When I scout the new surfboard market my cynical side often gets the better of me.

There I see boards where more time has apparently been spent on appearance rather than performance. Style over substance, in other words. Created to turn heads in the carpark, not the lineup.

However, when it comes to Ruffles Truffles - Ben Rufus' board label - I have to knock that cynicism on the head.

Ben, you see, makes strikingly beautiful boards - real head turners - and those same boards are also designed to ride the heaviest slabs on Earth. If a surfer ever needs a board made with substantial experience, input, and talent, then it's those few seconds after letting go of the rope at The Right.

No wave drains harder, breaks faster, and is as unpredictable. While few surfers know it as well as Ben.

Swellnet recently chatted to Ben about his pretty tough creations.

Swellnet: How many years have you been shaping for now, Ben?
Ben Rufus: I've been shaping now for about twelve years.

How did you begin?
The first job I actually had when I left school was working for a local shaper, Aido Shephard. I was glassing, air brushing, sanding, dings, fins, and of course sweeping the floors. I did everything except shape a board which was the main thing I wanted to do.

I ended up walking away from surfboards for a long time. Then, twelve years ago a mate who shapes his own boards let me watch him and then use his shaping bay to shape my own. From then I was hooked and straight away started shaping in the garden shed doing them start to finish. Just for myself at first, then a couple of friends tried a few and it grew from there.

I was lucky I had already worked with boards way back so I picked the skills back up fairly quickly without too much guidance.

When I first started shaping I was at a point in my surfing where I was starting to experiment with different shapes, veering away from stock performance Thrusters. Shaping my own really gave me the freedom to experiment and look for new feelings on the wave.

The fourth board I actually ever shaped was for The Right. Chris Ross and I wanted to experiment with some different designs and they blew our minds. That really started the slab board journey for me.

Ben, barefoot and fondling his own creations

All hand shapes..?
These days I do both. The machine is great for some things like replicating and making tiny tweaks. I get more joy out of hand shaping and getting in that zone but I'm definitely not a production shaper: I take my time and it's hard to make it work business wise when I do everything myself.

Plus, so many people want to know volumes these days.

So you do all the steps in the process?
Yep, I do all the steps - there are no glass shops around here. That's how I've always done it, and I like that when I hand a board over it's come from me and it's finished how I want it finished. I find making a board for someone a really personal experience and I do everything I can to make something special for them.

Doing everything myself is very time consuming, especially when I do a lot of tints and channels. There's only so much I can do in a week so I do fairly small numbers.

Speaking of tints, your resin art is eye-catching. How did you begin doing that?
I was lucky enough to live on a beautiful property with Warren Thompson for six years before he tragically passed. A legend surfer/shaper of all crafts who was in his seventies and had spent a lifetime in the shaping industry in New Zealand, Hawaii, America, and Australia. He was kind enough to share his shaping bay and knowledge with me, and he taught me so much over those years.

Warren was the one to introduce me to resin tints. They take a lot more extra time than most people think and they can be really challenging, but for me I've always loved art and its just another part of the creative process I enjoy.

There's also another more practical reason. Twenty years ago, when we first started surfing the slabs, I broke my back and snapped my femur while wearing a legrope so the board was pulling my leg all over the place and completely splintered my femur. I was very lucky it didn't sever my femoral artery. These days we don't wear legropes at The Right, so another reason why I like to do bright resin tints on tow boards is that looking for a white board in a sea of whitewater can take forever. Guys have lost boards before.

A classic of the genre, and there's those feet again

Though you shape for all waves, let’s talk about slab equipment. On an ordinary day at The Right, how many people might be riding your boards?
The last couple of swells I counted seven or eight of my boards out at The Right, and a few of the usuals that ride my boards were away.

I could never have imagined that many people would be on them when I first started shaping.

Does watching people ride your boards change the session for you? Like, do you stress that the boards are doing what they’re meant to be doing?
When I first started shaping tow boards for others I used to stress a bit watching and hoping that it would work for them. Anyone who surfs The Right is at serious risk of hurting themselves so I feel a huge sense of responsibility making a slab board for others.

That said, I don't stress as much these days because I'm confident in my designs for out there.

As most sessions are filmed, do you watch the footage back to see how everyone’s boards are going?
When I get the chance, I watch every wave out there super closely to see how it's working, especially if its a bomb. I barely ever sit in the channel, we're usually waiting out the back for a wave, so watching footage can be a good way to see how the boards are working. However, the last big swell we had some ski issues and I ended up stuck in the channel for a few hours and got to witness the guys get some crazy ones on my boards which was pretty special.

There's been a few times where guys have been surfing The Right on other boards but haven't been feeling confident and it was obvious their board wasn't working very well. They then ordered one off me and all of a sudden next swell they're looking so comfortable, getting crazy ones and thanking me.

Those are the most rewarding feelings for me, and they help validate my designs.

It’s a unique wave, I imagine you shape boards for there and there alone. Is that correct?
I shape boards for all sorts of different waves and the slab boards are just one of the designs I'm really passionate about. I have a few slab models, which range from specific Right boards, an all rounder that covers all slabs, and other designs to suit other slabs. I love how each bombie has its own personality and the challenge of designing different boards to work in different slabs. It keeps me up at night, I'm a bit obsessed (laughs).

I love the R&D of testing my own designs in heavy water but have also been shaping some boards for Cow Bombie, which I don't surf, so I rely on feedback. I've been trying some really different things and getting amazing feedback.

Ben putting his money where his mouth is. The board under his feet here is the same one he's holding in the first photo (Andrew Semark)

All surfers are a bit different, but what are the typical features in a board you shape for The Right?
My boards for The Right are pretty unique as they're designed specifically for a huge draining slab. Soft and forgiving rails up front, and a rocker to suit the tight curve of the wave, which means nothing can catch with all that water drawing up the face.

Do you add extra weight?
I don't add weights into my slab boards but they are fairly heavy with the amount of glass on them. I don't make them too heavy as you sometimes need to make quick adjustments so they need to be responsive too.

I aim for different weights depending on the surfer and whether they are planning on wearing straps or not. Going strapless, it feels a bit better if it's not too heavy, so the board sticks to your feet a bit better. Yet if someone is definitely wearing straps and they're keen on the big messy days a bit of extra weight can help.

I glass them all in a way that, under huge pressure, creates a subtle flex in a certain part of the board. So when it's really draining out hard the board resists getting pulled up the face.

Find that many boards break out there?
I haven't had any break so far.

The story goes that you've been busted up a few times.
I've had some pretty bad injuries from the slabs: broken my back twice, snapped my femur, snapped my MCL and PCL in my knee, broken both my feet, torn the cartilage off my ribs, broken ribs about six times, and also been knocked unconscious waking up underwater temporarily paralysed.

All told, I've been put out of the water for years and each time when I come back it's such a mental battle to overcome, but I feel like a bug to a light and I can't keep away. A big part of my motivation with the slab boards is trying to make the best board I can so that I don't get injured again.

Last words?
I've been obsessed with the slabs since I watched them as a kid. They've gotten a lot busier these days but back when we started, twenty years ago, they were empty and we used that as a way to escape from the world and from people. Hiding in big barrels was the perfect way to escape the social norms on land.

For me, having a massive swell that has travelled so far and holds so much energy come and unload on a shallow rock, then riding inside that vortex of energy on something I have created is one of the most rewarding feelings I get.

For a brief moment everything makes sense.

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