500 street fights

“500 fights, that’s the number I figured when I was a kid. 500 street fights and you could consider yourself a legitimate tough guy. You need them for experience. To develop leather skin. So I got started…”

  • Vin Diesel - Knockaround Guys

So how many boads do you have to shape to consider yourself a legitimate shaper?

Interesting question, not sure the answer is a number.  Some guys, their 10th board is better than other guys after 100? 

I’m new to this but I get the idea that its a lot like cooking. Anyone can turn out a decent meal and look like they know what they’re doing if they follow a recipe carefully and acurately. Its not until you get some confidence and start trying to add your own spin that you realy start to screw things up.

200

201, LOL

I lost count a long time ago…

…and I’m still not “legit.”

shit,,,,,,

I was a pro after my first board,,,,,, LOL!!!!

…you can be good with the tools but not in the design department…

 

I mean, I see this periodically; a guy with skills with the tools can build a decent board now due to the info running round and the internet + fine materials out there and great proven designs like some close tolerance plugs (proven rockers, etc)

and STD fins in STD positions.

or the CNC machine that in the last 15 years transformed at least 50% of the (wanna be) shapers world wide in shapers or even master shapers!!! (pun intended) or designers

 

BUT normally almost all don t know too much about design

yes, they know the basics and go with the trend but they re copy cats or production shops (only as a business)

even these newly ones doing those retro boards

yes, its look cool with the tinted resins, etc

but they don t understand that those boards need to be enhanced (changes in rocker mostly, and rails, fins, overall length, weight, etc) to ride better

like many still putting D FINS…D fins don t perform fine

and this stuff shapers and designers of the 60s just noticed…

and I dont talking about techniques, etc.

 

 

So what’s a newbie to do?
I mean I’m obviously hooked so I have no choice but to keep pumping out boards even if they wind up as floatsome. I’ve turned out a few woodies with varying dgrees of success and now I’m experimenting with foam. I’d prefer not to be just another d*** head cuttering up the break with garbage but what else can I do besides the afore mentioned read the internet and make like I know what I’m doing?

You can have 20 real good fights where you kick ass, then some big dude comes along and just kicks your ass...I mean a serious whooping.  So you train a little harder, work on your straight kicks, maybe get faster on your choke outs etc....And you progress. Then when big dude shows up next time, you apply your newly found skills on him...So then you go for another 10-30 fights...and it happens again.  That's why there are degrees of belts in Martial Arts.Orange, Blue, Purple, Green ,Brown, Black.  By the time you get to Black, your journey is just beginning. Many degrees of Black

What's important is that if you don't enjoy fighting....quit.  There are plenty of other things to do.  But if you enjoy fighting it's the process of getting better, quicker, stronger.  It's the process and the journey. Enjoy it......Now go snatch a pebble from this spinning planer!! Weed Hopper

Well said Resinhead. To really learn how to fight, you have to take a few a#$ kickings. Same-same with boards or anything else designed or constructed.

Practice makes better…not perfect. It’s like life, trial and error. How Do you get to Carnegie Hall??? Keep going Squalyboy, shape what you like then shape what others like. Get FEEDBACK!

 

 

Slinkies…pretty funny.

[quote="$1"]


So how many boards do you have to shape to consider yourself a legitimate shaper?

[/quote]

Ahmmm - well, that depends on whether you're saying 'shaper' or 'production shaper' . The terms get confused, and as is my wont, I'm gonna go on and confuse it even further. I'm not speaking as a shaper, I'm speaking as a guy who sold boards for a long time and saw good, bad and indifferent. And as a guy who has worked with tools all his life.

If we go with the first one: 'shaper', then the answer is one board. You have legitimately shaped one, for good or ill.

On the other hand, production shaping. When you want to be a Jim Phillips or a Phil Becker, somebody who can go in and do good boards all day every day....no answer to that. Some say a thousand boards, as a rule of thumb. Some never get it and the marketplace tells them. It's not necessarily revolutionary boards, it's consistancy, doing a good board every time that works.

Some have a helluva good feel for tools, as reverb said, and they get it fast. Some are fortunate enough to work for others and bounce around and get the advantage of the man-hours of experience, and there's no substitute for that. Old joke in the trades: "________ sez he has thirty years of experience, but what he has is one year, thirty times over." - if you're working on your own, you can do the same mistakes over and over again forever, if you work for somebody good they'll tell you when you're screwing up and tell you how to fix it.

Look at the real pros and you see they've worked for and with a lot of good guys before going on their own.

A nickel and dime analogy: when I broke in, fishing offshore, the skipper had decades of experience, and it was in a bunch of different fisheries and ports. Worked his way up. What he knew, and I tried to learn, was the distillation of millions of man-hours at sea in all kinds of situations, not just his but the distillation of what was learned on dozens of boats by hundreds of men.. And the rest of the deck gang, well, the greenest guy we had in my time aboard was a third ( at least) generation fisherman who was outstanding his first trip. The focus was on everybody doing all they could to be faster, more efficient, getting it done the best way possible. There was not just an incentive to learn, there was an incentive to teach.

Then I did one trip with another boat and crew when my skipper was between boats, well, the joker running it had bought the boat, done a day trip with the previous owner and that was it. He knew what he had taught himself, and most of it ( to my mind, at least ) was wrong. I had thought I was dangerously ignorant, and I was, by the standards I was used to and trained under. But this boat and crew were freakin' scary. I wound up telling the deck gang to stay out of my way and if they wanted to learn, I'd show 'em. They were unsafe, slow and unskilled and nobody to teach 'em.  And my bag was packed about ten minutes after we gave up and headed for home: Mister Instant Captain was as bad at finding scallops as his gang was at dealing with them. If I remember right, I heard about one guy losing most of a hand on that boat, doing something stupid and nobody stopped him.

Other things come into it too, related experience. After my first few years offshore, well, I was doing boat work for The Old Man again. And my work had gotten a lot better, the 'tools fit my hands' better, I knew not just 'how' but I'd learned 'why' and how to look at it, think about it and make it better.

So, coming back ashore from that little detour- there's no substitute for experience, but it doesn't have to be all yours alone. Better if it's not. And this isn't the worst place in the world to get some from. That's what it's for in a lot of ways.

Do the work, make mistakes, learn from them and ask questions from those who know. Surf different stuff, think about how it works and how it doesn't work, look at the details and think about 'em. Look at work others do and ask questions of both yourself and of whoever did it if you can.

Hey, even Jim Phillips had a learning curve. I remember some of his boards from around 1970, not every one was perfect. He'd likely be the first one to say so and then give chapter and verse of what he learned from his early mistakes.

Hope that long, verbose, drawn out answer was of some use.....

doc...

legitimate?

means there is in fact an illegitimate?

aw shux go take your last board down to the guild and see if paul revere anr

d the silver smiths will hire yo on to do tea sets for the president of the virginia colony.

 

Mc Hammer came to mind immediately

was his tag line "TOO LEGIT TO QUIT?

where is he now?was he legit?

obviously being legit isn’t an adequate 

goal.no matter how proficient you may become 

suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous

critique,taking arms against nay sayers

and discouraging words from eastern critix ,

as in the west where the buffalo roam 

never is heard a discouraging word,

how only the eastern grinders stop to crit

take heart laddie legit aint it!!!

you can Quote me as a madman or sage

it is only your presence and participation on stage

that legitimizes even the most lowly ‘stoby’ surfboard

that will eventually get the wave of the day 

no matter how crooked and bent your rendition

"Surfin’ it "will be your credibility.

 

 

"SURF IT DADDIO’’

…ambrose…

legit?

 aw shit

dont quit.

hawk up a lunger

and wrap it around the crit

and spit it over the side of the ship

or peir or high bridge and watch it wash down stream.

 

 

 

 

 

lyric from dylan’s watching the river flow

http://www.mp3lyrics.org/b/bob-dylan/watching/

Damn, and here I thought , from the looks of things, all you needed was a cool logo…

Or a funky blog…maybe a website…

 

30+ years in the shop - finally got “Business” cards.

 

If your friends won’t - Your hands and eye should/will tell you alot.

Pete

It has been said that 1000 boards to really get it down.

When I first started shaping the veterans would tell me that I needed to shape 200 to be a real shaper. After I did my first 200 I was told that I just learning still. So after 500 under my belt they told me I need to do at least 1000.I done over 4,000 and I think I’m better than when I just met the 200 mark?

Looking back now I say it depends on how good your shapes are not by how many you have done. There are plenty of Bullies in the surf factories that will bullie you into thinking you need numbers to be legitimate. However I’ve seen some young shapers that are just full of talent after the first 25?

Then are you designing and formulating or just doing copies?

I have friends who can finish foam like nobodies business and are great ghost shaper but as designers?

500 street fights = high probability of meeting a violent death :wink:

Can I count the fistfights with my brother?  David’s record 498-2.  Mike’s record 2-498.  He used to woop my ass.  We laugh about it now.  Toughened me up a bit,too.

I was told 100 boards.  A competent teacher would help.  Mike

My user profile says I've shaped over 800,000 surfboards....

.. It's a lie....

I never wanted to be a Shaper....I've never been in a street fight......

I like resin....I'm slow but I'm good.....I can prove it.......That's what matters...

 

Stingray

I heard from a well respected person - three.

“If you can’t get it right by the third board, a board that works well, give up.”

“…you can be good with the tools but not in the design department…”

 I think the above is important too.  I fancy myself to be, as Willy Wonka (The original Gene Wilder version) would say “strike that, reverse it,” better at design than the fancy finish department, but that’s just because I’ve learned so much about design from Sways…  and I still only make boards for myself.

well not to be to critical here but i have to say as a jeweller if it took me 1000 rings to get it right. would that mean i was a pretty crap jeweller and basically ripped off my first 999 customers. i did my first filligree restoration before i finished school and i have to say in 20 years in the trade i havent seen many jewellers do a better job then my first one. . i do spend time with youth teaching them trade type work in lots of areas and i can say i can see if someones got it or not within a few minutes. the person must show interest before hand and have knowledge from reading about it and must show a basic apptitude for handling tools and drawing lines.

as far as design and understanding i agree with reverb. it i think it takes quite a few boards maybe in the hundreds. i make clean nice boards that work but have a long way to go to understand what everything does and why