well this is what I think anyway: Shaping machines are not the future they are here NOW so stop bitching about them and deal with it. There are so many machines been made every week its mind blowing, I think good shapers that are not using them yet need to or be a late runner. Why bitch about something you have no control over, learn to use them as a tool to help your everyday life and you will have more time to do the things that you enjoy like playing with the kids and more time to surf so you can sell more of your boards which makes the money go round. anyways that my 2 cents. I know JH will give me some curry but that might get him keen
I just want to help you guys make your boards by supplying you with good foam and machine the blanks for you so you shapers can spend more time doing what you do best, surfing and shaping boards for your clients. dave get off your small minded trip and get some balls and try my foam, now that you have your own machine it will work well for you . I will leave making finished surfboards to you guys so I have time to go bush with my KTM and have some fun with my Bros where no one drops in on me. Peter
Life imitates art or art imitates life.the future you go down to the ocean pop you forehead scan into the manchine out comes the excto plasma board.There is now one owner of the manchine that controls the world of surfboard making.he controls who goes or doesn’t, the surf spots are now only for the elite that have been given the mark.One day the manchine realizes it does not need the man anymore and grinds him up into the excto plasma,soon no one remembers how surfboards began and the ones with the mark did not care either.pretty soon the manchine gets bored it no longer finds purpose it is bored it has no soul so it turns off.somewhere in the primordial soup a shaper is being born… Aloha
the ability and understanding of the person using it,
in control of the future.
I like that.
Because I am a CAD/CNC guru
I can shape anything:
Arm casting for knotter mechanism in a Hay & Forage square bailer hand CAD modeled (not scanned) from the actual part. This part is in production and probably tied a bajilion knots by now. Blue surfaces are as-cast and yellow ones are machined.
-Hein
P.S. I sound so arrogant sometimes. I have all the respect for hand shaping. But there are some real misconceptions about CAD/CNC shaping that I feel are important to dispel.
Good post Hein. It gets right to bottom of the issue.
A CNC machine is only capable of producing what the shaper / designer is capable of shaping with their software.
Some shapers were wizards with a draw knife, block plane, Skil 100, or whatever tools they used over the years - others struggled with any the tool they used.
A good shaper will produce a good board no matter what tools they use.
The CNC machines are just another tool in the evolution of surfboard shaping tools.
Empire foam , I have no doubt that what you say is correct. I will bet when the electric planer was invented the old school had a bitch. Now I can only speak for myself. I have used preshapes for stock boards, and blanks with rocker were probably frowned on to. But I and most people on sways handshape . Due to money and no time contraints. It is a satisfaction thing. Most of us have other jobs to.I handshape 20 to 30 a year custom boards. preshape or machine shapes I will still only do 20 to 30. If I have extra time I’ll have to clean up the shed or help the wife with house work, I’ve got a good think here, please stop trying to create more work for me.
Empire foam , I have no doubt that what you say is correct. I will bet when the electric planer was invented the old school had a bitch....
No, the machine is very different from the leap from the hand planer to the electric planers - for a few reasons.
Reason number 1. Shapers generally cannot afford a shaping machine.
Reason number 2. A shaping machine takes 30-40% of the shaping fee on each board for a small shaper (< 1000/yr).
Reason number 3. Shaping machines are now good enough that reasonably unskilled (where unskilled is referenced to a professional shaper) workers can get the machined shape to the glasser.
When you put these 3 together, you realize that the ONLY person who benefits from a shaping machine is the shaper who cannot keep up - the shaper who is franchising his shapes like Rusty, Merrick, Biolas, and others of similar volume.
If you do 1000 shapes a year, or less, shaping machines HURT your bottom line, not help them. More importantly, they allow the easy creation of cheaper competition in Asia. Now a very large volume shaper can send his shapes to Asia, and if he can order them by the hundreds, they will arrive for much less than $200 wholesale in the states - less than half the wholesale price a domestic shaper can offer.
So when people say shaping machines are here, get used to it, I say, they are re-shaping the industry in a way that is totally different from prior advances in tools. If each machine were under $10000 and every shaper had his own, it would be different. But shaping machines HURT the business model of the small shaper, and HELP the business model of the franchise, and I inherently dislike any tool that serves to cleave the smaller businesses out of the industry, because that is where the lion’s share of industry soul lies.
Hey Pete, well if that is’nt a brightly coloured lure, I don’t know what is.Off course as a blank supplier your gonna want more boards being made, no matter how easy they are for ANYONE to do. I’ve accepted them, what choice is there? Time is only an issue if you have too much work, I wish, and unfortunately that has more to do with marketing than the actual quality, performance of your boards. The result of machines is that there is too many boards being made of dubious quality and the end product of that is cheap prices, definately no good for the smaller guy. I will have a go at that blank this week, with my trusty Makita 1100 shaping machine, Milchy has joined up on this site and I’ve got a feeling that this one might be right up his alley, cheers H.
shaping machines owned by a foam Co…providing supply to shapers for profit…absolutely fantastic! It sounds like a dream come true! yes the Asian foam/machine suppliers are coming,with preshaped foam landed in Aust/USA/Europe for less than 50$,yes hopefully us shapers will have more time in the WATER…testing,researching and sharin the love with fellow surfers and benefit from Asian pricing,by making the switch to Asian suppliers! Is this your future?
1000 boards a year. Thats good numbers. 20 a week. I know heaps of crew who do less than that , use machines and are happy. Stoked to see guys like JH shaping beatiful boards off the blank.
Under a dozen a week and you’re taking quite a hit over doing it yourself cost wise I feel. Not to say that pre shapes are a bad idea in a small number. Just don’t expect to make a great deal off them in those quantities if that is what you are doing.
