Well I guess the years of shaping where a wast. Should of just started deisigning. I will go throw away my tools know. You should put where your located so “real” shapers in your area know you are trying to undercut them with out putting in your time. Hack…
Thanks Doyle,
I appreciate another person who isn't on the offensive here. I've been getting all kinds of crap for a simple post, wanting to gain some insight and information on how to reduce my costs to stay involved with a sport I love without spending a fortune and all my free time. I'm not trying to make a living shaping surfboards, fact of the matter is even if I were mildly successful selling 15 boards a week it still wouldn't justify a career change. Before I even started I've already done the simple math and it's obvious that a shaper with little to no experience trying to sell boards in a saturated market for maybe $150 profit tops per board is not a formula for success. Especially doing the same thing as everyone else does. To be successful you have to do something different than the next guy. I'm only doing it because I love the sport, want to improve my abilities and therefore get more enjoyment out of the time I can get in the water (about an hour and a half per day for most of the year). It would be nice to have a quiver that is just right for me, at my mediocre abilities. I've bought tens of boards at full retail, spoken to a lot of people who sold me "magic" boards that maybe were magic for some people, but not for me at my abilities or usually crappy surf break. I only wanted to sell a few to keep the process going and start to get some money back from all the sanders, stands, software, and tools that I bought. Without spending thouands more on experimental designs. I was thinking sell a couple good ones, make an experimental. That was it. If I become successful in the end, that is great but that would just be the gravy.
I have an engineering degree and work with fluidics all day, and I'll go ahead and say it before you all do, just because I do it doesn't necessarily mean I know how to make surfboards and fully understand how water flows under a board and off the rail and the tail, etc. I know that I don't know shit yet. The reality is I don't think anyone REALLY has a full understanding of that. It's just too complicated, too many variables and surf conditions, and fluid mechanics is really still an empirical science. I have however been exposed to fluid mechanics, things like Bernoulli's principle, laminar and turbulent flows, Reynold's numbers, lift, drag, pressure differentials, etc. I'll give it to you that over time, shaping thousands of boards, you start to have intuition and experience which transfers into great board designs.
But rather than try to learn how to take a piece of foam and shape perfect curves out of it I was thinking of using my strengths and approaching it more from a systematic and analytical approach and perhaps come up with some results that can be generalized. For example if I could optimize the lift to drag ratio of a bottom contour for a certain length surfboard. Or come up with the correct surfboard volume for a surfer of a particular weight and ability. For example an intermediate surfer weighing 185 lbs would likely feel comfortable paddling a board of (some number) in^3. So call me a dongle swinger or whatver, that's cool. Pretty funny too!
And in response to "unloading a dogg to a surfer that doesn't know any better" well that isn't the case either. The people I have sold boards to approached me after watching me ride one of my own. The first guy was riding an 8'0" pintail gun on a small beachbreak and he hated it, asked me to make him one. Ended up he loved it, and his cousin saw his board and asked me to make one for her too (she was riding a chinese made pop out with the Bruce Jones logo). It's not like I'm posting them on craigslist and trying to pass it off to some beginner.
That’s exactly what I took from your posts, someone that wants to experiment with different designs to understand what works and what doesn’t without having to foot the entire retail cost for each and every try by trying to lower costs or offset with some sales.
this thread has been done many times before.
Marso my laddie you are getting off light.
Your semantics are indeed important.
The will to understand is your real ‘quest’.
percivere and maybe you can go to
bill thrillkill’s next event,or maybe
spend the afternoon at plaskett creek
some of these guys post while drinking beer
or like me I posted at 4 am in the morning
after doing the dishes…
…ambrose…
go start another board…
marso is not getting dogged for wanting to learn about design of boards or doing things in CAD, etc. He is getting ribbed for asking how to produce his board at a smaller expense and ignoring the glaringly obvious way by actually doing the work yourself. To which the designer with superior 3d CAD skills says - that is too difficult and takes to much time........
marso there are other mechanical engineers on this site (myself included) who may or may not choose to use CAD to make their boards. obviosuly you are a smart guy so you should be able to figure out the most beneficial way to spend your time. if its behind the computer instead of in the shed, then so be it but you will have to pony up some $$ to get your designs built. $300 for a brand new board that all you have to do is scrub some foam ridges for 10 minutes seems like a way better deal than $150 covered in resin and dust for days. but some people get a lot of satisfaction out of doing everything and working with their hands. and lets not forget there have to be people willing to actually build the boards for all the smart designers out there. now you know that those people do not get paid nearly enough for their labors. so give your shaper/glasser/sander some extra dough when you pick up that next new board!
maybe you can design a glassing and sanding machine and automate the whole process! shouldnt be to diffucult. some conveyor belts and rollers, a resin tray, some inflatable grit bladders, etc you are in business. should be easy to draw it up in CAD. but i guess you will have to get someone else to actually build it. and they would probably want money for their efforts and the materials. bummer. lemat just built a cnc hotwire cutter in his shed, maybe he can help!
If there is work, or employment, engineers make good money so $300 shouldn’t be a problem… One small detail we may have overlooked is that to some surfing is just a sport, to others it is something with more meaning, something spiritual, a connection with the ocean and everything living and not, a door, a way of living… Marso, when and if you get this, you will understand why some are a little pissed. Nothing wrong with machines, after all we use sanders and planers, but there is a bit more to it… I think Francois comment about the way he learned to swim has a lot to say… Francois, that determination you had in learning to surf, man don’t loose it, it will get you far in life and in big surf…
I disagree (surprise surprise…) For a novice handshaper who do one offs, designing it in CAD and printing all the templates, outline, rocker and cross sections, is a big help. Where would you be without a template for the outline? If you do EPS hotwiring of your own blank, a profile template is a must, however even when shaping PU atleast for a beginner a rocker template can be a big help to get that rocker right. Cross sections help you visualize how the rail bands should be to get the desired rail. Of course you could lift these templates of existing boards and combine them, but having a design ready before you start out to help you visulize you goal is a big help IMO.
Funny how the internet works. I did not see any anger in any of the posts.........different points of view...yes
If you are good on the computer you might want to talk to Ken
I'm one of those hands on guys out in the shop. I've been treated very good and bad by people. Every computer wizard needs a shop guy or a guy to fix his car or re-roof his house.
Now....I've got 5 brand new surfboards sitting here that I made that need to be sold. The problem is I want to work in the shop not BS people into buying my boards....Trust me...that's the least of my problems!
Go surfing , have fun.................Stingray
Huie;------------- Ha! Seriously: Can you tell me what a "dongle swinger" is?
haaa’’ how did i know you’’ would ask me that
cheers huie
Marso, you should do what you want. You got opinions, not “haters.” Do you really care what a bunch of characters on the Internet think? The last two paragraphs of this post are what inspired me to respond. I still think it’s pathetic. But, to answer your original post, I can build a board using a close tolerance dongle swanger blank for about 200 dollars US. That’s if I make the fins myself, too. Maybe a little less. I sell my dogs to unsuspecting victims for my cost at one of the local shops to buy more materials. Or, I give the dogs away to ruin the joy of poor helpless beginners. I have to admit, I’ve bought a few dogs from pro’s over the years, too. It’s all so subjective that I believe your attempts at quantifying the whole trip will be fruitless. But, I won’t begrudge you your fun so please continue…Mike
Marso,
I got tired of trying to get what I wanted from shapers, so I started designing my own on CAD. I got tired of dealing with surf industry cutting services so I went outside the surf industry and at last got some boards accurate to the CAD file. I built my own CNC machine so I experiment further and pull off serious innovation. Some guy here who cut 2" off the end of his Skil100 is going to say I have no soul and am not a shaper. I agree. I’m not a shaper, I’m a designer. Soul is in the blood welded into my machine, the hours of sweat and dust creating it, and the vision of the craft I want to build.
Oh, yes. First board’s costing about $10 000, excluding materials so it’s obviously not a money making venture.
My advice - get exotic, charge what they are worth. The stamped-out economy market is overrun.
EDIT…Whats the point!
“dongel swinger” Great! cool! fine.
Onya Huck !!!
Clever as always Brose !!
But did’nt we all crawl before we walked ?
This night club sucks!! Theres too many Dongel Swingers on the dance floor!!
.
what ever.
hooray the attitude slinging has begun.
the Inferioity complex and financial
investment credibility of cnc cutting
of “DESIGNER” ? surfboard shapes
deserves respect and admiration.
This tangent of surfboard origins
deserves to have an entirly different
nomenclature depicting the folkways
and mores of this infusion of technologic
concern.In many ways these creative
expressions should not be belittled
by calling them shapes,or shapers.
Using pencils and sandpaper is archaic
admitedly,though the roots of handcrafting
goes back to the aboriginal facination
of using live materials this experimental
archeological facination bears little or no
relationship to the 'modern surfboard.
These products are frankly not "boards "
as they have little or no milled lumber
involved in their final contents.
By seperating these new modern
renditions from the perhaps source
designs would help with the breakdown
in communication betwixt 21st century
advanced ‘designers’ of
comoddities , products and trendy
recreational fodder and the archaic
reverse engineers, their predecessors.
Please do not feel defensive about your choices to
make use of CAD skills . Your efforts though streamlined
are indeed valid in the galactic view and the envy
of many of your peers who may never see sunlight or
produce any tangible product.
I watched lots of cowboy movies
I got a stetson cowboy hat
for xmas one year I cried.
My grand father made me a rocking horse
and named it after Hopalong cassidy’s horse.
I own maybe 5 or seven stetson cowboty hat now
and enjoy wearing them to keep the sun of my bald head.
I havn’t ridden a horse in twenty years,and maybe twenty years before that.
I Aint a Cowboy.
Hand shapers are a diffrent breed
Pencils have been improved
planers have to be sharpened
sand paper is primitive
the superiority of either the
computer assisted or the hand made
wave riding implements is a
personal value judgement .
that this rift has evaded
a clear judgement will go on.
Manufactured boards
deserve manufactured waves.
Please tecno guys accelerate
the Design of artificial waves
so that the perfection you
are capable of can finally be realized.
All these hand made surfboards
should be in a natural reserve
history museum with
a protected wave reserve
with no manufactured boards .
Now back to the question.
how do I make “not a board”
for taking a share of the limited resource
of naturally occuring ocean waves
while not paying a fair price to dedicated
surfers who have spent lifetimes refining
real hand shapes to shortcut a a
vertical climb in the real surfing hierarchy.
dongle swinger is a little coarse admitidly
but it does point out the dire need
to seperate these techno products
from the hand made art pieces.
…ambrose…
I reread the original post
and didn’t find a single please,
or would you be so kind,
or any other polite request
to nick a little soul from the
surfing dharma body.
I want a new car for $450.00
Are airline pilots forgetting how to fly?
AP IMPACT: Automation in the air dulls pilot skill
By JOAN LOWY - Associated Press aug. 30 2011
Are airline pilots forgetting how to fly? As planes become ever more reliant on automation to navigate crowded skies, safety officials worry there will be more deadly accidents traced to pilots who have lost their hands-on instincts in the air.
Hundreds of people have died over the past five years in "loss of control" accidents in which planes stalled during flight or got into unusual positions that pilots could not correct. In some cases, pilots made the wrong split-second decisions, with catastrophic results — for example, steering the plane's nose skyward into a stall instead of down to regain stable flight.
Spurred in part by federal regulations that require greater reliance on computerized flying, the airline industry is suffering from "automation addiction," said Rory Kay, an airline captain and co-chairman of a Federal Aviation Administration committee on pilot training. "We're seeing a new breed of accident with these state-of-the art planes."
Pilots use automated systems to fly airliners for all but about three minutes of a flight: the takeoff and landing. Most of the time pilots are programming navigation directions into computers rather than using their hands on controls to fly the plane. They have few opportunities to maintain their skills by flying manually, Kay's advisory committee warns.
Fatal airline accidents have decreased dramatically in the U.S. over the past decade. However, The Associated Press interviewed pilots, industry officials and aviation safety experts who expressed concern about the implications of decreased opportunities for manual flight, and reviewed more than a dozen loss-of-control accidents around the world.
Airlines and regulators discourage or even prohibit pilots from turning off the autopilot and flying planes themselves, the committee said. Safety experts say they're seeing cases in which pilots who are suddenly confronted with a loss of computerized flight controls don't appear to know how to respond immediately, or they make errors — sometimes fatally so.
A draft FAA study found pilots sometimes "abdicate too much responsibility to automated systems." Because these systems are so integrated in today's planes, one malfunctioning piece of equipment or a single bad computer instruction can suddenly cascade into a series of other failures, unnerving pilots who have been trained to rely on the equipment.
The study examined 46 accidents and major incidents, 734 voluntary reports by pilots and others as well as data from more than 9,000 flights in which a safety official rode in the cockpit to observe pilots in action. It found that in more than 60 percent of accidents, and 30 percent of major incidents, pilots had trouble manually flying the plane or made mistakes with automated flight controls.
A typical mistake was not recognizing that either the autopilot or the auto-throttle — which controls power to the engines — had disconnected. Others failed to take the proper steps to recover from a stall in flight or to monitor and maintain airspeed.
"We're forgetting how to fly," Kay said.
In the most recent fatal airline crash in the U.S., in 2009 near Buffalo, N.Y., the co-pilot of a regional airliner programmed incorrect information into the plane's computers, causing it to slow to an unsafe speed. That triggered a stall warning. The startled captain, who hadn't noticed the plane had slowed too much, responded by repeatedly pulling back on the control yoke, overriding two safety systems, when the correct procedure was to push forward.
An investigation later found there were no mechanical or structural problems that would have prevented the plane from flying if the captain had responded correctly. Instead, his actions caused an aerodynamic stall. The plane plummeted to earth, killing all 49 people aboard and one on the ground.
Two weeks after the New York accident, a Turkish Airlines Boeing 737 crashed into a field while trying to land in Amsterdam. Nine people were killed and 120 injured. An investigation found that one of the plane's altimeters, which measures altitude, had fed incorrect information to the plane's computers.
That, in turn, caused the auto-throttle to reduce speed to a dangerously slow level so that the plane lost lift and stalled. Dutch investigators described the flight's three pilots' "automation surprise" when they discovered the plane was about to stall. They hadn't been closely monitoring the airspeed.
Last month, French investigators recommended that all pilots get mandatory training in manual flying and handling a high-altitude stall. The recommendations were in response to the 2009 crash of an Air France jet flying from Brazil to Paris. All 228 people aboard were killed.
An investigation found that airspeed sensors fed bad information to the Airbus A330's computers. That caused the autopilot to disengage suddenly and a stall warning to activate.
The co-pilot at the controls struggled to save the plane, but because he kept pointing the plane's nose up, he actually caused the stall instead of preventing it, experts said. Despite the bad airspeed information, which lasted for less than a minute, there was nothing to prevent the plane from continuing to fly if the pilot had followed the correct procedure for such circumstances, which is to continue to fly levelly in the same direction at the same speed while trying to determine the nature of the problem, they said.
In such cases, the pilots and the technology are failing together, said former US Airways Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, whose precision flying is credited with saving all 155 people aboard an Airbus A320 after it lost power in a collision with Canada geese shortly after takeoff from New York's LaGuardia Airport two years ago.
"If we only look at the pilots — the human factor — then we are ignoring other important factors," he said. "We have to look at how they work together."
The ability of pilots to respond to the unexpected loss or malfunction of automated aircraft systems "is the big issue that we can no longer hide from in aviation," said Bill Voss, president of the Flight Safety Foundation in Alexandria, Va. "We've been very slow to recognize the consequence of it and deal with it."
The foundation, which is industry-supported, promotes aviation safety around the world.
Airlines are also seeing smaller incidents in which pilots waste precious time repeatedly trying to restart the autopilot or fix other automated systems when what they should be doing is "grasping the controls and flying the airplane," said Bob Coffman, another member of the FAA pilot training committee and an airline captain.
"All of this has to be instinctive, it has to be trained to the point of, 'Oh, I know what to do,' " he said.
Paul Railsback, operations director at the Air Transport Association, which represents airlines, said: "We think the best way to handle this is through the policies and training of the airlines to ensure they stipulate that the pilots devote a fair amount of time to manually flying. We want to encourage pilots to do that and not rely 100 percent on the automation. I think many airlines are moving in that direction."
In May, the FAA proposed requiring airlines to train pilots on how to recover from a stall, as well as expose them to more realistic problem scenarios.
But other new regulations are going in the opposite direction. Today, pilots are required to use their autopilot when flying at altitudes above 24,000 feet, which is where airliners spend much of their time cruising. The required minimum vertical safety buffer between planes has been reduced from 2,000 feet to 1,000 feet. That means more planes flying closer together, necessitating the kind of precision flying more reliably produced by automation than human beings.
The same situation is increasingly common closer to the ground.
The FAA is moving from an air traffic control system based on radar technology to more precise GPS navigation. Instead of time-consuming, fuel-burning stair-step descents, planes will be able to glide in more steeply for landings with their engines idling. Aircraft will be able to land and take off closer together and more frequently, even in poor weather, because pilots will know the precise location of other aircraft and obstacles on the ground. Fewer planes will be diverted.
But the new landing procedures require pilots to cede even more control to automation.
"Those procedures have to be flown with the autopilot on," Voss said. "You can't afford a sneeze on those procedures."
Even when not using the new procedures, airlines direct their pilots to switch on the autopilot about a minute and a half after takeoff, when the plane reaches about 1,000 feet, Coffman said. The autopilot generally doesn't come off until about a minute and a half before landing, he said.
Pilots still control the plane's flight path. But they are programming computers rather than flying with their hands.
Opportunities to fly manually are especially limited at commuter airlines, where pilots may fly with the autopilot off for about 80 seconds out of a typical two-hour flight, Coffman said.
But it is the less experienced first officers starting out at smaller carriers who most need manual flying experience. Airline training programs are focused on training pilots to fly with the automation, rather than without it. Senior pilots, even if their manual flying skills are rusty, can at least draw on experience flying older generations of less automated planes.
Adding to concerns about an overreliance on automation is an expected pilot shortage in the U.S. and many other countries. U.S. airlines used to be able to draw on a pool of former military pilots with extensive manual flying experience. But more pilots now choose to stay in the armed forces, and corporate aviation competes for pilots with airlines, where salaries have dropped.
Changing training programs to include more manual flying won't be enough because pilots spend only a few days a year in training, Voss said. Airlines will have to rethink their operations fundamentally if they're going to give pilots realistic opportunities to keep their flying skills honed, he said.
The International Air Transport Association says the most common type of airline accident is one in which planes stalled or otherwise lost control in flight. It counted 51 such accidents in the past five years.
___
Follow Joan Lowy on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/AP_Joan_Lowy
DESIGNERS am i reading right? ffs thats even worse than dongle swingers
my dear freinds surfboard design is an evoloution and in many cases a never ending circle
so go grab an adz and start from there.
cheers huie