You may have heard the song that goes video killed the radio star. Did custom surfboards kill the shaping star? Maybe it started with I can make a surfboard that is tailor made just for you. No doubt this was shortly followed by this custom board doesn’t work. Never mind the fact the guy who bought it thinks he is the next world champ and custom ordered an ultra thin, ultra light shortboard, weighs a couple of hundred pounds and can’t surf for shit. Would a good range of stock boards and customs for pro surfers only eliminate this problem? I lean toward yes. I think this is another reason why the days of custom might be numbered. Dare I say it’s for the best.
wait…what?
Hey Dean,
When was the last time you shaped an ultra thin board for a 200lb guy? I hope not, not if you claim to have a clue.
Maybe you are being hypothetical, but you're still wrong.
Every time I think I have time to make a stock board, I get an order. But thats not a complaint!
I'm up against shopfulls of pop-outs, and yet some guys are coming back for a third in a quiver.
I get the kind of customer who deserves credit for having a clue, and they have enough respect to listen when I steer them towards more suitable dimensions.
You did'nt think too hard about it before starting this thread.
Josh
i dont understand?
if i want something nice, with colors to drewl, id order custom
individualism is a very hip word
you are not being hip here
Dean:
I hear your frustration loud and clear. Like Speedneedle I am also surrounded by Surfshops and Stockboards.
Custom boards are what keep me going. As custom board builders it is our responsiblity to educated our customers as to the right board for them. Starting with the basic question:
1. Surfers dimentions = Height and Weight
2. Surfers Ability = Years surfing, what type of spots does he frequent & kind of waves does he plans to surf this board?
3. Current Board = Take some dimentions off it? (Length x Width x Thickness) then Rocker, Center Point, Tail Block and if your anal check the thickness foil as well? Starting from tail = 0 every 6" until you reach the nose tip. What stlye of board is he riding? Mal, Funboard, Shortboard, Fish, Gun?
Now the fun begins:
It's up to you to put he correct board under his feet. If he is not willing to take your advice then don't make the board. Send him away politey. You will save yourself alot of aggrevation. Don't take every job that comes your way!
For example I have a customer that is 240 pounds (109 KGs) he normally rides a 7'2" x 20" x 3" and has been surfing about 37 years and rides double overhead down to shoulder high waves. He's feeling frisky and wants to down size to a 6'6". This guy has broad shoulders and big arms. After studying his desire and were he's at presently I propose the following:
6'8" x 21" x 3" then I make adjustments to the foil to make it work as well as pull out the outline a bit.
Nose goes from 12" to 13" the tail goes from 14" to 15". I give him a wider round pin. Instead of 1 1/2" thickness at 12" from the nose I increase it to 1 7/8" even. Since he is a heavey footed surfer I increase his tail thickness from 1 5/8" to 2". I decrease his rocker to keep his reduce board size from pushing water. Nose goes from 5 1/2" to 5 1/8" and the tail from 2 1/2" to 2 1/4". Now you blend the new foil to the rocker adjustment and keep the volume full then foil the rails and thin the tips 1/2" nose and 5/8" tail. Basically hide the added volume but to the eye give it an apearance of well foiled thinner board. Also I pull the center point forward for larger surfers when I reduce the size of their board. In this case I went 1 3/4" up from center. Since he came from the 70's I gave him a slight vee in the tail with single to double barrel concave. For lighter surfers I normally just do a single concave all the way through the tail. I set the fins a bit futher up has olders surfers tend to turn from the back of center or in some cases there front foot were a younger surfer will turn off his tail.
Custom board building is an art in it's self: DESIGN and CREATIVE INTUITION are key skills to have beside just building a surfboard for some bloke. Plus you have to just say NO when the chemisty is not right with a customer!
Custom is for the serious surfer and it's not going away.
SD
Is it really necessary to order a custom board to get something nice? Is it that easy to make a good range of good stock surfboards? Do you really need to make custom surfboards if you have a good range of good stock surfboards? Maybe custom surfboards should be saved for pro surfers to test new ideas?
I think custom has led into too much emphasis on the shaper getting it right (otherwise known as being a mind reader) and not enough emphasis on the customer taking responsibility for what they ordered. A Kelly Slater model has been proven(?) by the man himself. Buy it and you’d better know what you are doing to be able to surf it right. A back stop if you like. Otherwise it’s the customers responsibility for letting their ego do the buying. Just need more than one model.
Have enough models proven by people of differing abilities and sizes and is there really a need for custom? I guess another way of putting it is removing the wanker out of wankers. If their ability is the same as the team rider who tested the model and all the rest of it, it’s just one less excuse for people to wank their egos would you not say?
I see just the opposite, the days of buying off the rack maybe numbered, the uninformed that do not have the inside track on a GOOD shaper rely on misinformation from the blind leading the blind and buy what they see from the magazines.
I shape some stockers, but they in all reality have been in the rack for over a year, 99.9 % of my orders are custom and of those, 90% are educated customers that know what they want in and out of a surfboard.
I will turn away the first time customer that cannot surf, he will in the end be bad for my business, the board will suffer damage immediately, the quality will in no way help him be a better surfer. I send them into the classifieds or a pop out
Dean
if you cant do a custom board ,,, dont do them
just make your stocker's
but please,,, dont try to justify yourself by trying to convince the rest of us that a custom board is a waist of time.
I shape and glass as a hobby, sometimes I make a few bucks, and everyone is a custom board. and several have come back to me to make their next custom board. one guy has three and is already planing his fourth. and thats a good feeling
I dont think I could reproduce the same board time after time
seems like a waist of time
get out of the box Jack
Edit: after I shape the blank to what the customers requested,, I invite them over to give their acceptance to proceed to glass, thats their time to make any adjustments to the shape.
You may be right Dean, Most of our customer are average surfers at best and should be working on basic technique instead of worrying if the new parabolic carbon springer doodad will help them boost at the superbank. I am very lucky as I live and work in a small town and surf with and know most of my customers and seem able to persuade them of what they need( a board for your ability not your imagination). I have a guarantee that if I design them a board and they hate it I will replace the board free of charge, but if they tell me what they want and I build it and its a dog well thats stiff shit.
I built a few boards for a tourist guy that came down here in the holidays a few years back and he raved about them. They kept getting shorter and he kept telling me how much he was improving. Being holiday time I rarely had time to surf and when I did he wasn't out there. anyway a few months ago I ran into him in the carpark and he had a new off the rack board, much too small in my opinion.I asked him how it went and he said it was great perfect for him, paddled well held in tight and very loose. So I thought I may hang around and watch this guy ride his new found magic carpet. I waited and I watched him thrash around in the ocean for about half a dozen perfectly catchable waves and when he did manage to scramble onto one had the biggest thrusty pooman stance I ever seen in my life and proceed to bog every wiggly little turn he went for. This was nothing that an extra 3 inches in length and 1/4 inch in thickness couldn't have helped immeasurably.
So yeah I reckon you could do away with a lot of custom shapes for quite a few surfers if they were willing to put a bit more water time in and get a technique on equipment that would help them. There is nothing like water time to improve your surfing no matter what you ride.
Local ripper Jimmy kept buying old heapas, snapped water logged etc. I said " How this go JImmy" in regards to a POS he had just picked."Its alright bit boggy Doesn"t flow real well". He says. "Why dont you get a new one". " nah I'll get used to it". I saw him a week later absolutely tearing the bag on this board.
I think you grasped the point I was trying to make and I agree, there are plenty of good alternative designs in the way of old and stock boards if people took the time to adjust to the way they surf instead of locking themselves into the this is what the pros surf scenario.
A lot of surfers couldn’t tell the difference between say a 6’2" custom shortboard and a 6’2" stock shortboard anyway. A 6’2" shortboard is also pretty much suited to a specific weight with range of about + or - 5kg anyway. Make a good 6’2" shortboard and if the customer has a weight that falls within this range and has the ability to surf a shortboard well… well is there really a need for custom 6’2" shortboards? Apply this to all the other surfboard lengths and designs out there and is there really that much of a need for custom made?
I guess it depends on what kind of surfers your shaping attracts?
I posted this before of my kid however this is why custom boards are needed. It’s hard to make an off the rack stocker do what you need it to do? Stockers are glassed heavy so they hold up in shops. If it wasn’t for customs I would have closed my doors and packed it up a long time ago!
http://www.surfline.com/video/locals/local-fire-shaun-ward-part-iii_27032
That’s how you are suppose to surf a custom!
SD
“Apply this to all the other surfboard lengths and designs out there and is there really that much of a need for custom made?”
Yeah yeah yeah…
But then, there’s no need for a shaper, either. Machines will take care of that quite OK, and, let’s face it, you don’t need to have 20 years of shaping experience to erase a few cutting head grooves with a sanding block.
Then, is there really a need for a glasser? Actually, all those blanks could very well be vacuum-bagged in a giant plant, insuring everyone the exact same quality.
Is there a need for any airbrusher? I doubt it. Sublimated logos can easily be applied, together with any computer-designed artwork.
Now, that means no more sander, too.
Welcome to the future.
i dont know about you guys but my customers all rip.
anyway cast back to 1967 69 when most of the boards were popouts and custom boards became popular. the marketing was that backyarders were bad and there boards shit, but the reality was the backyarders were 5 years ahead . and the boards spoke for themselves.
do your shit and if people like it they will buy it
if they dont try something else
right on!
i agree completely with all silly said
there will always be custom for a lot of reasons.
Here in Florida the local shapers I talk to say the opposite. Stock is dead - competing with terms, overstock of pops and custom is king.
On a side note.... Surfding would moving the wide point forward in a big guy type short board, which seems to be common, offset additional thickness in the tail for a heavy rear-footed surfer?
yeah i dont know...i see less and less stock boards in the shops...shops dont make any margin on surfboards...they make all the money in the $70 jeans and $30 t shirts...also people are getting pissed at the super late ship dates from china...most of the serious surfers i know are getting everything custom made...if you look in the shops id say most of the stock boards are exactly that...stock...nothing too special that sets a board apart from the rest...i admit at least half of my quiver is made of such boards but thats the way it goes...so to answer the question no...custom did not kill the shaping star...it made the custom shapes more desireable and individual than the run of the mill
hahaha...im reminded of the scene in the north shore when lance burkhart gets out of the water and tells chandler his board sucks...hahaha...that movie was great
…hello fella,
seems that you have a mistake (like 75% of the shapers) about what a real custom board is all about…
In that hypothetical case you put, lot of stuff to change to make that board be more like an extension of a particular surfer requirements