I share some of your sentiments. Unlike some of our predecessors you’ve mentioned we’ve been waiting to launch full steam until we were sure we actually had a firm understanding of the process and its pitfalls. A 1000 blanks was just what we poured during our R&D stage. We didnt just start working on this last year or even two years ago. I began this project many years ago while working full time as a product development and process engineer for a large chemical manufacturer. Having worked as a chemist/material engineer in several industries I can tell you the bar is actually pretty low for PU foam blanks. Where it seems most have failed is consistent quality. An inferior product (strength, density, flex, cell size etc) can still be sucessfull as long as the quality meets minimum standards (No giant holes, off-gass, shrinks, twists) and delivered on time.
Manufacturering a million of the same thing over doesnt improve a product.
I’d like to add that we dont feel we are superior scientists and engineers. The real reason why there isnt more blank companies around comes down simply to economics. The margin is slim by comparison to other industries and requires too much investment for a the return. There is by far much more lucrative opportunities for someone/a team with the skill set to formulate and manufacture blanks. Much like shaping it comes down to passion.
Having been around foam companies for 50 plus years is a time line to what is good and what is not. When Grubby closed every one thought doomsday, the bums rush to develope an A+ foam was on. Grandmothers in kitchens, basement high school chemists. The abiltiy of Common to come out with a workable product is simply amazing.
Bill Bahne and his group that set up Green Valley, they had Clark’s right out of the safe formula, his wood, his pourers, his paper, his chems, they came out like shit and were never good. I used Just foam, some were fine many others once cut into, first class rejects. Ice Nine tried some dumb ass methods, Petri with machined aluminum molds and no venting paper, all bubbles. I had guys coming out of the wood work to have me glue up their attempts, I felt bad about taking their money because the foam was so bad.
So Common will fill a void for many east coasters, in the past it was the satellite builders who held a stashes of Clarks or US and distributed them to the smaller builders.
I’ll hear from my pals who are shaping them and get the inside poop on what is good
The big Three have set the bar incredibly high. There has been consistant improvement in all aspects. Strength to weight. Tensile, overall weight, UV, stringers and variety of plugs. They continue R&D because there is competition. Unlike rhe Clark Era when Grubby was the only game in town. I don’t have to even look at one of your blanks to know that they are not at this point superior to a Millennium, Arctic or a US Blank. When they are and if they ever are, I will readily admit that. Lowel/Oregon Shapers
All of this chemistry talk aside(which I dont really follow or understand much of anyways) I’m pretty excited to mow into some of this foam that Blanksmith is so kindly producing for the rest of us East Coasters. I have 4 blanks arriving sometime tomorrow. I will quickly be jumping right into the bay with these babies and promise to give an accurate and fair report of how they shape up.
I bought a common surf blank 8’5" G. I am disappointed in the blank. Just wasn’t glued together tight to the stringer. Gaps between the foam and stringer and glue all over the blank. Not sure it’s worth the aggravation of fixing when compared to us blanks which have much less errors to fix.
Thats too bad. I have been fortunate enough not to have this problem with Common blanks yet. I have two 8’5G’s that I will be getting into shortly. They all seem good. I recently bought about 7 more common blanks and they are all pretty consistent. Not US Blanks quality yet, but good enough for me as I am still a novice builder.