FOX was one of the first Surf Shop / Surfboard building companies in South Florida. The FOX Surfboards name dates back to the 60’s with East Coast Surfing Legend and founder, Ted James.

After shaping for FOX off and on for several years, Ted offered me a chance to become his partner in 1975. Thirty five years, 5 Palm Beach Co. Surf Shop locations, 3 Factory moves, thousands of boards, thousands of waves, lots of good times, here I am.  Sadly, Ted passed away suddenly in 2004, he is greatly missed and I will never forget the opportunity he gave me. He also started one of the very first Surf Shop / Factory locations in Cape Hatteras and the Buxton Shop location is still owned and operated by family members. My Lake Worth Beach location is still going strong also and the Casino building where we are located, will soon be totally renovated.

Currently, I am building boards in Lake Worth and have been shaping boards on an APS3000 CNC shaping machine made by Miki Langenbach of Australia. His machine is one of the original, and in my humble opinion, the best machine on the planet, by far. We use Shape3D design software. I first became interested in the idea of shaping machines while working for Rusty on an Epoxy Composite project over a several year period. As he had a machine, I got to check it out, up close. California has several dozen machines in operation, while the East Coast had only 4. So California was a good place to get to know their ups and downs, do’s and don’ts. I settled on and purchased my machine a little over 3 years ago primarily because it was set up with a lean towards doing custom, one at a time, shapes rather than having to do 5-10 at a time. I can shift from a 9’0” Longboard to a 5’2” Grom shape in about a minute. Most machines are not set up like that. Along with my FOX brand, I also shape boards for other brands like; Impact, C-Shapes, Bird, Badlandz, Miller, Alan Davis, Nomad, Hope, Corkscrew, American Surf Solutions, Fred Grosskreutz, O Street, Z Glassing, Richard Munson, Stoke, Straight Up, My Religion, Viking, and Quashi. The CNC shaping machine is a beautiful thing to watch shape a board. I’m still fascinated by it.

I recently teamed up with Dave Friedank of Blue Earth and he now runs the glassing end of FOX Surfboards. Dave is a career, long time board builder with  a lot of experience. He used to be one of my Team riders back in the Day and we have remained friends for many years. Needless to say we are both having a blast doing what we both love. Custom board building.

So, stop by say hello and I’ll give you the tour. Keep us in mind for your next

board. 

Thanks – John Parton