If you came up with a way to make the learning curve significantly shorter, easier and cheaper on any type of surfboard, what would you do with that idea?
in regards to riding, shaping, glassing, what???
Sorry! In regards to end use… riding.
I would make an inexpensive long board.
You’ve found a way to shorten the learning curve with regards to riding a surfboard? I’ll tell you what to do: patent it and sell it! Before I knew how to surf I would’ve paid big money to skip a lot of the learning phase. So what’s the secret? jason
There aren’t any shortcuts… practice, practice, practice. Then practice some more.
Recycled materials + mass-production + reasonable quality + low retail cost + high profit margin + short learning curve + 99% undingable + low or no maintenance + fun and safe for all ages + universal applicability + no resale value- 100% recyclable = a receipe that will destroy surfing.
Naw, just when you have cut an hour off your shaping time you’ll dent it on the corner of your shaping room door or your laminater uses dirty glass, or your blank twists during curing. It’s humbling…
Don’t tell anyone! It’s the evolution cycle of surfing. How many people got in the water this last year after watching Blue Crush? Fortunately it’s harder than it looks and alot of those people won’t be coming back. Selfish attitude? Yep. Everybody’s got a right to be out there, but make it easier, no sir. I think I cried when they put the stairs in at the Hook in Santa Cruz and that just made it more accessable. Remember the day scaling the cliffs holding onto tree roots…
I almost started a similar thread that as going to be entitled: Labor of Love or Love of Design? And my basic idea was to find out if shapers actually enjoy the labor of shaping better than the thought and challenging process od design. Easy doesn’t equal better, but it gives you more time for design…so long as you don’t dent your board against your shaping room door. I attribute that kind of mistake as too much surfboard foreplay. Women would complain about how much time a guy plays with his finished board as…it is a family site, I’ll stop there… But seriously, I was in a well respected shop in S. Cali, the shaper was showing off his shape just brought out of the shaping room, caressing the rails, picking it up at different angles, looking down the deck and rail line, etc—we all know the ritual ( I can see you guys grinning cause you know it is true) and then the shaper set in down against a near by wall. With it being fine sanded and not fully air hosed down, what do you think happened? It slid down the wall and do you think there was a big fluffy pillow on the ground? NO!! Back to the subject. Easy doesn’t make it better. But neither does difficult or labor intensive. I devised a method in which I can finish a board in 45 minute(ain’t all that fast)and it turns out like a machined board. I did all this because of the inability to get “one of’s” and the monolpoly of shaping machine time by the big name shapers. I didn’t want to invest in a $100-200,000 dollar machine either. Point. I have much more time for esing and am guaranteed their will be no twist in the shape. It is very very close to a shaping machine quality board. One more point on time. Are we all so buy with incoming orders that we need to save time? Now really!