Upcycle a shipping container into the perfect surfboard shaping shack

David Suhadulnick and Derrick Disney in their new/old shaping room, an upcycle job they did on an old shipping container. Screen grab from video

Reusing and re-purposing shipping containers isn’t new, but it’s becoming more and more popular. These giant metal boxes can be reimagined a bunch of different ways, and oftentimes, with a bit of work, these used and discarded boxes can become very cool living and/or working spaces. In the case of San Diego surfers Derrick Disney and David Suhadulnick, the space was a beat-up old shipping container turned storage room/rat trap. The reuse of the container was achieved by emptying the collected crap, gathering some metal and wood scraps to make racks and hooks for tools, doing a bit of welding and fabricating, and adding a few artistic touches to set the vibe.

Derrick Disney’s backside carve on a selfie—self-shaped board, that is. Photo courtesy vissla.com

With a bit of elbow grease and ingenuity, the two friends—aided by Kenny, the ranch’s resident MacGyver—created a fully functioning shaping and glassing room to shape, glass, sand, and complete their own custom surfcraft.

Derrick Disney with one of his completed “Bin made” boards. Photo by Julian Martin/

“The Bin,” as it has come to be named, came to Suhadulnick’s mind while he was at work on a small horse ranch about 5 miles inland from the beaches of Del Mar, California. “Derrick and I have been looking for a place to shape for a while,” he recalls. “I kept looking at this container that was just rotting away in the back corner of the ranch. I eventually asked the owner if it would be OK to clean it out and make a shaping room. He said yes, so we got right to work.”

David Suhadulnick blasts a frontside hack while filming for Mecca 2. Photo by Bryan Johnson #meccasurf

It took about two weeks of off-and-on work to clean out the garbage and make the space inhabitable. From there, old tire rims and some scrap-metal pieces were welded into shaping stands, with detachable stands created for glassing the boards. “We basically walked around the property and grabbed whatever we needed out of junk piles,” laughs Disney. “Our friend welded horseshoes to the racks to give them a cool vibe, too.”

The Bin, before; photo courtesy The Bin

So far Disney has shaped three boards from start to finish in The Bin, and he aims to keep the DIY vibe going. “It’s been really fun and rewarding learning how to shape and glass,” says Disney. “Riding your own hand-shapes just feels really good, especially when the board goes well. If the board doesn’t go well, it’s cool too because you’ll probably learn what you did wrong and be able to fix it next time.”

Long story short, DIY ain’t dead, and these two guys are proving it by not only building their own boards, but also building a place to build their own boards, and that’s pretty darn cool if you ask me.