Foam

Industry Talk
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What came first, the chicken or the egg?

What I mean is that ‘nothing is good nor bad, thinking merely makes it so’ (Shakespeare).

The machine doesn’t evolve the hand shaper, it is the need of a sufboard designer that determines the path to progressing his designs. The anatomy of my large Hitachi power planer doesn’t lend itself to what I desire to actualize. I can’t imagine that Michelangelo sculpted David out of one size chisel. Perhaps some guys do chain saw sculpture with one size only and no other tools for finer detail?

Do I really want to confine myself to a 3" wide planer blade to create specific rail to rail concave contours? Can I even achieve such with the physical limitations of the Hitachi or Skil? Who is in the driver’s seat…the planer, or me?

If I want to use a blow torch to achieve my design, then I grant myself creative license to do so. OTOH, if I want to shape using a CNC and sand the hotcoated board with inflatable drum CNC then so be it. If you want to pass judgement on me, that’s your perogative. People judge, that’s why there are juries.

The pricing and bro deal thing will probably not cease in my lifetime. I wouldn’t be so naive as to blame the 70’s for this pricing structure…if we want to play the blame game I would have to opt for the guy shaping under the pier with the adz or drawknife. What’s the point in it anyway?

Surfboards resemble buying a house, both can be very emotional. I wouldn’t be afraid to empower yourself, after all, they are your emotions.

Price in this world is so abstract, on one hand you have a family of 4 that could live for a year on the $1200 you might be willing to pay for a surfboard while OTOH Angelina makes $20 mil per film…she herself stating she ‘makes a stupid amount of money for what she does’.

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I put lots of those machined shapes in my good ole trusty leveled glassing rack…and surprise surprise you obtain a twisted board

that 1/32" is the most foolish thing that I listened in this industry

I’ve taken many hand shapes and put them on my racks that are with in a 1,000th of inch and find them to have a 1/4" twist and from shapers that are legendary. The board still rides unreal. Were talking about hydrodyamics. A musical instrument generates sound. A surfboard works against water tension and release. Kelly Slater had a board that was so twisted. It sat in the rack before it was glassed so it warped. He love that board and wanted it reproduced.

As Phil Edwards once said, “symetry is over rated!”

When you scan one side it makes a mirror image then flips a copy and joins the two parts to make one symetrical part. The same thing is done to make an airplane wing. You make a computer copy of one wing to make both sides of the airplane. I don’t want some Barney making the wings of a plane in his garage to fly to Bali no more than I want him to make my board for Puerto? On the flip side you only ride one side of the board last time I checked? Having said all that what does it matter if you make a board by hand or on a CNC. This tread is related to making a living making surfboards last time I checked? (INDUSTRY NOTES).

machine does not belong to the real craftsman artisan

Real Craftsman? CNC takes more skill than you will ever realize. Design, Design, Design. Have respect for all forms of expression. When it comes off the machine it still has to be fine tuned by a shaper. Most of the production shapers I know are great craftman and many of them have contributed to various design inovations.

To say someone is not a real craftman because he or she uses a machine to arrive at his or her intended design sounds a bit suspect?

Take for example Merrick, Rawson, Rusty, Arakawa just to name a few (all real craftman) make some of the best riding surfboards on the planet and for the most talented surfers in the world period. They all can design on a computer and they all do it with great skill. All of these same guy’s can shape with a skill 100 as well. To say they are not real craftsman? That’s pretty harsh?

Dead is also a fine craftsman and a very skilled hand shaper. Put a CNC in his arsenal and watch out! It’s only another tool! That’s all he was trying to say.

Give all the shapers draw knives and see how many glass jobs you will have? A planner is also a machine. The last time I pluged one in ran on 110V.

by the way, I think that the boards are so “cheap” is because the 70 s and the bro deals, and the shaper doing boards for friends, etc

“we all know each other, so we do not charge 20 times higher these boards for the local rippers, etc…”

As far as your comment that boards are too cheap? Your Dead right!

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…DeadShaper and Surfding,

may be Im expressed in the wrong way,

DS, Im with you in your last point, but I tried to say that is not the same to build something with your hands that a machine built the thing

no matter the tool, but grab with your hands

yes, very good if you, me or other will have the chance to re design electric hand tools…

putting data in a software and watching how good the machine does the job,…hhmm, not a craftman, for me

yes, a designer, but not a craftman

you say the M Angelo…well I prefer a genuine did it by the master himself with whatever tool, BUT with his hands and Brain

not only with his brain

man, I had the opportunity to play top notch instruments (made by hand)…truly uniques and the feeling to have some that other person do it for me (with all those things related)

when I said the 70s I tried to say that still in those years the industry was small, not super marketed, not so expanded globally, no a “radical extreme” sport, etc

so very difficult to try to high the prices

-Surfding,

Im not saying that master shapers or talented ones, dont know how to shape or arent craftsman

but occurs that the “bulk” of the shapers (worldwide) that use the machine (man, most of the boards come from one…)

are not craftsman

most grab a bunch of files (lots of the “same” archives but different brands—cheaper in money and time–I see that a lot)

go to the guy that work with the machine, and order n shapes…thats all

then the shapes will go to a glassing shop and the boards will be done…whoaoo what an artisan, what an skilled one

and all say Im design this and that and build thousands and thousands of boards!

Im in the position that ONLY a handshaped board (and handcrafted all) should have a pencil signature on the blank

also can have (if more than one person) the crew name in it

Im not talking that machine is bad hand shape is good

Im talking that there s to parallel approaches

—and Im saying that, and several times the guys with the machine offered me their COMPLETE services

with that in mind, I dont have to work anymore…(a bit less money, but I dont have to work only sell to people that come for a board)

may be Im a fool, but I think that a surfboard is something different than only a mere product

with a mind that only think in $$$ there s not much of a future, cause the big companies, megacorporations have been dominating almost all the industries in the last 20 years

then there will be no place for your tiny machine cause (like the Chinese tried to do) a heavy big one that built 1000 boards per hour and cost millions of Dollars (that you and me cannot buy) and employ 1 guy will eat all

and where will be tha artisan?

in a beggars banquet

so not too much room for the simple (but talented) guy not too much space for the ideas only space for more money (if your idea sell, the corps will pay you top $ then the public doesnt count…they will offer crap…like cars, like clothes, like music, like whatever if you dont search or go roots)

—talking about foams

I just purchased several dozens of Surfblanks Brazil, with perimeter stringers for $100 !!! too much money

but may be the best foam chemistry by far (but not so good moulds in comparison to C F or Rhinno)

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Well I agree that many people or shapers that use the cnc services my not be as creative as they could be.

However if you use the CNC as a tool and are engaged in it you can design incredible boards. You may not think of me as a craftsman however I am a wood worker and I make my own furniture. As far as Surfboards are concern their now sporting equipement that get stored next to the snowboard, tennis racket, soccer ball, golf clubs and the like. Custom Boards are very personal and very different than a stocker. When you make one that works unreal why not scan it and reproduce it so others can enjoy it? We just need to keep it all in perpective? It’s true that not all shapers are artians. I think that there are many who still are. I may be on the defensive however because I like all forms of design and art. To merge the two is part of the creative process. I’m married to an artist: www.mariecward.com

You being a artist in your own right gives you a different perpective than how others see it. That’s what makes it so interesting. This blog has gotten a little off track however it’s been fun.

Speaking of foam I have some High Performance Shortboard blanks that are so light. I shape them out friday and found them to be 1.73 pounds lighter than any other blank company. I’ll have them glassed and compare. I’ve made 4 boards exactly the same with different foam. I’ll wait until there glassed weighted and ridden to report my findings.

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SD…

Someone correct me if they feel I’m wrong, but I really do not see why EPS should cost more than PU based blanks! Esp. if we are looking at hotwiring off the foam from billets of EPS.

First, the material is plentiful in numerous locations and densities. Contrary to what a number of companies have claimed about creating ‘surf specific’ EPS, the real truth about that claim is that it is marketing. Should I really pay for your marketing or cute labels, or team riders?

I don’t think so.

If I want to make a lightweight product with a high strength to weight ratio using epoxy then the first blank material I will be looking at is EPS. It’s plain and simple, that a sailboard, sit on top ski, or SUP is a high volume vehicle that EPS was made for. As I have mentioned in past threads, this weight advantage was quite evident to me as early as 1984 (an ominous year) when I constructed a personal high volume sailboard with dims of 8’10"x21"x6" that weighed less than 10 lbs. . The board was epoxy, glass, and reinforced with very lightweight carbon mat. I could get this board up on a plane at 11 to 12 knots of wind with a 6.2 sail.

There is a consensus by some knowledgeable people out there that the cosnistency of EPS foam is better served by being produced from billets (aka buns) versus the preforming into close tolerance blanks. However, I can imagine that any number of shapers that want to conosider themselves ‘leading edge’ are opting for the preformed because the blanks have precontoured decks, saving them a lot of time in creating their desired shapes. Let’s face it, shaping out of a big retangular block takes talent.

Suffice to say, those blank suppliers that want to preform EPS into a wide variety of EPS blanks should charge a premium price for creating molds and going through the process of forming these blanks. However, those suppliers that work with able designers that want to enjoy a lower price by drawing out and supplying schematics to the supplier for cutting from the billets, should enjoy a considerable lower price. Hopefully this option will be afforded to those individuals from companies such as Warvel, Blair (congrats Steve…please take this under advisement), and other suppliers.

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Quote:

SD…

Someone correct me if they feel I’m wrong, but I really do not see why EPS should cost more than PU based blanks! Esp. if we are looking at hotwiring off the foam from billets of EPS.

First, the material is plentiful in numerous locations and densities. Contrary to what a number of companies have claimed about creating ‘surf specific’ EPS, the real truth about that claim is that it is marketing. Should I really pay for your marketing or cute labels, or team riders?

Dead, You have some valid questions. Let me share what I have found out over the last couple of years in regard to some of your thoughts. Take all I offer with a grain of salt as I am certainly not the last word on all of this. A good part of the reason that an EPS blank from a company making and selling them on a commercial level costs what it does has to do with waste. When you cut a billet into blanks you end up with a LOT of waste. So to make an decent operational margin you have to cover the cost of the whole billet distributed to the blanks you can get out of a billet. Contrary to what you might think, most of the rockers the EPS guys cut do not “nest” as well as one might expect in a standard industry billet. The standard EPS industry billet sizes do not fit board lenghts very well and you can end up with tons of board feet worth of “butts” that can’t be used for much of anything except for the recycle pile. The producers end up paying for part of the recycling cost because the scrap is not near what the foam is as a saleable cut shape. The other part of the cost is that the “full density” 2# EPS that is primaraly used for surf foam is quite a bit more money per board foot than the “nominal density” 1 and 1.5# stuff you can get at a Depot or a construction material supply house. Only one company I know of uses a bead that was specifically for surf foam and that was White Hot. They do not use the “surf” bead in their construction foam as it is way too expensive for that use. Every other EPS blank company I know of headquartered in SoCal buys their billet foam (good quality full density 2#)from the same source and puts their own brand name on it. Marko makes their own shape molded blanks in their Mexican plant and USBlanks has theirs made for them in another Mexican plant. Shape molding EPS by the way has only one advantage (my opinion only) over billet molded EPS, virtually no waste. (As I have stated on a couple occasions in the past I firmly believe that as produced at the present time this is the only advantage a shape molde blank has over a well made billet/cut unit.) Last I checked, which was incidently two days ago, a wirecut 2# EPS 6’3" blank of good quality could be had for only $4 bucks more than the same size PU unit here in SoCal. A 9’6" longboard blank was virtually the same price for either type of foam. I agree with you that hand shaping a board from a rectangle is more work than a shape molded unit. However, and this never seems to sit well with a lot of folks on Sway’s, at least 85 plus percent of all blanks produced regardless of chemical makeup get put on a shaping machine. The days of being able to afford to make different sized blanks for the hand shapers is probably gone forever. The blank business now as opposed to three years ago is just flat different, way different. The fact that there is now a competitive market place in such a specialized and relatively small industry where there was virtually none makes predictions of the future a little chancey at best. I do believe though that the surf foam business could look staggeringly different than it does now though. You also mention in the same post about a designer working with an EPS company by suppling a custom rocker drawing should get a discount. It is really hard to make this work because the designer usaully only wants one or two blanks cut. This will generally tend to screw up the production time because the one-off model the desinger wants usually fouls up the “nesting” pattern that the CNC machine needs to cut to get the most blanks out of the billet! Most people do not realise that good 2# EPS only cuts at about a foot a minute! You don’t just throw a billet on the CNC hotwire table and have a stack of blanks in mere minutes. Those machines are not cheap, not small and use 220 volts to run! At White Hot we could always glue up way faster than we could cut. Just throwing a custom into the mix was generally very unproductive, ie expensive. It is really a different world trying to mass produce these critters for the industry as opposed to the setups used to one off a blank in a more intimate setting. Alrighty then…I think I have opined enough for one setting. Again, please accept what has been offered as my observations only and not those of my wife, employers, kids or even the few friends I have spread so thinly around the globe. SS

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Speaking from my limited experience, I think you’re bang on the money. I haven’t experimented with EPS enough to know if it provides a significant benefit in durability and performance but if it does and it’s the same price and with polyester looking like it may become more expensive than epoxy, consumers may finally get from custom surfboard manufacturers what has been needed for years. Better value for money!

I only have one remaining question. Which is more petrochemically dependent? EPS or PU?

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Hi Steve -

Maybe you or Deadshaper could clarify for me?

I heard soemwhere that the big billets were more difficult to get consistent bead fusion throughout. My own experiences with a billet included occasional pockets that didn’t seem to be fused as well as others. This was with 1.5 lb/cu ft Insulfoam special ordered via Home Depot.

At least one blank company trumpets the idea that theirs are cut from special sized billets that allow consistent penetration of steam resulting in better bead fusion.

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JM…Steve is more qualified to answer your question as he has been consistently in the mix regarding EPS and its recent development whereas I am coming from the historical perspective. The 2 lb. is something that came after my R&D and production throughout the 80’s; largely with sailboards and some surfboards. The EPS came from Insulfoam as well as other sources and I used 1.5, 1.0, and even some freak .5 densities.

I am in total agreement with SS as far as the cost of ‘one off’ cutting, and I hadn’t really thought of it that way. My approach would actually (and did in the past) incorporate schematics of an entire blank line that I drew up for sailboards, and then also created a catalog of surfboard profiles that were designed to nest well with more than one counterpart. I also was advised as to what the billet sizes were ahead of time so I could take this into consideration then order my run of blanks accordingly.

Some might argue that the 1.0 and 1.5 was very low grade…pure crap according to some, but in all fairness I would have to say we got some tremendous performance and durability out of what those people would call crap. Each material has finite capabilities and in a past thread I mentioned a conversation that I had per Mathew at Clark Foam setting up a conference call between myself and Grubby (Clark). In short, the weight differences for the same exact shape out of each material was so different…I liked Clark Foam, and I continued to use it for the waveboards going to Brett Lickle in Maui, and for use at Jalama, and big chop in the Gorge and SF. But when it came to ‘getting off the line’ quick in light wind areas, the EPS was king.

Steve, thanks for your input and the mention of how slowly the wire cuts thru 2 lb. foam. Maybe you can elaborate to John about the EPS. Correct me if I am wrong but I believe Pentane is still used in the process and Pentance is an off product of oil.

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John,

The pockets and voids that you saw in the EPS you mentioned show up all the time in the jndustry norm product which tends to be for construction and packaging. EPS is comodity type product so it has to be blow and go at a place like Insulfoam and the guys in that market. They just don’t have time to go slow enough to make really tight full density stuff all the time. That’s why the quality can be so hit or miss with stuff picked up at Depot or construction supply house.

Everything is made from oil it seems and so is EPS. EPS is much cleaner to mold than most urethanes with a relatively small amount (relative to the mass of foam produced) of the pentane gas that makes the beads expand getting released during the process. I do know that the pentane is also pretty easy to “scrub out” relative to the tougher isocyonate gas that gets produced during urethane production. I am currently getting into the breakdown of how much crude it takes to produce a cubic foot of polyurethane as opposed to a cubic foot of EPS and what the true VOC emissions amounts really are during production. I will have to get back to you on that. There is probably a Sway-dude that already knows this stuff but I want do a search on it myself to make sure I can verify the info I end up getting.

SS

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John…if you have a line to Steve Brom, he could certainly fill you in on EPS and use of big billets. You may or may not know that he is the one who designs and shapes out prototypes that are molded into a popular brand of kayaks and sit on tops. He has been doing this for years.

In thinking about why I stated that EPS should be less than a PU molded blank, I was stating this because I felt that to cut an EPS blank with a “stock” profile offered from a blank manufacturers catalog and to offer those stringerless, that indeed it would be very cost effective to run any number of billets with a scheduled cutting, nest them together in optimum configuration, and have them on hand for sale, delivery or shipping.

Curiously, I never experienced a frequent incident of voids in the foam I used. More likely was the incident of post production expansion while glassing, particularly on warmer days, and we developed procedures to deal with that.

As for waste…yes some waste results that is recycleable. But , with all due respect to SS, I still have some difficulty believing that cost should be the same or more than PU for this scenario. Perhaps Steve was only pertaining to the 2 lb. EPS. which is what most shapers are prescribing to for whatever reason. I personally liked the lighter weights enabling me to shape (or form) air. I also had no qualms about adding my own stringers or changing glassing configurations for alternate stringer approaches other than center I beams of wood or alternate material.

I just browsed a site that offers GL Resin Research and is yet another blank supplier I had never heard of. They offer 2.5 EPS out of San Diego and of particular interest is their comparison test of water absorption for their foam compared to MDI PU…check it out at:

http://www.wncsurf.com/welcome.html

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DS:

Have you seen the new “RED” formula from US Blanks?

So Light and so White! Glasses light too!

Cheaper than EPS. Easy to shape.

Nice to have the foam do what you tell it!

SD

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I see the blanks quite a bit when I p/u supplies in Ven-Tuna. Guess a test is warranted. Some detractors were stating the foam is very soft deeper into the core…you machine…so you tell me.

As far as handshaping, I was listening to everyone over the past year, year and a half about consistent density through the entire blank. I still am somewhat skeptical about PU blank companies making that claim. As far as the old Clark formula of hard on the surface and squishy deeper inside…that’s no biggie to me from years of thicknessing off the bottom while handshaping and being stingy on top cuts. I always netted more than what Clark claimed you could. But I expect you to say that machining needs more consistent foam…but now you’re talking this foam up…so clarify and I will say thanks in advance.

BTW…I’m feeling more toward doing some machined models to save wear ‘n tear on this ol’ bod…fill me in (PM).

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Steve,

Your right about making EPS blanks in production. While there are advanages and disadvatages to each I never thought that making blanks of EPS was a reasonable business. I always thought that in the long run everyone would make their own blanks. The monetary savings alone made this a no brainer … or so I thought. Their so simple to make. Little to my surprise, 25 years later there are still few who make their own.

We have always produced our own in our FL shop because it’s so easy (that intimate setting). As shaper I always got exactly what I wanted … obviously. All the blanks we made were custom. Hiring a kid after school got me all the blanks I ever needed. The nesting you talked about is perfect when hand cutting and that nesting makes another blank per billet which pays for the kid cutting. All our scrap went into the truck that delivered the billets so no cost for trash removal.

When making it into a business there are so many aspects which add to the costs which of course adds to the price … I still don’t get it to this day. It’s as good a money as any room in the factory makes with the least hassle and it’s the easiest job requiring the least skill. Five years ago longboard blanks cost me $20 strung. Might cost me $30 today. That includes the kid. Of course if your making a business of just blanks there are delivery costs and labor costs and insurance costs, workmans comp, overhead, etc, etc, etc none of which I was paying since it was just part of our production routine. And of course profits must be taken and those profits have to include profit on all those little costs. Little room for that.

I don’t know how to end this accept that I was so wrong … this business is rarely about making money. It’s about making boards. Whether right or wrong, or good or bad, it’s the way it is. The Gordon Clark’s of the surfboard industry are rare.

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Greg,

Amen to the fact that finding another Gordon Clark in the industry is a rare thing. Of course it seems that his type is easier to see clearly in a less mature industry situation. In a new industry “the rules” for operating in the new arena have not been set. In most cases a standard is set by one outfit and it gets chased and copied to death until a major change in the product (ie watches made with springs and gears versus one with an electronic movement and an liquid crystal display) or market delivery system comes along that destroys the first succesful method.

Perhaps the reason many of the larger users of EPS don’t make their own blanks is that the paradigm is virtually hardwired in them that you don’t make blanks, you buy blanks to make surfboards. I think it is just that simple for most of them.

I often wonder with all the effort so many of us are putting in on coming up with the latest and greatest polyurethane formulation and the method to pour it, are we forestalling when the next real alternative material will show up? I do not have the time or means to spend researching other materials that could be the follow-on for urethane and EPS but I suspect that the product is going to surface sooner rather than later. Whoever unearths that product has, perhaps, a chance at being another Clark.

SS

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SS & GL,

I think both of you have very good points. Greg’s points are well taken about how end cost is impacted by running a legitimate business. In the last decade or so, we in CA saw Worker’s Comp. escalate to prohibitive rates for many small businesses. I saw resourceful owners trying to sharp shoot the system. In one instance, I knew a drywalling company that took close to 100 employees and ran them through an Arizona employee resources firm to reduce WC. The employees lived and worked in CA, but their hours and paychecks were processed through AZ. It saved them a bundle of money but this loophole eventually got closed.

I site this example so that laymen understand that to run a legal business the costs escalate dramatically. There are plenty of businesses that are not doing so and the playing field isn’t level. Most of them would see any profit they are making quickly go to zero or negative if caught and required to run a legit business.

OTOH, there are some very resoureful individuals out there that can run small operations that are above board while remaining within the confines of the law. These people are primarily loners that have talent and a business accumen. They also have a good tax accountant that can keep them out of jail.

The likelihood of such ventures making big money is less, but so are the headaches. The best chance for success in such situations is to have a very popular but simple formula and to execute it well. This formula works best with someone that doesn’t care about prestige and has the ability to live within their means…which is easier said than done under the current administration.

There may be a shift should the political cliate change significantly. Without expressing any delusions of grandeur, small businesses may get a fairer shake by a new administration attempting to resolve or stimulate our economy. Tarriffs, taxing of big corporations, or penalties for large companies employing huge rosters offshore will not offset businesses that have a pricing structure that is fundamentally wrong to begin with.

However, a living wage for any industry worker is easier to attain when cost of living isn’t subjected t runaway inflation, stagflation, recession, depression, or hidden agenda price hikes netting record profits for specialized interests. The surfboard industry is a tiny little industry by comparison to many, and we will just have to wait and see where things end up in the next four to eight years.

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We make our own EPS blanks, and I always assumed anyone else who used more than a few per week

would do the same. So I guess I was wrong, along with you. We also have some relatively sophisticated

cutting technology that yields a very close-tolerance blank for each individual board. It’s hard to tell where

the blank making ends and the shaping begins.

After working with our EPS blower to get the foam fine-tuned, and coming up with new tools and methods,

I can honestly say that I prefer shaping EPS. When I infrequently shape a PU blank nowadays, it feels weird

and I wonder what that funny piece of wood is doing running down the center.

We’re not at all married to EPS, however. If we could find another foam that worked better in our technology,

we’d use it. But EPS has a combination of attributes that just can’t be matched by any other currently available

product, for our use.

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If the next foam were to come sooner the sailboard guys would already know about it and be using it. Those companies are very tech oriented and very well funded. Fact is, foam for surfboards can only be made out of four materials … urethane, polystyrene, polypoplyene, or polyethelyene. Those are the only core foams that are reasonably priced enough for this industry. You look at acryalic foam for instance. Great potential but when you get down to the price, no one is going to pay $200 for the blank alone. frustrating as it is surfboards only have so much room to spare. One of my old dealers worked as an engineer at Gulfstream. The first time he saw one of our boards broken he called and asked why I would use such bad foam. This was back when I was still making PU/PE and the foam he was critiqueing was Clark. The subject went to other alternatives and he soon realized that there were finantial implications he didn’t have to consider when building a corprate jet.

I agree that the surfboard industry is hardwired into outsourcing everything they can. It’s incredibly inefficient. I reread recently an interview with Dave Sweet and he ran his business much the same as our FL factory has always worked. Low production numbers and soup to nuts production. No outsourcing , make money off every production step because distribution is the most expensive and most difficult piece of the business.

As far as future ideas, I see that there is also potential in combining technologys like the WMD blanks from Warvel. That does have real potential especially when that potential is realized in compsands. If that becomes reality it seems you’d be in good place to take advantage.

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Simplifying a better process is what may send the consumer running back to custom. I’ve been working on a rudamentry idea which hopefully will bare fruit. But I’m not sure I have faith that the surfboard industry won’t just shoot themselves in the foot with it. They do have that history. I think to an extent they did paint themselves into a corner years ago using business practices which in effect decapatated themselves finantially. Perhaps their a bit older and wiser at this point and realize that working for nothing sucks. In business margin is king. Nothing else will make or break your business like this one aspect. Being fair in business doesn’t mean starving yourself. And not charging what a product is worth cheats your customer if you don’t stay in business.

The blank business at this point is making nothing and going out of business on a regular basis because of thin margins. With the amount of money spent on these businesses the chance of recouping any of it is probably nil. And if millions hadn’t been spent on these upstart PU businesses we’d right now have already seen the end of the PU biz in surfboards. The price of all blanks are artifically low and how long this can last is anyones guess.

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Very well said Greg!