to generate and maintain speed on the face and give you longer waves than you ever thought possible.

We test our designs daily and tweak them as often as we come up with improvements. However, 42 Surfboards are specifically designed to be impervious to the fickle fluctuations of fashion. Most of our designs, at their core, are thirty to forty years old. We take those designs and submit them to all of the modern rail, bottom, and rocker improvements of the new millennium without making you a slave to fashion.

The result is that the board you buy today will surf extremely well and never go out of style.

At 42 Surfboards we are building boards that you will be able to pass on to your grandchildren. If you’re ready to give them up at that point.

Everybody has had a magic surfboard. A board that was better than anything else they have ever ridden. If that had been a 42 Surfboard, it would still be around and you would still be riding it today!

At 42 Surfboards we are trying to build the best surfboards in the world. Wood is good and we’ll be happy to explain why any time you want to stop by.

So, call, email, or stop by. We can hammer out exactly what you are looking for and get it on its way to you.

Life is short. You are good. Ride a board that makes you proud.

Looking forward to meeting you,

Lars Bergström and The 42 Crew
42 surfboards

Where is 42 surfboards?

If we are surfing at home, you can usually find us in the cold green water just to the north or south of Cannon Beach, Oregon.

If we are road tripping, you would have to look up and down the west coast. And if we are traveling, well then the whole globe is fair game.

If we are shaping boards though, you can find us in our shop in downtown Hood River, Oregon where we work in a big old brick ice-house right down on the railroad tracks. From about 1915 until its decommissioning in 1965, it served as a cold fruit storage and rail shipment facility for Hood River’s orchardists. For decades horse-drawn carts (and later, trucks) would line up in the fall to deliver huge loads of freshly picked fruit to the Union Building.
Eventually, more modern facilities were built in the Hood River Valley and until we moved in, the building had been inactive since the late 1960’s.

Today the the old building sits quietly beside the railroad tracks that it once served.

And if you listen carefully, you can hear wood surfboards being shaped, sanded, and packed for many of the same places that boxes from the valley were shipped to in the past century. Quality and tradition are hard habits to break.

You can get a hold of us at Lars@42surfboards.com or 541-490-9099. If we are in the shaping room, we'll get back to you as soon as it is quiet enough to talk.

Lars and the 42 Crew
42 surfboards