Has anyone tried one of these? I saw a guy in Oz ripping on one, and Keiren Perrow seems to like his. Greg Webber sells 'em for something like1350AusD’s. Anyone have any thoughts?
i can give you a lot of information on them …exactly how there built. whats in them ,and the materials they use .lets just say theve spent a hell amount of cash on r&d and there ten years behind some other stuff thats out there…major marketing hype …the surfing world is about to be sucked in big time …lets see if anyone goes back for second one…appart from the guys who get em for free… regards BERT
I’ve got a few questions: How much are these going to go for in america? Is a small town shaper going to get ahold off these things and shape them? How does the shaping process work?
look in the archives under xps …and see if you think its worth proceeding
I see products similar to this as being a path to the future of high performance surfboards. My feeling is that S-core will simply be the first of these products. Whether the end result will be better boards for the average guy remains to be seen but there needs to be a Ferarri in this market to drive us towards the future. As Rennis Yater has stated “We are at the limits of where the today’s technology will take us.”
you gota see the frustration from my point of view …they set up in my back yard and are doing things i was doing 8 maybe 9 years back ,they have all the money in the world to make grand claims,they have got people so bluffed with there so called technology ,but only a handful of people actually understand whats going on because they been there…if i thought there was any future in that constuction technique i would still be doing it…there whole set up is a joke when it comes to wasting money so many people on the pay roll, so far 6.5 million in r&d costs…i met a guy in the water the other day had his board 2 weeks and he wasnt surfing it…said water leaked in through the fcs plugs it got hell heavy then it delaminated ??? ferrari???
Hey Bert, Greg, and all interested, Ironically their U.S. patent just issued two days ago on the 27th. Much prior art already exists that will void the patent as soon as they challenge anyone. They even included honeycomb skins on their extension of claims. I’ve been served papers by Salomon (Adidas) many times before and helped defend some fellow competitors against them also. We’ve smoked them every time. They have a huge staff of idiot lawyers who need to show their bosses that they have value. I combed through the whole patent and found no unique claims. Bert is totally t*ts on, they wasted the $6mil as far as a real invention. However, they are ruthless with marketing and will throw money at this until their new clothing line has taken hold in Japan. Many other older patents already claimed hollow foam with structural I-beams and ribs, such as #6,623,323. Prior art will date back to hollow cigar boards almost 100 years ago. The guys running the show there are young and hungry but ignorant of history. I hope I’m not the goon who actually started this thing rolling. I actually described how to make a hollow cored board to a magazine intern 9 years ago. I don’t think he’d ever built a board before. He’s now one of the three guys listed on all their press releases as the founders of this division of Salomon. Blue Dow foam with a little cnc work and some overpriced internal fibers… they will only be as strong as the glass job applied by the glasser, but very expensive and somewhat fragile. I agree with Gregg though, it’s going to be fun to watch this kick off a new mainstreams race for improvements.
Interesting, very interesting. Greg,have you tried shaping one of these yet?
Sorry about the spare g in Greg. You’ve done some true kick-ass epoxy formulations from what I hear from the chemical companies. Now that’s progress! We do compounding also, but for totally different sports applications. Our systems are very high molecular weight, thus too high of viscocity for surf laminations and require elevated temps incompatible with most common blanks.
I designed a similar blank for sailboards about 15 years ago. We never really followed it all the way through. We did build some and we successfully completed testing, just never put the product into production. Interestingly, we had some people threaten us with law suits back then. As Delbert said, the whole process goes back to hollow wooden boards (Tom Blake) 100 years ago but memories seem very short these days, especially if you have an Esq. after your name. As far Solomon, I have not shaped one yet and I do question the validity of any hollow blank for the reasons Bert put forward. There are other, more effective, ways to fill the void than with air. I do look forward to seeing competitive product and have been looking at some development in that regard myself. My perseption, at this time, is that the whole thing needs to be reengineered with custom built simplicity at the core of the technology. Seems that nothing could be more backward visioned than a dismantling of todays custom craftsmanship. Custom building has always been the vision of Resin Research and I personally just can’t get away from the fact that custom is still at the heart of superior technology. Not to mention creative freedom. Updating materials and techniques are the real challenge facing us and the reward for retraining will be better product for the consumer and the guarentee of market share for the non-import (custom) segment of our industry.
i share you perception greg …ultimatly no matter what you and i think should happen in the surfboard industry …it will continue to be consumer driven …customers will seek what they want…a lot of the retailers i have dealt with are now stocking more and more epoxy boards .i basically stoped doing wholesale coz i got a back log of paying retail customers to deal with ,at one stage i was nearly a year behind …to me that says something, a guy will wait 10 months for an epoxy board rather than go and buy a poly off the shelf…the best thing any small manufacturer can do is get familar with new materials and dont miss the boat??? question? does anyone still make polyester /pu sailboards??? theres your answer… with all these pop out epoxies on the market consumers next choice of upgrade will be custom epoxies…thats my prediction… i think salomon’s range of 3 different models could be in for competition… hey delbert i used to have a guy working for me in my early development days who ended up getting a job with eagle aircraft doing there vacumn bagging work and mold work coz of the experience he got with me…interesting in the fact one of the salomon engineers worked alongside him in the same factory…pretty hard to keep tech in house when your staff leave… hey guess what else …the basalt is on its way…i rang a guy today ( my guru composites expert ) he was making aircraft for the yanks back in the korean war, he had both his legs blown off and gets around in a chair ,but man does this guy know his stuff ,anyway he said got some samples about 2 months ago did some small lay ups, he put another order in should be leaving the states next week ,he said its harder to cut than kevlar…and he said for what i want it for i could have carpet problems…but hes keen for me to use it coz he always gets good feed back from me ,he said" when we get the next lot we can both learn together" question for delbert? what do you do for a job???you seem pretty well connected??? regards BERT
The problems I see with the surfboard industry are very complex. When compared with other industries, it’s really laughable. Solomon is a good example. They are a huge technical company with lots of “engineers” staffed. Once more companies like them or cobra for example get more involved with this industry, they will blow us all away. Bill Bahne has been warning people about china for years. “were gonna have to step it up” he said. Problem is, there is really no profit to be made from surfboards. I see people doing merricks with 10 year old equipment. With the stipulations now being put on performance, durability, and craftsmanship of surfboards, it’s just gonna get worse. In other industries like snowboarding, motorcycles, or any thing that uses a “vehicle” of some sort, you will usually find the cost to be many times the cost of the custom surfboard.And they are not even “custom” You will also find some kind of “profit margin”, therefore allowing R&D, upgrades, and possibly even an “engineer” looking at how to make it better. In california at least, it’s getting progressively harder to make ANY profit these days. The retail shops seem to be doing OK though. Most glassers I know (lots), are operating at a loss. How can they upgrade or push technology? Can’t put the cart in front of the horse! I think the solomons will retail for about a grand. They’d have to if they will ever get better.