Greg…from a performance standpoint. What is it about these boards that you feel is giving the edge over the other boards on the tour or in free surfs?
cmom bro
they actually feel quite nice when you put one on
The surfboard industry needs to offer better value for money in surfboards. Whether it be more durabilty at the same price, more durability and better performance at a slightly higher price or the same as before at a cheaper price. Either way I still reckon Firewire and Lost are both in the shit.
at the moment im doing custom compsand cheaper then a machine cut poly
in Napier
and making 50$ an hour
all just a hoby of course
only someone with mental issues would try and build an empire out of surfing
who do you consider to be the “majors”
$50 an hour is good if you can get the work…
I think compsands have a bit more pop out of turns. I think standard boards start out with pretty good pop but they fatique so quickly that performance durability suffers. Like any one else, pro guys need to get used to a board to get the best performance. The way pro boards are built today they use the lightest foam they can get and glass it single 4 both sides. Durability is bad enough but if the thing doesn’t break it doesn’t ride good for more than a week tops anyway. Back when I was competing we made boards with heavier materials than what standard boards are today and performance was a two - three month affair at best. And those boards didn’t have the pop of today’s high performasce pro boards because of the stiffness of those materials. Compsands do have that performance or better and offer durability.
So I think there’s a couple issues here. Last year Taj won Jeffery’s on a board that was over a year old. That alone makes a statement. And to get the best performance you need a certain flex and return which standard boards give you at very light weights but don’t keep. In this case perimeter weighted compsands have it all over every other construction. They have performance, durability and performance durability.
The issue with compsand is the difficulty in construction. I don’t hear anyone on here complaining about the performance or durability. What we’re close to completing is a simple method of construction utilizing techniques borrowed from a number of sources, some of whom are right here, namely Greg Tate, Paul Jensen, Speedneedle (Josh) and Bert Burger, and put together in a new way and combining that with the WMD product from Warvel. Suddenly you have a shape, skin, laminate and finish process instead of a shape, skin, shape again, skin again, shape again, laminate and finish. And as custom as any product out there which few compsands are at this point.
The potential is to get custom builders into the custom motorcycle biz, so to speak. Make something with more worth and do it effectively as a business. Make custom worth what we want to charge, what we HAVE to charge. Making what the Chinese make won’t get us there. Tossing together something that has basically been disposible for the last 20 years has devalued what we do to the point where imports can compete. And we are nearly in a position where we can’t compete with them!!! There’s a better mousetrap and we all know there is. We simply have to make it viable as a producable product and a business. The goal here is custom reclaims the high road.
I am still a principal at FW but have concluded my consulting contract there. RR is my full time job and expanding our potential as an industry is my goal. It’s been my passion for a long time.
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The issue with compsand is the difficulty in construction. I don’t hear anyone on here complaining about the performance or durability. What we’re close to completing is a simple method of construction utilizing techniques borrowed from a number of sources, some of whom are right here, namely Greg Tate, Paul Jensen, Speedneedle (Josh) and Bert Burger, and put together in a new way and combining that with the WMD product from Warvel. Suddenly you have a shape, skin, laminate and finish process instead of a shape, skin, shape again, skin again, shape again, laminate and finish. And as custom as any product out there which few compsands are at this point.
hey greg this is a great idea, bert burgers bible
on the compsands principle is alot of reading to get the answers.so any simple easy to follow info on the matter would be a great benefit to supplement berts stuff.
Also compsand.com is a great place to get you started as well, plenty of guys with a wealth of experience who can give sound easy advice on the basics and where to buy the materials required.especially with regard to australasian builders.
do i smell another greg loher how to video
i am glad you have at last admitted what you new all along
there is an alternative to the stubby holder blank
a well made compsand
we at compsand.com have known this all along &a how to from you should help the cause i would think.
Interesting thread.
I don’t think this claim to fast and easy is exactly a first tho. Maybe a public first.
I know from private discussion that Sabs got build times down to under 8 hours. Paul ran with this and is approaching the 4 hour mark now.
And all high quality customs. Pauls latest finishes look as good as a lot of nice poly boards I see.
kind of sounds like that original parabolic blank sales sheet concept you posted 3-4 years ago when alot of this started.
I think you provide the skins along with the blank to make the finished board.
I can’t find the writeup in my stash of info right now but this rings a bell to what to wrote on your parabolic railed blank sales spec sheet. A close tolerance EPS blank with preset HD foam rails and HD foam skins all part of the same blank sale.
Actually the way things are going I can’t see why any pro shaper just could get a blank setup like this delivered from their blank supplier precut to their specs kind of like pauhana provides premachined blanks as part of their service. There’s enough pro shapers using DSD and Shape 3D software these days anyway and a proliferation of cutting machines to make getting a semi finished machine cut compsand blank sent back for hand finishing from lots of locations throughout the world.
Other than getting these raw parabolic blanks glued up for the machines its a no-brainer to migrate this into a production environment based on how many boards are cut today for hand finishing…
The epoxy vacuum bag glassing like what Wet Glass is doing in California(but using prepregs) would also compliment these types of board builds to make it more common that what’s available today. A board could take no longer than it takes today with out that much more labor and end up with better technology for durability.
Am I off base here with this vision of how the tech will eventually be implemented?
nah im not that fast bro
4hours what??
no i have produced a shaped and skined and finished perimeter stringer blank in a flyshit under 3 hours hands on
with makeshift equipment in a messy workspace
we have got a system that will nail blank production in under 2 i think
my material cost is around 100$ AU
cheaper then a PU blank
and requires no surf industry suppliers or material
heres one i showed a mate to build
its very strong and under 5 pounds
obviously cosmetics are not super as hes only made a few boards
but the overall strength and flex characteristics is undoubtably in the top end of this technology
his pig dog tried to eat this board but failed
this board is light and pig dog proof
i asked if it was a paint spill near the north island hes pointing to
but he insisted its a sectret group of islands not on the chart near new zealand that have indo type waves
i still rekon its a paint spill though
Could be 
CNC EPS blanks are pretty simple apparently.
Rumor has it a certain freeware surboard CAD proggy may soon be able to supply CAD for the core itself - just plug in skin thicknesses and rail width and presto.
Sweet board Paul!
Sorry bout my mistake re 4 hours 
That’s still really fast tho.
at the end of the day though its not about fast build times or pumping out millions of boards
firwire tried it and it didnt work
unfortunately they handed the tec to chinese factories practically on a PLATE
its about high end qaulity and thats really what compsand is offering
top grade exotic woodys and slick looking sans and pvc with asp type performance
service service service
really this stuff is already in the public domain
all that remains is for people to nut out how to fit it in to there small businesses
and iron out the small stuff
the other piece everyone is ignoring is the cost of transport.
little factories or coops strategically located through the world if done for a reasonable cost along with a long term storage option could be the next progression of the business side of this all…
make a reservation show up have it waiting for you at the airport when you show up and leave it there when you leave for either a resale or long term storage until you return once again… the durability of the end product will increase it’s sales value and reuse if place into storage. Kind of like rental cars.
Believe me some entrepeneur is going to move on this as transport prices keep escalating.
So who’s going to be the next Hertz or Avis of the board market, Bong? QS? just watch…
Yup local boards made by local manufacturers for local breaks that’ll be the tag line…
Couldn’t have said it better myself!
Custom composites, that’s what it’s about to me. And that infers quality.
I just found it really interesting that there was a suggestion the the Lost/Firewire combo was somehow a first for solving the difficulties and excessive build-time of building compsands. It kinda sounded to me like they were the first to solve this and that is certainly untrue.
Not suggesting their approach is invalid or anything or trying to denigrate them in any way whatsoever. Just observing that others have found their own very valid ways of reducing the complexity and time factors. Like like the stuff Mike showed us. What was that? Four years ago? Five? The pics and details he was kind enough to share were amazing and very inovative. I really like the tweaks and changes of yours too. And I think Gary Young has it nailed plenty well enough to have an ultra-fast build if he was so inclined. And I am sure there are others too.
yeah bernie that makes sense as well
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As I see it, the real meat of this subject is the inability of any company to make custom compsands offshore.
any company ? is there a difference between my offshore and your offshore ??
monkey see monkey do …
pom ben ajan dee tukwan, or so my students tell me …
were back!!! and its custom sandwich like it always was …
more news coming soon …
regards
BERT