Should a cash paying customer have to wait for a custom surfboard?
What's too long?
What's the longest you've waited?
For the pro and backyard semi pros,
What's the longest you've made one of your paying customers wait?
I once waited 9 months for a board from a major shaper. In my experience the average has been about 3-4 months.
I try and keep it under a month from the time I have the blank. Sometimes I have blank problems and occasionally glassing delays. But I have always put the custom order guy first. I would not want to order a summer board and get it next winter or a winter board and get it just in time for summer. Thats my goal and I try and stick to it. Every once and awhile one falls into the “black hole”.
As a backyarder, I say 4-6 weeks, but try to get it to them in under a month. People get stoked when they get that call 2 or 3 weeks after the put down the deposit.
Once I waited 7 months to get a custom from a local surf shop. That was 16 years ago, and I’ve been back to building my own ever since.
3-4 month AVERAGE?!!
Damn…
I’ve only ordered a custom once, and from a shaper that was just starting out, but I got it in 3 weeks. If I waited 3 months I’d be outraged…
I wouldn’t have payed at all if I waited 9 months. I’d say he can stick the board right up his @$$, fins first.
The thing that always got me real pissed is when I used to wait three weeks for a ding fix. Since I’ve for most of my surfing life I’ve only had one board to surf that meant 3 weeks out of the water. In peak swell season that is a real pain in the @$$. So I started fixing my own dings. Soon I’d be making my own boards.
I’d say a month is an acceptable time to wait, two MAX if it is the time of the year that everyone buys boards. (Just before summer and just before winter…) Unless it is a special order with some things that tend to take time, like multiple stringers, detailed graphics, veneers/compsand, etc. Wooden boards are a whole nother matter too. But 3-4 months for a foamie that can be cut, shaped, and glassed in the space of a few days… Unless some special attention is needed or the shaper is swamped with orders, (in which case he should notify the customer.) a month or two is ample time to finish most boards.
when i used to work at a big name surfboard factory the time frame would be between 4 to 6 six weeks, some made it sooner and some made it way later, i think its difficult for a company that doesnt do its own glassing to get boards done on the quick, ive personal seen boards that were lost at a glass shop that were over a year old
when i do boards it will take me around a week to finish the board once i get the blank depending on how staked up i am with repairs, and repairs generally take anywhere from a couple of days to a week, that always keeps my customers happy, ive heard of way too many stories about boards taking 3 or more months to get fixed
i recently just put in a order with Pendo to get a board from him and he was telling me about how he gave Skip Fry a blank for him to shape 5 years ago and Skip finally got it done for him a couple of days ago
oh and im so excited to get my Pendo flex i cant wait for it, its gonna be sooo good
I once waited 9 months, only to find that the guy hadn’t even made the board to spec. So I insisted that it be redone right. That took an additional 5 months. It was the 4th board I’d bought from this guy. It was also the last.
When a shaper gives me a ballpark delivery date, I expect him to have the board done not more than a couple or three weeks late at most. He knows his work load at the moment he takes my order, so if he runs two months late, I figure he’s probably shoe-horning people in ahead of me in line. I don’t appreciate that if I’m paying full price. Maybe I’ve ordered the board way ahead of time to have it for a planned vacation or something.
Of course, if a guy has an accident or comes down with major health or family problems, he deserves some slack.
My current shaper is one of the “old masters” and he has gotten every one of my orders done ahead of schedule…sometimes WAY ahead of schedule. In addition to being a real artist with a planer, he understands that if you want to have a business—ANY business—for long, you have to run it in a business-like way.
Life is too short (especially at my advanced age) to put up with the antics of prima-dona shapers.