…well, yes, in the “lollypop” jig, the rounded part cuts equal to the other jig but the stick part cuts that 1/2 mm deeper…
but I think is due to the stick itself and might be the heavy amount of rocker that I put too.
reverb you can break the tab off you are right it prbly is rocker
A “loser” is a design or particular style of board you insist on making that is time and/or cost consuming that you will never command and fetch the price you need to make it worth your while. Let’s say those Byrne deep 6 channel jobbies back when every fin was glassed on… Hamish (Graham) charged extra for them back in the day, but I don’t think he charged enough to make it worth his while. Perhaps he rationalized that they would set him apart from other shapers and that was his justification. However, I doubt it. They were a real pain in the ass for us to do fin repairs on, and the same goes for everyone that did any production on them.
As far as “crunching numbers”… this is a necessity for anyone that is seriously in ANY kind of business. Particularly so in this industry because you have people that are constantly looking for deals or perceive value in a multitude of ways, or base their buying decision on who makes the best surfboard. I have to question how much value is gained by running enormously expensive ads in the surf magazines in order to boost your numbers produced when the profit margin remains slim. At the end of the day, did spending $12K on a page net you enough orders that you end up in the black? How many surfshops call you and say “I saw your boards in the Surfboard Guide” and **we want to order and PAY for 60 of them for our shop(s). ** You cannot justify volume on the bottom line unless you are doing offshore production.
I can’t claim I never advertised, but I only did so when I was at the height of sailboard production in the 80’s. Most of my promotional expense went to putting Brett Lickle and some other key riders on boards for specific purposes. Brett was pioneering Jaws with people like Peter Cabrinha, Alex Aguera, Laird (his tow in parnter now days), and some other early day chargers. The photo incentive was there and pictures that Greg Huglin and Glenn Dubock took of Brett were basically THE ads. I had another key sailor Nils Stolzlechner in Austria/SF Bay, and speed sailor Richard Johnson covering other facets of the sport along with a whole crew of guys I sailed with at Jalama, C Street and some guys at The Gorge.
Hanging out in a surfboard factory doesn’t make you a winner. Incepting and developing significant design approaches rarely pans out either. The guys that are hungry for fame, that have the trust funds or bucks to advertise, frequently end up running ads to pump up their credibility and stature in what I consider a ‘monkey see, monkey do’ business. Or in a few rare cases, it comes down to which guys connect with the right surfers, work hard, and catch a break… like an actor whose career is launched on a fluke, like Harrison Ford, who was working on the set of “Star Wars” as a wannabe actor/carpenter, and was asked to read for the role of Hans Solo.
Uncle Al (M.) maintains that his team riders drove what he made. In my opinion that is a pretty honest statement. Merrick and I both started shaping about the same time, and both were impressed by what John Bradbury had accomplished on a local basis. John never advertised, but eventually caught the eye of Martin Potter and a few others that made the public more aware of his existence. As a kid, I rode for JB, and later on glassed many of his shaped blanks to the point of his asking me to glass all of them but I was only 17 and didn’t want to be tied down.
Al, in turn, became more prominent when Shaun Tomson worked with him on what he wanted in his twin fins that originally came from Spider Murphy. Tom Curren had yet to connect with Al and was sweeping Bob Krause’s shop and riding his boards. But Al’s ability to remain open to new ideas, like Greenough/Chris Brock’s tri hull kept moving him up the ladder coupled with the fact that Al is A GREAT COACH. His ability to scoop up young undeveloped talent and develop them set the foundation for his future as well as theirs. In the meantime, as Al was gaining momentum, I left Surf n Wear after reviving the old Owl Surfboard label, handing it off to Marc Andreini. By '79 i left SnW, and in 1980 was hired by O’neill for 22 month stint. Then upon return, tended divers, dove myself, and established ‘the Underground’ detouring into windsurfing. I still made surfboards, but only several hundred per year. Bob Krause came on board as my other shaper. BK was the one who got me smitten with windsurfing, and I was attracted to the design possibilities that would allow me growth as a designer and the ability to quantify my work. for the most part, I felt surfboards had hit a point of stagnation. With speed sailing we focused on what I call the “speed checked by radar” era. Plus of course Brett’s cloud break conquests.
Like Al, I had captured and enjoyed momentum in what I made, but with sailboards versus surfboards. Momentum is a difficult thing to achieve and maintain, but wonderful nonetheless. Ironically, the sport that I learned so much from waned and has all but died when the economy went flat by the end of the decade. Now windsurfing as we knew it, has been replaced with kite guys. A metamorphing of sorts. The guys that had momentum, like Naish kept right on going into kiteboarding and SUP’s, but in 1990 I was in a horrific car accident and lost everything I hd ever worked for. I’m proud of what I produced and what I accomplished during that period, but I never became the biggest thing since soda pop like Uncle Al. But as a designer, I know what I know, which is a lot. I guess you could compare it to one guy who is the biggest celebrity in the world and another guy that is an actor’s actor. Both worked hard and are worthy, one got the break, the other is forgotten. The new year comes in & time marches on!
If you feel good about what you make and what you offer to people…if you receive a consistent flow of feedback from stoked customers riding your designs…then I would say you are ‘winning’. Not EVERYTHING in the world is about money. Yes, money is a vehicle for existing or even realizing dreams, but if I was dying in the desert, I’d rather have a canteen of water than a million bucks…
hey fellas sorry for the hijack
but things are looking a bit grim over here?
back to the topic
is this not part of the overall prblm
a famous quote
Every day I
go out into the shaping room, turn on the sidelights, put a blank on
the racks, and draw out a planshape. I listen to and talk with surfers
about design and construction every single day. I hear about every soft
spot, every buckled board, and every sticky turn. At the end of each
evening, I blow the dust off, turn off the lights, and leave behind in
the darkened shaping bay another new surfboard.
exactly how many of the names in lights does this apply in reality?
**
**
going to china using machines now the chinaman copys THE MACHINE and adds more delema to the big picture
by selling a cheap version
look at the bottom end of the goldy at least 14 machines in operation
bloody unsastainable.
…Huie man! a knock off of the machine?
I really didnt know about that…I really didnt even thought about it!
It s like David vs Goliath
An hour ago I put some of those boxes and closer inspected the stick on the cup and is like previously mentioned, the guilty is the stick; those are tapered out to the end and also have a bit of curvy
Bloody unsustainable.
Now that is the most insightful statement imaginable.
How many guys have enough volume to financially justify having their own machine>
Next to nil.
Great tool, precision, stae of the art, blah blah blah.
Economically a joke for the vast majority of shapers.
Shaping machines put talented shapers out of work.
I can shape a great board WITHOUT ELECTRICTY and in locations you can’t even get ONLINE.
If I do a custom board a day all by myself, I make more doing less without insane expenditures for ads, riders, bro deals, running around like a mouse in red hot steel drum.
My whole deal is much less impressive to the looky lous these days, but I also don’t have to make 30 boards a month to just break even.
I’m over prestige, I don’t pretend to be Santa Claus, and I sure as hell don’t need to feed my ego by paying dearly for a full page ad of myself to look at.
The biggest mistake I ever made was believing my own press.
Bloody unsustainable.
haaaa’’ school was not my pet subject
yea thats the prblm machine = numbers = unsustainable?
never mind mate if you can survive till you retire. it then becomes just for the love of it
** cheers huie
**
**
**
Before '08 , it was viable for some boardmakers to lease a machine and get the sales to pay for it . IMO the GFC was much more than just a recession ....it was collapse of an unsustainable system based on growth and greed . Some are still waiting for things to get back to normal ....what's normal ? It's put the focus back on independant tradesman boardbuilders , as it should be....I just hope the younger craftsman can hang in long enough to be rewarded for taking the time to learn properly .....and also adapt to a changed world...
Ok … $250 a week repayments min 20 shapes per week average 30. Makes perfect sense. I can think of about 500 boards a week placed from Currumbin south to tweed… Sure I can, and have shape blocks of foam, timber into boards in places without online access. Who is going to rough out(literally too I imagine for that price) 25 boards a week for 250 bucks and get them exactly as I want them…
Yes.
I just find it very ironic that with all the focus on using responsible materials that the powers that be intent on fattening the corporate bottom line think nothing of displacing “their fellow surfer brothers & sisters”, all the while adding to the biggest glut of product since the beginning of surfing.
I don’t really want to start an argument debating whether surfing is better now or back when as that is an endless debate that is entirely up to the individual. I can only state what I have found to be true for me, and that is with the reduced volume so many of today’s shapers are experiencing, that machining of blanks represents a middle man that results in yet another layer that impacts cost in an adverse way for many of them.
I’m not disputing the value of creating files that can be kept, referred back to, combined, scaled or modified to any extent desired… that is a given advantage. But unless you are producing the type of numbers that actually fiscally make sense to be doing it in this manner, you are more than likely losing a healthy percentage of the total cost of a surfboard sitting on the rack somewhere. I have to ask: are you REALLY THAT SWAMPED with orders that you can’t get the orders out in timely fashion. Gee, lucky you… not.
I seriously doubt that you can prove that a machined surfboard sitting next to an expertly handshaped surfboard in any given shop will fetch more $. Yet the norm has become the widespread use of files and machining. The ideology in approaching production is sound, but the economics is flawed.
Of course, that isn’t the case IF you are using cheap labor offshore.
I suppose it is natural for those in business to find a way to realize greater profits. But to me the many countries that have outsourced everything from surfboards to baby pacifiers to places like China, Vietnam, and India are seriously undercutting their own economy. Historically, no super power has ever maintained its stature without supporting a manufacturing base.
Another irony that is more tragic than ironic, is the current situation in Mexico. If cheap labor is the issue, it would have been far wiser for the United States to create a better program than NAFTA to lend economic support to our southern neighbor that we are constantly debating how to stop the massive influx of illegal immigration that negatively impacts the cost of goods and services in America.
Instead we are ‘enjoying’ brisk sales of guns to Mexican-Columbian-and now Korean drug cartels.
Now we have surf based corporations complaining about the aggressive takeovers from ‘non-surf’ corporations. Well that kinda sounds like justice from where I’m standing. It was bound to happen. Banks, Corporations and the 25 year old whiz kids on Wall Street getting $700K bonuses are way outta line and until the system reins them in, it will only get worse.
Happy New Year.
Tuck and cover.
P.S. Feral… I wasn’t stating $250 for a shape. My formula is a minimum net of $250 for doing the whole board start to finish, the “old fashioned way” (?). That is for a clear sanded shortie under 7 ft… anything else I NET more. So that net has taken every expense into account: materials, overhead, tool amortization, the whole gamut. Net IS NET. So for example, if I built a board a day every day that would average 7.019 boards per week and net me $91,250. NET.
I’m comfortable doing 5 boards per week for a minimum net of $62,500. Not big money, but no commute and I can hump one week and go to Baja the next if I want. Life could be worse. Of course this formula doesn’t work for the Prima Dona Shapers that I can’t believe even still exist and are one trick ponies in my book… just like the guys machining blanks.
P.P.S. If I want to boost my volume to 10+ per week AND CAN JUSTIFY DOING SO FROM ORDERS then I have some methods I’ve devised to speed up shaping without the use of machining. Time is money, so I have to decide whether I want to be driving an 80 mile round trip to p/u from the closest cutter and factor in his charge, my drive time & travel expense.
I say screw that, give my blank guys deck rocker templates for glue ups, use full templates for models. I saw right on the line and I’m good at it, so screw using a router. With my standard bottom formulas, I can put the bottom contours in while thicknessing on the fly. I devised contoured rail stamps at precise points to kinda mindlessly mow down to, then run super softie pads over rails bands with preferred grit and finish out. If you compare the drive time, extra expense, and checking the machined blanks for trueness (I’ve seen my fair share of Fk’d Up machined blanks), then I’m probably closer to actual start to finish time to a CNC then one realizes. Of course one off customs are always treated as one off customs, as are exact replicas of magic boards.
DEAD: Your better off never using cnc. Just keep your program how it is. There are few people who could do your program anyway. You are better off just building them yourself from start to finish. No use getting in a car and driving to a cutting house.
I’ve seen my fair share of Fk’d Up machined blanks
So have I.
When I first got my machine it was a nightmare. Today it’s a piece of cake. Norm Abrams wrote a book called measure twice cut once. In CNC measure Three times cut once. It’s only math and indexing. With your skills just do what you do. You are the exception!
Respectfully,
surfding**
**
I think , anyone who invested in a machine pre - '08 -'09 , would welcome an opportunity to unload it now , unless its already payed for , or their business is primarily cutting shapes for good shapers.
I have a machine I bought end of 2005 start of 2006. I love it and it’s paid for. At one time I had a cutting service. However it’s not very fun. Many shapers don’t understand deck rocker. Plus when you have people cutting for you they make mistakes. If you cut yourself and control your files it’s a great tool. I cut boards for others but mostly smaller producers. These guys pay their bills so having a few guys to cut for fills in the gaps and is easy money these days. The bigger brands cut with PRO CAM or KKL or ROUGH HOUSE otherwise Some Brands have their own Machine. Kayu to buy a machine today you need to really like CNC Technology or have a health issue that keeps you from mowing foam all day or both. To try and start a cutting service is not a very good business in today’s economical environment. If you have a machine close to you and it is convenient then using a service is Ideal. I have my machine fitted with a digital scanner and have various software to create files. My set up is working fine for me. However it’s not for everybody and you don’t need it if don’t have too. Deadshaper, Yorky and a few others are good examples of guys that don’t need CNC. It is still an outstanding technology and in the right hands a great tool.
Kind regards,
surfding
on the money Ding !......good to hear its payed for ...my bro bought a Masterwood cnc for furniture years back , and downsized last year . The Masterwood is payed for , and he has greatly reduced his overheads with downsizing...........haha!..all good...
im stoked. mine is payed for in oct… i spent $90,000 in three years before i bought it, on other guys cutting my boards, i was forever plauged with waiting for them to cut them, missing blanks, poorly cut stuff and generally operator abuse and neglect…
showed these figures to the bank and they jumped to help me… now i get what i want when i want… i can go in and cut 60-80 & shape the boards so there is work in front of my glassing staff, then leave for a indo trip etc while they have lots of work to do. come back in 2 weeks and all the boards are completed and happy customers have showed thier mates. i collect the next batch of orders and do it again…
im stoked with my system…
Kind regards,
Surfding
Don't you bloody dare, hey I'm your mate, fuck who cares if you have a machine, I don't. I have made an asshole of myself on here, saying what I think ,so many times, when I've had too many beers. I was going away for another couple of years, stay,those guys you mentioned are good guys, just passionate, you have been the only one with balls enough to reply. Just understand it's not against you, it's against change. They are making new marine reserve zones here , where you can and can't fish, how do you reckon those guys are behaving in the meetings, try telling the deadliest catch guys they can't fish, fuck you, your'e here with us , ok? H.
Feral, it is really gr8 to hear how the CNC system works when there is the kind of volume you enjoy. No doubt you have that volume because you are quality driven, reliable, and have designs people love.
To be quite honest, if I were down the street from Surfding, I’d have him do my models just to save on the grunt work, even though I have greatly reduced with specific rockers, special jigs and tools, etc. because it really does make sense for models.
Heck ya I would be machining everything if I was only shaping them and doing 50 to 80 per week. I could even justify it financially to drive them or have a kid drive them to the glass shop. But that was then and this is now, and I don’t have that factory I grew to 5K sq. ft. with 8 to 10 employees, and I’m kinda glad I don’t have those logistics anymore. Okay, I’m really glad I don’t have those logistics anymore… it looked good to everyone else, but I was constantly getting pulled off shaping to fill in for some numb nut that called in saying he had strep throat then would seem him at Rincon.
Now 90% of the stuff I do is custom anyway, and luckily a lot of those customs are reorders from guys that have ridden my boards for many years, so I already know how they surf, what they want, or can help them move to the next thing.
It’s all good, whatever works for you. If I won the lottery I’d make boards for people and tell them just pay me what you think the board is worth after you ride it.
Wouldn’t that be kind of fun?
Cheers for the kind words Mate. i do like what i do… im with you on the running the 8 employees etc… but i get satisfaction at times too from seeing them grow and improve thier lives. i too would be the lotto shaper like you evsiage… might be hard to get hold of me on my own private island… but i sure would be making some cool boards! if my business model works out i wont be much different to you in the future… but i probably will keep my machine just because i love the gadgets and technology…
I'm really sorry I didn't see your reply and I didn't expect such a detailed outline of your'e career. Have any of us ever called it our career before, I havn't. For a starter the reason I answered the way I did was because my exwife liked to call me a loser whilst my business was heading south. I'm not a loser, just a bit close to the bone. I would guess you are about my age, 55, and I don't come on here to be a prick, true, so would you like to be my mate? I know that sounds like 3rd grade, hey we learnt a lot then, relax , lol it can be public, H.