Experianced shaper needed in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. We have hundreds of core year round surfers, thousands of summer surfers/beginers, 7 surf shops, at least four surf schools and it even gets gets good sometimes.
Basicly we have everything but a quality local shaper. The market is here. A local guy was making boards out of his backyard and he couldn’t keep up with orders before he stopped shaping.
Good people in a relaxed university city of about 300,000+ with epic setups 20min from downtown.
Ian, actually there are at least 4 guys I talk to regularly who are shaping in NS. Scott even has a few blanks left if you talk to him. I think you will find the market here doesn’t really support full time shapers, especially with truck fulls of cheap chinese boards flooding the shops. If you are looking for something in particular let me know, I personally do eps/epoxy or can get PU blanks, I don’t glass with poly though. I am working on a couple boards now I will post photos on sways after I glass them.
I would be carefull advertising tours of NS on the net though, that is still not exactly “well accepted” in some areas.
I have been asking about shapers up here for years and Scott was the only one I could find. As far as i was knew he wasn’t shaping any more and his boards don’t really do it for me (I have had him shape me one and a number of my friends have had boards from him.) Scott, as far as I know, is in his first few hundred boards and should be a great shaper in time.
I mentioned a tour as in if an established shaper wanted to come up I would be willing to show him around and introduce him to some of the shop owners and community. By no means thinking just anyone or a business. As you know tours could never work anyway as it goes flat for weeks even during peek seasons for waves.
Five years or even three years ago I think you right about not being enough of a market but I think a real craftsman could do quite well up here. Then again I could be compleatly wrong. I don’t really play on here that often but if you could send those pics to that would be very much appreciated.
Yes, good ‘sometimes’ and, uhh, no point breaks either.
I’m right across the gulf from you and wouldn’t mind in the least being able to provide a few whenever possible. I’ve shaped a handful and am familiar with our rubber burden too. Let’s see, can you provide a humble abode for five just up the coast a little?
scott doesn’t understand deisgn eh? scott has stopped shaping boards eh? true scott has been getting lots of board orders before black monday but he never stopped shaping because of that, and if he has been getting alot of orders shouldn’t that mean he is doing somethign right? hmmm you should check out his website as he updates it with news (otherworld.ca). he has an order of walker foam that has arrived and is back in business shaping boards…in the past his boards have not been appealing to me at all but as of late i have had some really good boards from scott…good quality shapes for our conditions…he has been really great with figuring out what works for me and what doesn’t…he is more than open to arranging with surfers and plugging in numbers and finding outlines that would suit you…before you go looking for new shapers try some of his newer shapes, i’d be happy to let you try one out if you are in my neck of the woods.