Firewire Surfboard Review (2026): Neutrino, Revo Max, Machadocado

For decades, the process of making a surfboard has more or less been the same: Cut a piece of foam. Put a wooden stringer down the middle to provide structure and strength. Shape it, then wrap it in fiberglass, sand it, and leave holes for the leash and fins. That was until Firewire Surfboards came along. Now the company uses a 21-step construction process and a dizzying assortment of aerospace-grade foams, carbon fiber, and bio-resins to produce a board that looks straight out of science fiction.

The surf world tends to favor the tried and true, but in Firewire's case, every new material and design serves a purpose. Much to every Luddite wave-rider’s chagrin, the boards work really damn well. I spent most of the fall and winter testing out three new boards from Firewire—the Neutrino, the Machado, and the Revo Max. Each uses different materials and different designs made for different wave types (and surfers). Here’s what I found.

A Bit of Backstory

In December 2005, Clark Foam abruptly closed its doors in an event that became known as “Blank Monday.” Clark made roughly 90 percent of the traditional polyurethane (PU) surfboard blanks that were being sold, and suddenly board makers were forced to scramble for alternative core materials. Many in the industry turned to expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam, which also required the use of epoxy resins, because traditional PU resins melt EPS.

However, EPS presented some significant performance issues. First, it possessed roughly 8 percent more buoyancy than PU, resulting in a "corky" ride that left surfers feeling like they were floating awkwardly on top of the water rather than digging into it. It also didn’t flex the same way, which changed the way a board turns.

Around the same time, Australian shapers Nev Hyman and Bert Burger were collaborating on a radically different design. A deck skin was affixed to the top and the bottom of the EPS foam core, in what became colloquially referred to as “sandwich construction.” These skins were made of 3-mm thick aerospace composite material that added structural integrity and vibration dampening, as well as dent resistance. The whole sandwich is vacuum-bagged together.

The most noticeable change, though, was the removal of the central wooden stringer that ran down the board from nose to tail. Instead, it was replaced with two parabolic rails that run down each side of the board. Not only did these two wooden rails provide more control, but they pop you out of your turns with a little more speed. This construction would become known as Future Shapes Technology (FST).

In 2006, Mark Price, a former Association of Surf Professionals (ASP) World Tour surfer and then vice president at Reef, tried a prototype of the FST board. He left his cushy job to found a surf startup, called Firewire, with Hyman and Burger. In 2007, Taj Burrow—one of the top-ranked and most innovative pro surfers on the world tour—began competing on Firewire boards. That same year he won the Billabong Pro Jeffreys Bay (defeating Kelly Slater in the final), as well as the Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach. It was the first time an elite World Tour surfer won a major event on non-traditional construction. In 2015, Kelly Slater (still the all-time winning-est competitive surfer in history) became the majority shareholder of the brand.

Helium and I-Bolic

Over the next decade, the Firewire team continued to iterate on Future Shapes Technology. In 2017, the base construction lost about 15 percent of its weight and became known as Helium.

New and improved foam and deck-skins were swapped in, the vacuum process was refined to use even less resin (further reducing weight), and the rails went from solid balsa to a combination of balsa and paulownia woods. This resulted in a board that had a softer, forgiving flex. It's also quicker and easier to turn.

I’ve tried several of Firewire’s Helium boards over the past five years, which includes this year’s Machadocado. Shaped by iconic pro surfer Rob Machado, the board’s bulbous outline is inspired by arguably the world’s best fruit. It’s a short, wide board that is billed as a hybrid “designed to create speed in weak waves and control speed in good waves.” I tested the stock 5’8” version, and while it doesn’t catch waves as readily as a true groveler, it had ample glide to get me around flatter, mushier sections. The Helium construction felt springy, especially when pumping down the line. I felt like I came out of turns with a bit more speed than usual.

While Helium is great for crappy waves, what happens when you get into waves of consequence? "When Kelly [Slater] got onto our Helium technology, he was like, 'This is amazing. However, it's like riding a wild stallion. When I come out of a turn, I need to know exactly what my board's gonna do and where it's gonna go,’" said Brett Savage, who is Firewire's general manager and leads research and design at the company.

After numerous trials, they came up with I-Bolic construction, which is the most complicated smorgasbord of materials the surf world has ever seen. The bulk of the board is a 1.5-lb EPS foam core (stronger than the 1-lb used in Helium), but it’s split in half. Instead of a wooden stringer down the middle, it has a column of even higher-density foam with high-density, fiberglass-wrapped deck springers on top and bottom.

This effectively gives the board an I-beam running down the middle, which is one of the strongest shapes in civil engineering, enabling the board to flex without breaking when turning at high speed.

Like Helium, the perimeter of the board features bent parabolic rails, but here they are made of high-density EPS so that they match the foam used in the I-beam's outer caps. Keeping these components within the same family of composites ensures a stronger molecular bond between the internal foam and the outer fiberglass shell. It’s not as springy as the wood rails, but it’s still lively.

While the I-Bolic boards have the same 3-mm composite deck skin on top as the Helium boards—which also makes them dent-resistant—it doesn’t go full sandwich. Instead, for a skin on the bottom, the I-Bolic boards use two layers of 4-ounce E-Glass fiberglass, along with a carbon reinforcement strip running from the nose to the tail along the bottom deck. This strip acts as an additional cap over the floor of the I-beam to provide longitudinal strength, reinforcing the fin box area against impact and giving the board more spring.

If you’re wondering why I-Bolic doesn’t use the deck skin on the bottom of the board like the legacy Firewires, it’s because the 3-mm thickness of the skin smooths out the bottom contours. That’s fine for the majority of subtle concaves and convexes you see out there, but when it’s just thin fiberglass, the vacuum-bagging mechanism allows for deep, precise contours, and that’s where things get really interesting.

Mastering Hydrodynamics

When I first got a look at the Neutrino—the newest board from shaper Daniel Thompson that uses I-Bolic—I thought, “There’s no way this is going to go.” It looked like an ironing board. The rails are super straight and parallel. The chop tail looks abruptly cut off, leaving it super wide. The bottom contours are deep and dramatic. It looked more like a science project than a surfboard. I hemmed and hawed for weeks before actually trying it, because I didn’t want to waste a day of good surfing.

When I finally took it out, I found that it paddled surprisingly easily for a 5’10” board. It had a bit more volume than I was used to, but I could still duck-dive it without issue. I teed up a wave, popped up, and the board took off. And what I mean by that is, it nearly shot out from under me, almost like you’re standing on an escooter and hit the throttle before you were ready. It turned, too! I shot down the line, raced around crumbling sections, and cut back into the power pocket. I couldn’t believe it. It felt like sorcery.

Daniel “Tomo” Thoms