Does anyone know if any other Top 44 surfers are riding comp sands? I know of about five surfers on the top 44, one being Taj Burrows. Are there any other top 44 comp sand riders? I was discussing comp sands with someone recently who thought that they would be replacing hand laminated stuff quite soon.
now THAT would be a change, for compsands to come out of essentially nowhere, and replace the status quo existing for the last 40-50 years.
nothing like it that I’ve seen before.
Unless someone gets big money and big advertising (and several pros to ride and promote them) I can’t see much future for the idea. My understanding is that they are at least as labor intensive to make than hand lam, so there’s not much profit at current market prices.
That might explain the twenty percent markup at retail.
Taj…and who are the other 4?
Oh, and I’d say compsands are far more labor intensive than regular hand laminated stuff.
I only know of about five surfers in total on the WCT. One riding a comp sand if that’s what you mean. No idea who the other thirty nine are.
Sorry,I thought you meant you knew of 5 surfers on the WCT that ride compsands. Taj is the only one I know riding them (Firewire).
i dunno but i might consider making one for a pro if they asked nicely and were not too fussy
“I was discussing comp sands with someone recently who thought that they would be replacing hand laminated stuff quite soon.”
If you include Surftech and Boardworks as “compsands”, then it is already happening. Maybe they won’t be replacing hand lams completely but they are gaining market share as we speak.
“My understanding is that they are at least as labor intensive to make than hand lam, so there’s not much profit at current market prices.” (quote taken from different post in same thread)
They are more labor intensive than standard hand lay up and the materials are more expensive, hence the outsourcing to Asia to maintain or even improve profit margins for the distributors and retailers.
twice material cost even and that if you use boatbuilding stuff
3 times if you go through surf industry suppliers
and twice the labour
flip times are huge
surftechs are not really what we are doing
tho i havent seen the tl2s yet
berts the only one that is doing a true handmade compsand at production level as far as i can tell
firewire are off the mark using urethane skins and chasing cometics
like to see nev do the abused board thing with a new firewire
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My understanding is that they are at least as labor intensive to make than hand lam, so there’s not much profit at current market prices.
So what you’re saying is that the Top 44 surfers in the world should be riding the boards that are the easiest and cheapest to make? Somehow Formula1 racing drivers are not stuck with 1950s technology only…
regards,
Håvard
Firewire are as hand-made as any other production board, and use corecell skins. Can’t stop the rumours though, keep them coming.
I would jump on a new board any day, will pu guys do it?
Funny, I saw Schumacher in a Fiat Punto…
I think the issue with compsands and pro’s is lack of exposure and lack of “big name” shapers offering them. If your average top44 guy works with the likes of say webber, why would he sign on with Bert… (actually… that one nearly happened didn’t it?) But give it some time and exposure (freesurfstars like rasta and machado could be instrumental in this) and it may just happen. The main problem is that the good compsanders are essentially garage boys and don’t have the money to profile themselves let alone build a bunch of “give away” boards. Alot of time and effort goes into fine tuning and building a comspand, I think it may even be harder to build a “magic” compsand than a PU board. Most of the guys building PU’s have built 1000’s of them whereas the comspanders maybe in the 100’s (bert and randy being notable exceptions)
I expect Bert and Speedy to get a pro on board (sic) within reasonable time, if anyone can do it, they can.
hey wildy
i thought firewire were machine shaped and i know they chasing cosmetics with the painting the skin and RR epoxy
the urethane skins thing yeah i dunno about are they trialling it or something
the compsand concept was really about a comunity brainstorm of guys further developing berts concept
firewire etc are not really part of it
they dont offer anything to compsand and im more then certain they are checking out our developments
the ones we release to the public anyway
faaaaaaaaark this was my 3200th post
i need a life
All I mean is all of the boards at FW are done like everyone else, not counting the blank making of course, and that includes machining blanks, hand lay-ups, sanding, etc, like most production houses.
Who is ahead of the pack depends on which pack you compare yourself to and what importance you put on it.
Do your own thing, enjoy it, and if it works you are winning.
“surftechs are not really what we are doing”
Hi Paul -
Sorry if I used “Compsand” inappropriately. Maybe “composition sandwich” is more like it? Please help me out with the definition if you would.
Not sure if all “compsands” are the same… it looks to me like lots of guys are tweaking this or that. By your apparently exclusive definition of “compsand”, I don’t even know if Gary Young qualifies… I read he wasn’t using fiberglass on his skins?
Please add Stretch in Santa Cruz as a custom hand-made composition sandwich fabricator.
The Surftech method on the TufLites is a fiberglass/high density skin core/fiberglass sandwich over a light EPS blank. Is that not a compsand?
Any discussion of “Compsands” & the “Top 44” must include a discussion of two important elements of surfboard design: (1) the construction schedule (materials and how they are assembled - core, skin, hand or machine shaped, hand or vacuum bagged lams) and (2) the shape. Arguably, the best performance we can expect from a surfboard will result from a combination of these two elements. Many board builders fail to see the importance of both. The compsand crew champions their construction schedule - elite shapers champion the details of their shaped blanks.
(Personally, I believe compsand construction is an excellent choice for any surfboard. I simply want to address why we don’t see more of the Top 44 riding compsands on tour.)
It’s important to look at the issue of compsands and the Top 44 from the surfer’s perspective. What are the WCT surfers looking for ? A surfboard that will allow them to perform at peak performance level.
Compsand construction - by itself - is not the key to peak performance. Compsand construction with elite - high performance shapes will yield peak performance.
There are more than a few issues regarding Top 44 surfers embracing compsand surfboards. Availability and performance are two primary issues. WCT surfers are very familiar with their equipment. The design demands on their boards is very specific. They may go through a dozen nearly identical boards to find one “keeper” and one “primary backup” for any one of the variety of conditions they find on tour. How many compsand manufacturers with elite shaping skills do we know that would provide Mick Fanning, Joel Parkinson, or Timmy Reyes with a dozen versions of the same shape 10 times per year to test and prepare for events ? Not too many. WCT surfers and their shapers have been doing this all year long, every year, for decades. Imagine the accumulated data. Then compare the data accumulated regarding shapes, flex, memory, etc of compsands. It’s going to take a lot of time, money, resources, and energy to bring compsands to the specific level of performance that the WCT surfers require.
The Top 44 and their shapers have spent decades developing the high performance shapes that facilitate their performance. Taj Burrow has spent several years working with great shapers and an excellent construction schedule to get to the point he’s at with the performance of his Firewires. It will take an equal investment in time and boards to develop shapes and compsand construction schedules that will suit other WCT surfers.
At this point in time there does not appear to be anyone in the industry interested, willing, or with the resources to work with the Top 44 to produce performance compsands.
Bottom line is this. When Compsands are readily available in the quantity and with the performance required by the Top 44 - they will be riding them. Until the guys building compsand can provide what the Top 44 are looking for, the Top 44 will continue to ride what they can count on for the performance they require.
Kind regards,
Steve Coletta
Board builders like to make comparisons between “Formula Racers” and high-tech tennis racquets or bicycles or golf clubs. A big part of the reason driving that sort of development in those products is either to stimulate the market into rejecting last year’s model and buying this year’s, or to promote a larger industrial concern (automakers).
As many of us here know, there are hundreds of ways of adding cost to the building of surfboards, but adding value is a different thing altogether. A pro needs a consistent, tuneable platform that will hold up for at least a few contests.
Maybe a better analogy would be baseball bats (That’s that sport where someone whacks a ball that’s thrown at them, while standing upright, for you Aussies and others). Anyway, have bats changed much? Are there any significant differences between a pro’s bat and one that anyone can buy?
Just a thought…
…Im with Cornelius and Allangibbons
may add that many people looks a board with wood and think “not so high performance”
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As many of us here know, there are hundreds of ways of adding cost to the building of surfboards, but adding value is a different thing altogether. A pro needs a consistent, tuneable platform that will hold up for at least a few contests.
I think that’s where the key is. While composite sandwich construction may offer advantages, it adds too many variables unless you have either a lot of time, a lot of people or a lot of money to tune it. Given that most major brands R&D departments consist of a single master shaper, a handful of teamriders and a pro or two and the pro has to have reliable performance every competition. So you have to keep as much as possible constant just to be able to focus on the shape. That means PU/PE and thrusters. Add anything to that, parabolic rails, EPS/Epoxy, quads/five finers or sandwich constructions and there are quickly too many unknown variables to be consistent.
Bdw. the baseball analogy is flawed, or than again it might be a very good analogy to surfboards. You can get higher performance bats than the wooden bats being used in the pro series. Aluminum bats not only perform better (hit the ball further), they also do not break as easily…
regards,
Håvard
hey john
we dont own the word
its in the public domain now
but the web domain is the property of the co op
the word was first coined by steve franklin and adopted by the co op company of which there is 6 or 7 shareholders
these guys are share ownership of the domain and www.compsand.com label.
and the archives of early tech discoveries made by MIKE SABIN and a few other unamed players.
this label is available for non shareholder members of the co op to use for promoting there boards as is the website available for this purpose at a minimal cost.
any tech advancements are released via pm on a need to know basis
in other words one trust is established then the info trickle starts
any big company that uses the word to promote a sandwich board that is either made in china or not aligned to the philosopy and/or technological advancement of the co op can be considered to be stealing somones elses thunder or riding on someones coatails.
this could happen if us surfboard tech dorks ever make the big time ey??