How many boards until you got it right?

General Discussion
1

I’m relaitively new to board building, having built over 20 boards in the last two years.  Is it possible to ever build a perfect board?  I’m a perfectionist, so I’m never 100% satisfied.  It seems that if I’m really happy with a shape, the glass job has problems. Or I’ll shape a board that I’m not 100% sold on, then glass it almost perfectly.  I’m still trying to put the two together.

How many boards did you build before you were 100% satisfied with the finished product.  Or has that happened yet?  Am I too much of a perfectionist?

2

Ask Jim he has built like 70,000 or something crazy like that. The better I get the more faults I see. I have shaped around a 100 and glassed a few hundred and I am no where near there but my boards ride great and my glass jobs are good. I think if you shape unless you are in the upper tier you will always see imperfections but most of them don’t really effect much.

I just shaped a really nice board for myself and ruined it by using a dull blade on the stringer LOL

3

Some will get it right within a few boards. You can see  they have the talent understanding and drive. Others will spend a life time and never get it right.

4

Those who think they got it right are just fooling themselves. Whether you are an absolute beginner or someone with thousands of boards under your belt, you should never think you got it right. Nobody ever gets it right. Only you reach a level where you are the only one who knows where the flaw(s) is(are). So many ways to hide things, too… Why do you think pinlines were invented?

5

That’s good Balsa. One day I hope to be able to hide the flaws from my buddies =)

6

My latest next to the production board I basically copied for my friend.  I feel I've got the process down as close to production boards as a back yarder can get.  I'm at the point where the only way I could produce better boards would be to set up a proper production shop.

It took me about 15 boards before my end result would fit in with the other boards on the rack in a surf shop.

 

7

how many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop?

1,,,,2,,,,3,,,,, crunch!!!

 

three

 

haha that was funny,, couldnt resist

 

50 under my belt, not perfect but only those better that me can see the boo boo's

8

Get out of my head Balsa!!!!!!

I can drive by a house I built 35 yrs ago and the first things I notice are what bugged me when it was new. Your eye is drawn to the little pukas so to speak.

It keeps us honest.

9

I think they're all good answers, nothing is ever perfect, always shoot for better, but like artz says, some people just "get it" quicker.  My old college art teacher used to say, the good student is the one that uses today what he learned yesterday.

"Perfection" is what we strive for, what we envision as we work, but somehow, stuff happens.  Yes, we all strive to produce a flawless board, but the flaws are part of the human hand, so to speak.  Machines can be flawless, humans tend to be, well, human.  I don't think thats necessarily a bad thing.  I don't ever try to create a flaw, but I don't stress over them, either.  Compare a hand-cut dovetail in an antique wood drawer with a cnc cut particle board Ikea drawer, maybe you'll understand what I'm saying. 

The handcut dovetail is imperfect, but the love of the wood, the love of the craft, is there.  Maybe you see the pencil line the craftsman carefully marked, maybe he overcut just a tad, the saw kerf goes a little past the dovetail.  A tiny piece broke off, and you can see where he glued it back.  The cnc cut drawer is technically perfect, but where is the love?  The love of the profit, maybe?  Its not the same. 

Handmade surfboards, glitches and goofups under the logo, pinstripes covering a ragged edge of glass, handmade by craftsmen who love surfing, who love surfboards, and making, and sharing them, and watching someone get stoked on them, that's perfection!

10

Cheers Huck!

11

I have not made alot of boards, but so far I have screwed up every board...sometimes alot and sometimes not as much, but I think I learn somthing everytime, which is good. Plus, coming on here and reading about the screw ups across the world prevents me from doing the same mistakes(most of the time). good luck with you future projects

12

Here’s what you should do:

Take a level and a straight edge and walk around your house.  Check your walls and door ways, etc. 

Then go back to your board and measure…

So - I have 10 boards in my house and 2 of them are really special boards I bought from other people.  The rest are what I have made.  I mostly ride the boards I make…

I’m never going to have 70,000 boards under my belt…  But the third one I made is unreal.  And I think the next one is gonna be better.  The ones after that were good - I think the 7th one I did was “blue board” and it really rocks…  They all take a life.  Anyway, I am gonna do a few HWS boards this winter and see how they work. 

 

13

I’ve got about 18 boards under my belt. I still don’t have it right. The good news is I’m learning from every board and taking away a nugget at a time. Some of them have been down right good boards and some have come out mediocre. I can’t imagine every really becoming satisfied. I guess an artist is always their worst critic :slight_smile:

14

so far I screw up,  I just hate glassing, but stuff it, its fun and eventually it will just click, glassing on fins is a bloody trial, Im gonna steer away from that from now on.  Ive glassed on fins on two boards and will just shelf the idea for a while.

15

[quote="$1"]

I just hate glassing, but stuff it, its fun and eventually it will just click

[/quote]

oh man, I just love glassing!  Not saying I'm that good at it, and gloss coats are still a bit dicey for me, but I just love it.  Love the way the squeegee glides across that weave, love to watch the resin wet out the glass!  I wish I could glass something every night before I go to bed hahaha. 

16

Not sure what you mean by "get it right", nobody except you knows the difference between what you intended to build and what the end result became. I guess it would be better to ask if the board actually worked well for you and if you built it for someone else did they enjoy riding it.

Every board I have made has worked, some much better than others, but certainly none of them were perfect....and I can only strive to make the next one better. I don't compare what I make to 'production boards' or boards I see on the racks at surf shops because I would like to hold myself to a higher standard. I have seen lots of flaws on the big name boards flooding the lineups around here, and that's ok, they are all hand glassed and finished by humans.

I like to look at surfboards as 'functional art' and certainly art is almost never perfect but it still can be pleasing to the eye, and if you make it out of a deep barrel on it that's a bonus and you can be stoked because you were the artist that made it.

17

I agree with some of the others here. Dont know if one ever truly gets it right. It is more of an evolutionary thing where you evolve from one project to the next. Every board is a little different from the previous one. Before shaping boards I built furniture and by trade I design boats. Shaping is a a release for me that allows me to physically form something that glides through the water. I think many people strive for perfection but when it comes to shaping it can also lead to disaster that can lead to over shaping a board. The saying goes you can take foam away but you cant put it back.

 

When talking to other shapers and even reading here on this forum. Many times you will hear that some of the best ideas cam from ones that were not the original intention of the shape to begin with. I agree that the key is to be able to only be the one that sees the tiny imperfections in each of your boards as there will always be little details that you could look back on and say i could have done that a little better or different but only you will know.

18

oh the perfect board?

getting it right?

is it a sales pitch?

or is the right board a symptom of a comradarie 

of conformists in concert…

.

the board that you consider as ‘Right’

how do we determine such?

is it an advertizement 60 feet tall on the Ginza or Times square

or maybe an ad sponsored by honda with 5 kajillion hits on mee-toobe?

you may look at a manufactured board and say … "PERFECT,<>

.

when you can look at a production board and see the flaws

You darling sparrow have got it right.

the winchester rifle manufacture made interchangable parts

a factor in the evolution of the industrial revolution

and spelled the deeath of handmade guns made one at a time.

who needs em guns are fooked unless you are being attacked by a 

rhino or a bear or wanna eat a turkey or an elk …

.

so good bye to hand made surfboards that are unique onto themselves

if repeat and repeat and repeat surfboards are right.

yet the first board you make is

right enough and every one gets better

until they start to get worse.

.

the blind belief that the next board will be better

drives curiosity and creativity to arrange a concert

at your personal labratory/studio… a jazz riff in foam ?

a blues riff with curved stringers?

a classical orchestration in balsa and wenge?

or a simple sonata in b flat out of paloween

or pine shelving?

If YOU just do it ,make a board,

you got it more right than the plebian pedestrians

who never hear the real music.

.

…ambrose…

.

bireli Lagrene- play this on the  the loop

each vid is a diffrent board 

on a diffrent day at a diffrent spot.

.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inkgVuiq7wM&amp;feature=autoplay&amp;list=AVGxdCwVVULXdfceRWH_5R6YELT1mFBBsF&amp;lf=list_related&amp;playnext=9

.

 

play the same five songs over and over?

I think not.

19

[quote="$1"]

Not sure what you mean by "get it right", nobody except you knows the difference between what you intended to build and what the end result became. I guess it would be better to ask if the board actually worked well for you and if you built it for someone else did they enjoy riding it.

Every board I have made has worked, some much better than others, but certainly none of them were perfect....and I can only strive to make the next one better. I don't compare what I make to 'production boards' or boards I see on the racks at surf shops because I would like to hold myself to a higher standard. I have seen lots of flaws on the big name boards flooding the lineups around here, and that's ok, they are all hand glassed and finished by humans.

I like to look at surfboards as 'functional art' and certainly art is almost never perfect but it still can be pleasing to the eye, and if you make it out of a deep barrel on it that's a bonus and you can be stoked because you were the artist that made it.

[/quote]

Hi RAND,

 

I  meant that it ended up being what I intended. I find myself looking at a pretty much finished board and I can't walk away from it. There always seems to be something at some angle of light that I want to tweak. Many times I've just had to stop and take it directly to the glasser to get it out of site. I guess I can suffer from "overshaping". I couldn't be a full-time shaper. I'd go absolutely batshit crazy :)

 

 

 

 

 

20

I have the problem you describe on about every other board.  It always happens to me when dealing with the last 6 inches of the nose of a board.  Drives me crazy to not be able to blend those last few inches to perfection.