[quote="$1"]
That Elephant carving may have been done by a machine. Yep....no shit. A friend of mine was in Indonesia last year and he bought a container load of carved furniture. He said the factory it came from had around 30 shaping machines that did 90% of the carving. All the humans did was finish it off with hand tools. Sounds familiar.
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And we were all trying so hard not to mention the elephant in the thread...
[quote="$1"]
Never. Not till they pry my Skil from my cold, dead hands.
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well in that case you might want to find a different storage container for your rail offcuts and your skill 100, and get that thing far far out of the shaping room - were you to inadvertently kick it, it could be very unfortunate...
(sorry, bad pun)
its ganesh an indian god btw.
howdy cleanlines,
the cambodian heritage preservation center in siem reap that replicates old artifacts like that piece in the pic teaches their stone & wood carving apprentices to literally copy carvings & sculptures by hand. they use calipers to get every detail right, and only perfectly-finished replicas are sold to tourists. interestingly it’s illegal to bring out uncarved lumber, which i found out to my regret after buying a couple of 10-foot 2x4s of local wood species i wanted to use for my HWS quiver. had to go back to the wood shop to swap the stock with a small corner table with enough usable wood for the same purpose.
cheers,
haaaa’’ few people geting panties all knoted?
shaper just what does this truly mean??.
i have been a person that has shaped boards since 1958 but
in that time i have also glassed’’ sanded. glosscoated polished vacumed
bag .
**when this whole package is in your kit you will then come to
realise that the shaper tag is just part of the whole show’’ to work
in a shop with other shapers has a very valuable experience the
comradry’’ is priceless
**
the pushing each other’’ to pinch the scissors from the glassing room to cut some sandpaper haaaaa’’
or to dare to open the door of the finish room fark that
stare from the gloss coater. these
experiences are whats needed to get your stripes
and to manage a team of these people is even more hair raising than one could even imagine’’
to have orders overdue and the team refusing to turn there back on the swell teaches you even more
about building surfboards’’ than worrying about being a shaper or a glasser?
if they did not shape them on time i did glassing the same’’
so i guess what i am saying is untill you can do it all and get customer satisfaction
you are just another wheel in the cog
**cheers huie
**
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right on reverb you are so right
cheers huie
I don’t see how a Skil and a stack of templates is any different than a machine loaded with stacks of CNC files. You set the depth by feel and speed, others do it by punching numbers or drag and drop. Both take skill and understanding. I see that machine as a tool as any shape, production or custom, is just a block of foam with it’s excess removed. Others said it better, it’s not the tool that is the problem, perhaps it’s the loss of the craftsmanship that comes with the overuse of the machines that are the problem.
Like all things, there are stock shapes and not so stock shapes. Few surfers acheive a level that they can understand let alone feel the difference. Imagine what the rasp and sanding purists thought when the first, soulless grom took a electric planer to foam.
Machines are great…make the best coffee!!
Hey Barry, I’ll take that planer if it’s in the trash with your rail cut-offs.
On topic…i agree hand shaping (at least good hand shaped boards, plenty dogs out there) is a dying art…i wonder how many handshapers have actually tried a machine? my kids often wont try a new food…cause " they hate it" . How can u hate it if u havent tryed it?
[quote="$1"] ....i wonder how many handshapers have actually tried a machine? my kids often wont try a new food....cause " they hate it" . How can u hate it if u havent tryed it? [/quote]
nice
i;ll shut up now…for a bit
lol
I was gonna stay out of this but… I was “lucky” enough to make a living shaping surfboards for about 32yrs. I started playing around with it for a few years than quit for awhile before “getting serious” about shaping. Skip Fry was shaping my boards and just one day out in the water said " Albert why don’t you go back to shaping your own boards again" . At that time I was free to choose any life path i wanted, I had already screwed up a business and a marriage to surfing.
My father and grandfather were “craftsmen” always making things by hand which I always admired. I unfortunately was too much of an “artist” and a surf bum to have the discipline to learn how to make a square table. But I always like the noise of the tools and sawdust in the air.
Shaping surfboards for me was kinda cool because there was no 45 degree angles and I could sort of wing it. But as I did a few more I realized there was more to it than I thought so I stopped and chased other life paths.
Fate is funny and my path led to Mike Eaton. He was looking to back away from the shaping and concentrate more on the business end. I was chasing the shaping thing and wanted to get good at it. I already had realized I had an addiction to the noise and dust and sculpting a perfect blend of “art and craft and water time” and just needed to find the right path.
I remember asking him in the beginning “does it ever get boring”, shaping? I found the answerer to that all these years later NO! For me handshaping a surfboard from start to finish noise to dust, is still fresh still fun and personally rewarding from a craftsmen art surfer blend. My mentors, and I had some good ones thank you, were all CRAFTSMEN not computer geeks.
I have sanded a few computer shaped boards[ lost some really prized accounts to em] and I do not think I have ever done anything as boring as sanding ridges on a pre shaped blank. So for me I do not think I would have stayed in shaping for so long and had such a rewarding life experience that let me blend all those elements. craftsmanship art and surfing experience into something that even made some money.
Is hand shaping becoming a dying art? YES as more of the hand shaping craftsmen leave this planet it dies a little bit each time.
I have had a couple younger guys think they want to learn how to hand shape a surfboard but when they see it is actually work…
Handshaping still works for me. You can do whatever you want.
Ace You are one of the Lucky people someone who has found his calling and no not just the Bar tender calling for you.
A friend of mine calls the new breed of production shapers ridge rubbers. There are a few guys out there That are following the old ways.
What the world really needs is computerized glassing. Put a shaped blank in one end of the machine and nice shinny board emerges at the other end.
Wait I take that back glasses have been known to do evil things with buckets of resin to those that piss them off.
Sounds like a guy who’s done it all. Nothing worse than some cretan cutting paper with the 22’s, or a donkey opening a door while your glosses are trying to settle. Yeah, the hardest thing is managing a crew of social misfits to the point of consistently turning out a world-class quality product; yeah that ain’t so easy, and it doesn’t happen very often.
The machine is only a starting point, and can get you closer to your desired destination, but you still have to work your way to the finish line. Mastery of the 100, makes cleaning bad cnc-preshapes way easier. and efficient.
This is all very true. While I do use the machine for say 40% of my boards, I do not get the same enjoyment scribbing out a blank as I do when I do the whole thing.
However, as someone else echoed, I believe that if you have not earned (for lack of a better term) and learned to hand shape properly, your machine cuts will just be “ok” and not the magic that a good hand shaper can produce. But, if you understant how to design, shape and finish the board, you can create that magic with the machine too.
“Shaping” as a stand alone activity is great. But, like you I’m more artistic than practical. I got into making boards to satisfy my need to create, and earn a living. I went to art school for sculpture oh so many years ago, and appreciate the brain, hand, and eye coordination and discipline it takes to make something by hand.
For me, and this (whole thread for that matter) is just opinion, since I do all my own glassing and finishing, I still have plenty of time to screw up… Using the machine just allows me a bit more creativity in other ways.
There are kids out there shaping their own boards, and that’s great. I handed off a lot of my tools to friends in the UK when I left. They’ve taken the reigns and are making some really creative and fun boards. But, they’re hobbyists. I don’t see a lot of kids making boards at a good level on their own in any professional level. There’s plenty hipsters out there handshpaing stuff too, but that to me isn’t the same thing. Not saying back yard boards aren’t important - they are part of our heritage. Just saying there’s a difference between a kid that gets into the craft by working with a master shaper versus someone just knocking out boards for fun. Both are valid in their own way, but as this thread is more about “professional” shapers, I find the arguements about hobbyists irrelevant.
As I said before, I think this thread should really read “Is hand built board building a dying art” because even if there are kids joining the foam mowing tradition, who’s going to glass all the foam when the old glassers are gone? Even fewer people are willing to learn to glass a board than are willing to shape them, machine or not…
Enjoy it folks, custom boards will become harder and harder to find over time, for sure.
Hi Rob good post, and good post by ACE that you referenced as well.
I wouldn't discount hobbyists from the discussion, Terry Martin saw hobbyists as an important part of the continuation of the hand shaping tradition, which is what the thread is about.
I agree that hobbyists and pro shapers are worlds apart in many ways, one of the foremost is production / efficiency. A hobbyist can take a month to shape a board, a pro would never be able to do that. I think that production is probably one of the foremost reasons that a pro would turn to using a machine to shape, or pre-shape.
I see a lot more acceptance of the machine here lately, my own feeling as stated is that they are here to stay for the present time, no use getting worked up about it. I understand the economic justification for the machine, and the practical justification as well - maybe its good to eliminate some of the tedium of hand shaping, when its what you do all day every day. I don't like to see people criticized for doing what the economy has all but forced them to do, or what they have done to improve their business plan.
But like ACE and others, I'm a "hands-on" guy, have been all my life. I also like the artistic / creative aspect of it, being trained in the fine arts (graphic design / illustration, in my case) as well. I like the spontaneity of being able to change a direction or detail halfway through the shaping process.
As a backyarder myself, I have a lot of respect and appreciation for the professionals who frequent this board, and share willingly of hard-earned insights and knowledge. Someone once said, what if the pro's got paid for posting here? Of course, its all voluntary, but maybe the rest of us would listen a little harder if we were paying for the privilege LOL.
Re Huck, if you only knew how long it took me to get here, I mean to reply to you, you Hucklebeeryfin, rascal. I took 5 photos, didnt work, scanned this 3 times, before I could find it, ok before I start about the question you asked, check this out. This is my old factory, which I am still allowed to work from. Ralph retro now owns it now and this is his son. Oh I’m a useless dropkick on hitech, bloody lowtech. Ok check this out then I will say more. Off course it’s a dying art, on ya Ace!!!.
cheers H.
Because I know this is not live and I don’t want to go any more crazy waiting for you people to answer, here’s a snippet of what Curtis wrote, mag, HOW DID YOU DO IT? Curtis, I hand shaped it. Computer shapes are just like cheating, it takes the fun out of the whole experience of shaping a board. He’s 12, and just his opinion, over and out,
H.
