Meet the shaper
Gary McNeill
“Think globally, act locally. It’s not hard to do.”
A lifetime of surfing, shaping and refining ideas with people who care more about feeling than fashion.
The accidental activist
Gary McNeill Concepts · Hand shaped in Northern NSW
Surfboards for
cosmic people.
Experimental shapes, honest materials and more than four decades of feel under the feet.
Photo taken by Simon Williams
Form follows feeling
Not built from a formula.
Built from feel.
Every GMC board begins with a conversation—where you surf, how you move and what you want to feel next.
Materials matter
Built to last.
Made with intent.
Choose from standard stringered PU, stringerless PU with carbon rails, EPS Flax, or an agave blank from Grow Blanks in Kenya. Gary will help match the build to the board, the surfer and the life it needs to live.
- Standard stringered PU
- Carbon rail stringerless PU
- EPS Flax
- Agave Blank · Grow Blanks, Kenya ↗
The custom process
A board starts with a conversation.
Talk
Your surfing, waves, current boards and the feeling you’re chasing.
Design
Gary recommends the concept, dimensions, construction and fin approach.
Shape
Your board is shaped and finished as an individual object—not a production number.
Ride
Wax it, learn it and let the board show you where the next idea lives.
Films & articles
The ideas around
the boards.
Article
A Magical Surfer–Shaper Bond
The Inertia profile on the long creative relationship between Gary McNeill and Dave Rastovich, and the ideas that continue to move between surfer and shaper.
Read
Article
Board Talk with Gary McNeill
A wide-ranging Boardcave interview covering Gary’s shaping beginnings, sacred geometry, hybrid design, construction and working with Dave Rastovich.
Read
Article
Flax Surfboard Ideology
Surfers for Climate explores Gary’s approach to flax construction, useful longevity and building surfboards with lower-impact materials.
Read