History

The BoardLams story began in 2008 when owners and co-founders, John and Mariale searched for a way to extend their custom surfboard business (Uhuru Surfcraft) into something that would open up new doors with respect to the ability to enhance and customize the artwork and designs on custom surfboards.

They began brainstorming on how to replace the current standard of airbrushed boards to achieve custom artwork and began researching digital printing processes.  Our very first printer was found on Craigslist and after some heavy negotiation; a longboard skateboard, a can of laminating resin plus our fistful of dollars and we were loading our “new” printer into the back of the truck.  The first office was humble, a spare bedroom in our home.

We continued our experimenting with various materials and printing processes that could be integrated into surfboard manufacturing.  Trail and error prevailed and we learned so many things along the way.  “Never give up“ was an early philosophy of ours and it remains one of our core values today.

Perseverance paid off and the likelihood to print high definition digital images on our specially developed rice paper that could successfully be used during surfboard manufacturing, turned into a reality.  With our process in place, we were able to offer our digitally printed ricepaper to our surfboard customers as an option to make their boards unique.  Because our process was digital, we could do short runs and custom prints, which fit in well with our goal of customer level customization.

The prints started to get noticed by other shapers who increasingly got excited about the idea of using the prints on their boards.  We started doing side projects for other builders.  At first it was a few, something to help out our fellow local shapers.  The orders kept coming and we were able to pool our earnings from this “side business” and buy our way into bigger and better printers and technology.  Eureka!  We had outgrown the guest bedroom and now needed to repurpose the garage into our “print shop”.  The print orders continued and we asked ourselves, “do we have a new business here”?

In 2012 we thought so.  With Business, Marketing and Project Management backgrounds and the knowledge of surfboard manufacturing, John and Mariale decided to create an online platform and make the lams a product that they could share with the rest of the world.

Since then, one of our priorities as a company continue to be research and development, and with that, we have developed and introduced new products to the surfboard industry like Premium Ricepaper Prints (including digitally printed white ink), FiberLams (printed fiberglass) and The Customizer (online designer for graphics and surfboard prints).

Fast forward today.  We now count with an amazing and growing team, which we call “The Lamily”.  We love creating; innovating and we strive for excellence as it relates to the craft of board building, product customization printing and customer service.  We take pride on being the pioneers of innovative products and valuable solutions that we offer to board and composite builders around the world.