I started shaping in 1968 near Biarritz. At the time, foam blanks were impossible to find in France and we had to do with balsa (not even long enough, we had to glue pieces together) then with some insulation foam. I won’t even tell you all the mess we had to go through, you would not believe me. No one was there to help us with advice or tricks, we had to learn everything by ourselves.
But I can tell you, I never felt like I “suffered”. I had fun all along and I still do, 55 years after.
My friend, I won’t convince you and you won’t convince me. We’d better stop this talk, nothing clever will be born of it.
If you have fun with equations, good on you. I never had and never will have. To each his own. Again, we are not doing the same thing.
I think what Balsa is encouraging here is something along the lines of the ultimate craftsman challenge, which was very cool. I loved Gene Cooper’s project the year he won.
I don’t know anything about spending 10k and building boards for the landfill, my first boards were inexpensive, challenging, and functional. My first few boards were hws built with scrap wood, then I bought several old ecotech blanks for maybe $30 bucks each and learned to shape foam, mostly with a surform.
My very first board was a copy, all the rest have been original designs hand drawn and hand shaped, nothing super special or groundbreaking, but functional enough for me.
I think different categories could accomodate different methods, but hand shaping is definitely rewarding and worth encouraging future generations to learn…
Heres a pic of my first ever board (wood), and my first foam board.
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First off, correct me if I’m wrong, but no one is threatening or attempting to take anything away from you. Except maybe the computer shaping machine which wants to take the satisfaction of hand shaping away from you, lol.
“Readily available and increasingly popular” - you mean like junk food, opioids, and credit card debt?
Hand shaping can be done with a surform and any inexpensive power planer. Nothing even remotely mythical about that.
Really, its challenging yet satisfying on a level hard to understand until you do it. Its like sex vs artificial insemination - one is more effective, the other more satisfying.
It might take years to get to a pro level of speed and confidence, but a first timer can do an acceptable job if you slow down and take your time.
Also, hand shaping is guided by the most powerful computer in the physical universe - the human brain, AND its connected to the heart as well.
Just something to think about.
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Your boards are beautiful. I love the wood one. I absolutely appreciate watching a pro with a planer. It’s a skill for sure.
You know what I find funny, all the tools and gauges and templates and 8’ bars with 20-odd fingers to get the rocker just right. Let’s not forget modern blanks with built in rocker profiles. Somehow we’ve embraced all of these technological advances and still fly the “hand shaping” banner. But put those tools into a scary computer and it’s blasphemy.
I can see the finished board that’s in my head on the screen before any foam gets cut. I can see the shadows in the concaves, look down the stringer from the tail, adjust what doesn’t “feel” right. I can also calculate the volume and add or remove it from anywhere on the board based on how I want it to perform.
If I took all that and printed out life sized slices every 3”, outline templates and rocker profiles and made wooden templates out of each of them. Then got a blank, a block of wood, and a sheet of 200-grit and meticulously sanded for a week until my hunk of foam fit perfectly inside my templates, could I be in your club? Is my board any less original than yours? I’m sure I would’ve put more time in and my hand tools are, well, actually powered by hand rather than electricity. Am I now accepted because I’ve labored an adequate amount, albeit all I was doing is continually light sanding and remeasuring? Or do I have to do it specifically with the tools you use, in the manner you use them?
I have no issue with any form of building. I have issue with the exclusion of a creative portion of the community that I believe also happens to be the future of the community. Just because something was drawn on a screen rather than on a piece of paper does not mean it was plagiarized, or any easier. It does not make the design any less original or the process any less fulfilling.
Like is often the case throughout history, I’d suspect most who are against it have never tried it. Maybe it’s for fear that they might like it? God forbid they might learn something new that would further elevate their skills.
I still think we are missing the biggest part here. How does the bloody board surf?
Feels like walking through a sports car museum and judging them by fit and finish.
I’d love to see a thread with a stated objective and an honest assessment of whether it was achieved and the builder’s opinion of why or why not.
Exactly the point, and why I posted what I did. Its so easy to choose a course that is popular and prevalent, for fear of trying a different way that is far more satisfying.
As far as ride report, I agree that would be very cool. But I have almost never seen a build thread that goes that far.
That’s a shame, but maybe an opportunity for us to influence the future. Once I get a minute I’ll give it a go with my last build.
Thanks for the thoughts man.
Pretty much all car shows judge cars based on their looks and the car just “sitting” still, without taking performance into account. Judges don’t drive the car and evaluate its performance when judging. However, you can tell a lot about how a car will perform by looking at and judging the components.
Same with surfboards. We are all just sitting at a computer or looking at a phone. Of course this competition would never include making a judgement on how a board actually rides. But any surfer or shaper that’s judging/voting can look at the design and understand if the shape might be desirable to ride or if it’s “just for show” and vote accordingly.
Remember, voting is not unanimous, and it will always be subjective. We all have different thoughts and opinions.
BOTM has typically been more of a craftsmanship event.
For perspective, performance evaluations can be subjective.
Who evaluates the performance? To be objective, you would need a panel of unbiased judges to ride and evaluate each board submitted.
Like cars and aircraft, performance varies according to model. And choosing a model for “anticipated” performance is personal preference (subjective).
Performance is also dependent on rider ability.
Furthermore, fin type and placement significantly affect performance.
Lots of variables (math ellipsis)…
While I agree a ride report and discussion would be the icing on the cake to a build thread, I also agree it couldn’t really figure in to a “vote on the best build” competition. I try to include some ride comments on my boards when I post a build thread, but it doesn’t always get done.
As far as the computer-shaped vs hand-shaped, I think both could be accommodated, but it would be nice to see separate categories, apples to oranges otherwise.
I also think, given the history of this forum, it would be nice to honor hand crafted boards, as the entire world, and surf industry included, is moving further and further away from hand crafting, and closer and closer to AI, and using computer technology to replace the traditional hand crafts and personal creativity. Which is fine for mass production and bigger corporate profits, and also for one-man shops like Deadshaper’s, who have a demand to meet. But for the luddites as they have been called, i.e. skilled craftsmen who can and do shape by hand and glass their own boards, and the backyarders and hobbyists, it would be nice to promote the traditional skills among the younger generation, as there are benefits not always tangible or measurable with a micrometer or a balance sheet. And it is far more achievable than most realize.
Folks,
Lots of great discussion here. I really appreciate the perspectives given, but in the end, I need to go with my gut and what I feel is the simplest setup.
I don’t like the idea of sub categories. First off, there’s not enough submissions to warrant it – but more importantly, in my opinion a build is a build – whether it’s machine made or not. I’m really into the free marketplace of ideas here. I’m sorry, not everyone will like or agree with that, but that’s what I think. If you don’t like a compute/machine build don’t vote on it. And if you don’t want to play along? Well…
In my opinion, what people are voting on is the “Build Thread” – meaning people should reward the time and effort put into crafting the actual post as much as (if not more than) the finished piece.
Most importantly, I want this to be simple enough that people will participate and simple for me to administer. I’m limited to how the thing will operate by the out-of-box features & limitations of the Discourse forum software.
Given all that, I’ve done some diving around into the software, and here’s a look at a setup I think will work.
- Build Threads is it’s own new topic category.
- Within Build Threads are subcategories, one for every year. A new subcategory is created every new year.
- Got a Build Thread you want to start? Post it into the current year.
- Topics (Builds) in a year sub-category can be voted on by registered users. Voting widget is to left of title in the topic.
- The software permits setting a total number of votes a user can cast, currently it defaults to 5.
- At the end of the year, the Topic (build) in the current year with the most votes wins.
- Contest winner will reap vast social cred and glory!
- At end of year, the topics for that year are closed, thus releasing the each users votes to be cast again.
Questions? Thoughts?
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