Does anyone see shaping machines coming down in price? They have to come down. Cad sofware is less expensive, cnc parts are readily available…why do they cost a fortune still. You would think you could buy a solid machine for $30,000. What gives?
mmm lets see we are talking about surfing … surfboards all part of the fashion… sewing machines and outsourced labour are down cotton and fabrics are more redily available… boaordshorts are more expensive… maybe same equasion huh! http://feraldave.com
I’m not a shaper or anything, but I wouldn’t buy a board made from a machine. I like my shaper making it especially for me, and putting his heart and soul into the boards. Shaping it and glassing it all himself!
Go to a search engine and look up Shop bot. You can get software from shape 3d (the french shaping software) I think you can get the whole setup for under $15,000.
I could see the over the counter type shaping machines possibly coming down in prices, although the problems with the over the counter shaping machines are they are relatively “rinky dink”. Limitations as far as software and the most of the hardware isn’t designed correctly. Hence the affordability. On the other hand, some of the best machines out there have been individually designed and engineered these are mostly out of reach for most shapers. But they are amazing in terms of repeatability and modifying perameters. Practically limitless in term of design.
You get what you pay for, I see the everyday problems with uneditible software programs that limit you to just widening and lenthening boards. Often for some unknow reasons the foam providers are well off the mark on the rockers or the individual client wants to edit a shape, lower rocker, etc. What is the point of big bucks to have a glorified profile machine, I’ve seen the tinker toy, out of the box, bolt together machines and they aren’t worth the heart ache
l agree with Jim, l shaped 100 CNC blanks for Japan not long ago, they where in bunches of the same dimentions and supposedly the same but when shaping bunches like that you start to see the diferences between blanks and some where obviously way different. Volumes and rockers throughout the foil would change because of diferent flex ratios of each blank and when going up an inch they just stretch the board in the middle and this doesn’t realy foil that good. If blanks where solid without flex then they might be able to replicate boards to the accuarcy that they are claiming but until then you just have to take their word for it. As far as owning one for your own products you would have to pump out a lot of boards each week for a couple of years just to get a bit of your money back or you would have to do foiling for other people and that is a hastle in itself. You can get just as close by designing and biulding your own profiler at a fraction of the cost. KR
KR. Do you have a profiler of your own? What did it cost? You want to sell me one?
From my experience it truly depends on how well the programmer is able to write the program for scaling. There’s many ways to skin a cat. The premade type over the counter type shaping programs are very limited. The best boards that I have seen and shaped use a true state of the art CAD system used with in the aerospace industry that is modified for shaping. Boards scaled from this method will keep all the foils, and have the ability to change rail foils to scale or you can just keep the same board but change the nose only or tail only. Most of the machine shapes use just cross section of the master boards for the data and the the program will create a surface of the average data. For the best method, find a machine and or operator/programmer that knows how to digitize the entire surface of the board for data. This method takes much longer and is very complex, but is well worth it for changing perameters in the future. Digitizing in this manner gives you all the data to scale correctly, if the programmer knows the methods.
It still doesn’t stop the flex when machining, they should work that one out before preaching that they can get within 0.5 of a millimetre. KR http://http://groups.msn.com/MyKRSurf/krcomweb.msnw
i think they can stop or minimize the flex if they slowed down how fast the cutting head moves across the blank.
Yes jason that is true and it works even better if you back cut or do a pass cut first but that takes more time and the main aim for these guys is to get as many duplicates as possible in the least amount of time to make the CNC viable. If you have a shitload of money and your not fussed about time l am sure that you could produce a better machine, but the end result is the same “You are only as good as the curves that you create” you can have the best machine in the world but if you dont know what info to put into it and how to relate feedback back into your product then all you are doing is guessing or copying other peoples ideas and l think that there is already enough Milli Vanilli’s in this industry. KR http://groups.msn.com/MyKRSurf/krcomweb.msnw
ahh the flex can be sorted by making a frame/cage to support the blank. even your style profiler kr can suffer from the blank flex! i have a basic one that dave lyons built for mick mann years ago, i used it for 2+ years, the rocker curves we have to make for it are built to allow for the flex of the blank! i see that the time to learn the high end cad machines can be all encompassing, as im still trying to learn the endless possibilities of shape combinations! kr’s style profiler is a very good way to learn all about your rocker curves! in fact most of the major gold coast labels benifit from the years of work gone thru the profile machines at pipedream and now jimmy woodchips… all the mick fannings, parkos and dean morrisons are where they are now from the learning curves those machines taught dhd and js, murray etc. the bug i have with that style machine is the time involved with setting up new curves and/or new size boards. i do around 20-30 customs a week from 5’4"-9’6" and im lucky if 2-3 are the same size. if i had to profile all them it would take the 1st 3 days of the week just to do the curves, then i would still have to outline em all and take out the twists inherent with the flex while cutting them. its true that the cad machines here do have inconsistencies when you get 3 cut at once! but i now have 140 designs in a computer… i just keep good records of which one i use for each board i make. then wallah… reorders are no probs any more! i would have a pretty hard time even juggling 10-20 rocker templates in a profiling room! i treat the cad machines as a expensive planer! someone has paid for it so i will pay to use their tool and utilze their expertise with the program to put my evisioned changes/designs on to the blank! http://www.feraldave.com
The flex issue could be a hardware problem or a bad program/operator that doesn’t have the correct feed rate and spindle speed ratio. With the better machines here on the west coast you don’t get this problem with flex. Fixturing is an essential part of engineering a good machine, the boards here are fixtured so they actually flex less than if you were shaping by hand on your shaping stand.
Some operators try to run at 110% of the gantry speed, this does crush the foam cells ahead of where the cutter is at the moment and when finished, these tool passes are still visible. But the flex problem comes mainly from blanks being glued far from the “natural” rocker, as the mass is removed, the blank tries to return to its memory and this is happening all the while the blank is being machined. So microscopically the left side is different than the right and visa versa for the bottom. I always go over a machine blank and search out the foo foo’s and fix them first. I watched a shaper to the stars recently and when he was through, his machine piece was truely a piece, piece of shit
Jim, I think the lines you are seeing have to do with the cutter being impacted with the stringer glue and wood at the center of the cutter. This in turn starts to push the foam instead of cutting. I know what you are talking about. If the operator keeps the cutter clean it will minimize the lines.
It takes not even a minute for me to change curves on my machine and even less time to flip it over to do the deck , l have rulers on my on my moving parts and all my boards are logged, l can machine and shape myself 6 boards in 4 hours, if you need to make more boards than 30 a week it just takes a little longer. I made all my curves and surfed them to make sure that they work, not take curves off other peoples boards and call them my own by changing it a 1/16 of an inch once they have been scanned. Who do you think designed those machines at pipedream and taught Micman and Js how to use these machines and to shape, you say that you have 100+ boards on file “big deal” l can get nearly that many variations out of one rocker and know what reaction l am putting into it without having to play on the computer. With the flex deal unless you pin every inch of the bottom of the blank you will still get dips where the blank is’nt supported and for you to pin each different rocker that the blanks come in would be so time consuming. Like l said if you back cut or double cut you will cut the flex out better than a computers one pass cut. l have shaped many computer shapes for other people and have found them no better than what l can produce on my machine for like l say a fraction of the cost. Plus when someone learns on a profiler they learn more than what you would learn on a computer because your looking at the curves in real life not on a screen, its because of the price that the CNC guys need to pay their equipment back is why the young shapers of today get less pay and learn less about what makes a board work. Like l have said before you can all the curves in the world but if you dont know how to use them it means “JACKSHIT” KR http://groups.msn.com/MyKRSurf/krcomweb.msnw
i hope you didnt read into it the wrong way kr, i was helping some of the crew at swaylocks understand some of the differences beeteween different kind of machines. im fairly sure that what i said about your machine was that it does teach you about curves. and that all those guys now benifit from that experiance… i dont doubt that you can and do change your curves quickly and know your way around them… i have a great rspect for your prowess and experiance! the couple years ive used your style machine were quite helpful to me. over the years i have also finished some other peoples proflies and machine shapes to. i can actually say that i did even ride a few and was very unhappy with their performance. of all the curves and rockers ive used in my development, i like mine far better! my 140+ designs in the copmuter were developed from around 6 masters that i handshaped and developed and rode too, eventually making proflie curves for your style machine for them then progressing on to digitising them for cad machines. as i said too im still learning everyday and will continue too as people enjoy thier boards and take there surfing further… the cad situation i use helps me minimise the time shaping/profiling and maximzes my other time… for designing, surfing or my art etc… http://feraldave.com