I could name one brand of boards that is nothing more than a lam placed on boards instead of the much bigger and better known lam of the actual company that cnc’s them and glasses them. Where does that fit in?
Ghost shaper, AND Ghost factory.
Seen on Facebook…
“It is important to have a reliable board for when the waves are at there best. With this board I have taken an old favorite XFC 6’6 all rounder board and generated it via the AKU software to XFC 6’8 20 1/4 2 11/16 RSQ 38.05 litres slight step up board to give me a little more paddling but retain all the magic that is hold off the bottom and on the face with flair out of the top that the 6’6 possessed. @simonanderson_surfboards”
While we all strive for perfection, it’s sometimes mistakes that lead to breakthroughs.
My Prediction is this. In 5 years The CNC machine will start being Phased out for Board Production. Boards will be printed on a 3 D Printer. The New Surf Shop will have a couple of 3 D printers you will select the design color graphics fins and the the board will be printed as you watch. When you want a new board bring the old one back to recycle and Print out a new one.
In While all this is going on a few artist will be working in sheds and shops hidden in back alleys hand building fine craft That will be used loved and passed on.
My Prediction is this. In 5 years The CNC machine will start being Phased out for Board Production. Boards will be printed on a 3 D Printer. The New Surf Shop will have a couple of 3 D printers you will select the design color graphics fins and the the board will be printed as you watch. When you want a new board bring the old one back to recycle and Print out a new one.
In While all this is going on a few artist will be working in sheds and shops hidden in back alleys hand building fine craft That will be used loved and passed on.
For several years i used to no use planer. It was first because of noise so i go with all kind of hotwires and finish with sandpaper.
I make a cnc hotwire but i still like more my masonite guide. I glass some cnc blanks i finished by hand, boards were out, hard to finish. CNC cutter are only a tool not so easy to use, scrubb nicely a board need some attention too.
I will probably make my one cnc cutter for fun. But i like make all by hand from bloc to finish board :
Plus it’s far cheaper and not so much time to do.
Same ol’ $#|t. Three pages worth. Based on what some of you have said here; Rennie Yater doesn’t fit your description of “shaper”. I heard recently that he still spends a few days a week in the shaping bay, but his use of CNC would disqualify him as a “shaper”.
Also; My father did didn’t use a lava rock to shape anything. But he did use a corn cob to wipe his ass. Someone mentioned sand thrus, burn thrus patched sanding jobs being common in most factories. I just don’t see it. These guys are pros not Sways members. I was in one of the busiest factories in So-Cal(ie Ghetto Glass) I didn’t see any burn thrus. Lowel
Some of the best surfboard makers in Hawaii use a machine to preshape the blank then go in and do the magic. The machine isn’t capable of doing the magic part. Lots of big name people. I’m sure that if there weren’t machines to use they’d be OK shaping a blank from start to finish.
corn cob…hmmm. Maybe I don’t need that Surform anymore…All natural sanding.
In my opinion this will be the way the surfboard industry will be in the next few years.
Back in the 50s-90s young guys had the chance to learn from a headshaper on a daily basis and work on there technique. In a few years they could shape hundreds of boards by hand. This fundamental teaching does not exist today for young guys who want to handshape. So how do you expect young shapers to be masters of handshaping ? Ive meet some guys around my local who know so much about design and machining and they make great boards, but I wouldnt consider them master handshapers. So the balance for the future I feel will be more about learning design and programming than it will for handshaping.
In my own case I generally make 20-30 boards a year all handshaped and enjoy learning at my own slow pace, but for the meantime Im just focusing on glassing which still offers a daily production role where you work on your technique on a daily basis.
If it wasn’t for the fact that the surfboard business has way more capacity than the demand in the market can support this wouldn’t even be a controversy. It probably wouldn’t even be a question.
I’m a backyard guy. I do all my design on CAD but I do everything else the hard way. The reason I use CAD for design is because it helps me conceptualize many more designs than I could possibly have time to build or demand to use. The CAD program helps me to study other people’s designs and to tweak them in various ways and to do mashups and variants on the virtual scale, even if the renderings are imperfect.
The CAD programs also help take all the guesswork out of volumes and what dimensions it takes in any given design to hit a specific volume, and which blanks to use to get my desired rockers and widths. Even though I rarely build the same design twice I haven’t had a volume-related complaint or a rocker-related complaint on any of my boards in years. And - for better or worse - I progressed to that point without having to make the same number of mistakes I would have made had I been forced to learn it the hard way.
If machining a blank takes 90% of the rote drudgery out of shaping a board for a pro and reduces the physical stress on their bodies then I think that’s great. Even better if it enables them to work fewer hours and get out into the water more. I’d rather see a craftsman focus all his energy and attention on that last 10% of the shaping process because aside from what they put into building the original design file that last 10% is where the refinement happens. I don’t buy the idea that all of the amorphous soul factor comes from roughing out the shape with a saw and planer.
Designer plus handshaper = shaper???
I really couldn’t say. I’m JANFGG.
Corn cob. That was funny, Ray. Same old tired argument. I’m with Barry on this one. A circus monkey can scrub it. Anyway, I like being surrounded by all that dust and noise. A cold beer off to the side. All alone and nobody bugging me. Old classic planers. All that shit. But, I don’t do it for a living. Mike
One of the Chemial Wizards where I work contacted me. His son has a surfboard that needs to be repaired…Everyone told him to contact me…I’m the ding guy at our plant…I looked at the stringer and did an internet search for the shaper…Hmm…Hmm…
.I don’t want to talk bad about anyone buy I’m quite suprised…Some people who have shaped less than 100 surfboards were giving shaping demos at Del Mar 2015. This person was one of them…Becoming a shaper is much bigger than shaping…you need an angle…you need to connect with the right people…you need to look good and hit the market strong !!! Ha Ha… I’m nobody…I read some interviews…funny how after 23 1/2 boards you can be called a “shaper”…There’s some amazing shapers out there that do not play the game…underground and backyard and pro…Stingray…not a pro.
I shaped my first full sized, balsa surfboard, around March of 1958. By April of 1960, I had probably shaped, and glassed, around 30 or 40 balsa boards. (Nobody counted totals then) I thought of myself as a ‘‘surfboard builder.’’ It wasn’t until May of 1960, when I was hired by Velzy, as a shaper, that I felt that I could actually call myself a SHAPER. I was now working for a ‘‘real’’ surfboard company! It was that aknowledgement by an established company, an industry leader, that validated me! Heady stuff, when you’re only 19 yrs old. The irony is that today, the majority of young surfers, never heard of Velzy. Skinning a close tolerance blank, or scrubbing the ridges on a machined blank, does not a shaper make. IMO.
To the builder, it’s the craft. To the consumer, it’s the end product.
"I'd rather see a craftsman focus all his energy and attention on that last 10% of the shaping process because aside from what they put into building the original design file that last 10% is where the refinement happens"
The last 10% of the SHAPING process is finish work...sanding through a few different grits truing up the stringer/stringers catching some final nicks and scratchs.....The "refinement" happens in the dusty noisey shaping part ..
I got into shaping becuase of the dirty dusty making something by hand with real tools crafstmanship part of it. Loved every minute of it never got boring would not change it...I sanded ridges on about 23-1/2 boards and was so bored with it I never wanted to do anymore...