About Ted Kearns

Ted first picked up a Skil 100 planer in the summer of 1986 in the shaping room of Outer Banks underground legend Murray Ross. He learned the basics of board building through Murray at his backyard glass shop, paying his dues cutting out fin patches and sanding rails. In 1987 Murray moved into Mickey McCarthy’s New Sun Surfboards with Ted in tow.

By 1988 he was polishing and sanding fulltime and shaping boards for himself and a few friends. This is where the glassing team of Rascoe Hunt and Ted Kearns was formed. In 1992, Ted and Rascoe formed Gale Force Glassing. The contract glassing company soon morphed into a full fledged surfboard label with the growing demand of Ted’s shapes.

Today TK Performance Shapes leads the way in hardcore surfboard manufacturing on the Outer Banks. At the start of 2006, Ted started shaping exclusively under his TK label. Keeping with Ted's "anything's possible" attitude, TK Shapes are being manufactured not only on the Outer Banks of NC at Gale Force Glassing but also on Maui at the Kazuma Surfboards glass shop.



Shaping influences: Murray Ross, Lynn Shell, Mickey Mcarthy, Scott Busbey, Matt Kinoshita , Donald Takayama, Greg Loehr.


Shaping philosophy: Surfing is an individual sport, and every surfer has certain needs to have the most success. Shaping custom surfboards isn’t just about knowing how to shape, but more importantly knowing how to interpret what the customer is trying to articulate and giving them back "exactly what I had in mind".

Being able to shape all styles of boards on demand is also a must for a custom shaper. I don’t believe shapers should be pigeon-holed into shaping only one style of board. How boring!