Epoxy surfboards.

[croix153]

there have been alot of posts about technology, and how we still Wax our boards

IMO I don't want it to change. I like surfing as it is...lowtech. Technology will just take the fun out of it for me. As for pop outs, I own a NSP 7 10 it surfs just as well as a custom glass board.

[k mac]

NSP 7 10 it surfs just as well as a custom glass board

ah well...i own a 7 ft 6 (nsp epoxy pop out )

https://surfing-waves.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3420


it surfs well but no where near as well as a traditional fibreglass board . ive just orderd a 6'8" x 19 x 2 3/4 and im on the lookout for a cheap second hand 9ft log if myboard surfed as well as fibre glass board i would keep it and add to my quiver but the simple fact is it don t

[WaveJunkie]

the problem with all that stuff is that one factor lays in. money. the money to buy those machines, carbon fibre, and eventually the price of boards will sky rocket. and i have had one of my boards for going on 3 years now and have only had 3 dings. think about it the problem when it comes to durability isnt the board its us. we are to careless about our equiptment because of our attitude torwards our equiptment. and we have made impovements since the 80's. like the bonzer 5 fin surfboard. 80's concept that we have improved.we have tons of knew ideas its juts putting them to the drawing board. i still stand by what i said and know i will never buy a pop-out. our other problem is that we only have 4 top shapers that actually know what they are doing. the rest of them are just learning. it takes years to learn how to make boards as good as guys like al merrick, rusty, robert august, and the few top shapers that we have. we need to promote shaping to people not machines. i will always stand by this.

-- Speaking of technology . . .

The reason we have punctuation, upper/lower case letters, grammatical conventions in the grapholect (i.e. written communication) is because these features provide signals to the reader about meaning.

The technology available in written communication has taken centuries to evolve. Let's not kill it with stupid fads arising from slackers too lazy to use the whole keyboard.

Eh?

[deathfrog]

the problem with all that stuff is that one factor lays in. money. the money to buy those machines, carbon fibre, and eventually the price of boards will sky rocket. and i have had one of my boards for going on 3 years now and have only had 3 dings. think about it the problem when it comes to durability isnt the board its us. we are to careless about our equiptment because of our attitude torwards our equiptment. and we have made impovements since the 80's. like the bonzer 5 fin surfboard. 80's concept that we have improved.we have tons of knew ideas its juts putting them to the drawing board. i still stand by what i said and know i will never buy a pop-out. our other problem is that we only have 4 top shapers that actually know what they are doing. the rest of them are just learning. it takes years to learn how to make boards as good as guys like al merrick, rusty, robert august, and the few top shapers that we have. we need to promote shaping to people not machines. i will always stand by this.

-- Speaking of technology . . .

The reason we have punctuation, upper/lower case letters, grammatical conventions in the grapholect (i.e. written communication) is because these features provide signals to the reader about meaning.

The technology available in written communication has taken centuries to evolve. Let's not kill it with stupid fads arising from slackers too lazy to use the whole keyboard.

Eh?

there's way more than just four guys that know what their doing. I think that if the chinese guys want to make boards, great, sell them to china kids. I don't care if they try to sell them here it's our choice if we want to buy them or not. But because chinese kids want to sell us boards that are made with a different technique but use epoxy instead it makes epoxy horrible?

what do the chinese guys think of cracka's trying to sell their food. We probally screw up with it, and how much do they complain? Americia is a media based socitey that has to have everything it's way or else it's wrong and out of the picture. Everyone likes how something has been done and doeseen't want to change. If the americians made some big innovation to surfboards that was clearly better, yeah, lots of people are gunna go for it.

if the chinese guys did the same thing, what would happen? Think about it... Our media doesen't portray it well enough for us to look at it and think "wow, that's better than what I have now, and it's better for the environment and whatever else, I'm gunna buy it because it's what's in style", we just say "damn chinese guys trying to take our stuff".

But again, there's much more than four guys that know what's going on. What about MR, Brewer, Dale Velzy, Simon Anderson, Bob Hurley, and those guys. We're know them becaue they did stuff like stuck fins on in better ways than we did already, and it worked better.

do we remember the guy who invented the CAD shaping machine?

not really, we didn't see what was wrong with people shaping our boards and didn't want a machine to do it for us. It wasn't cool enough for us.


I don't think I made any sense at all...

[Brent]

Um, but if you asked a bunch of civil engineers or CAD designers who Al Merrick, Rusty, Simon Anderson, Mark Richards are you'd get the same response wouldn't you???

On page one of this thread I laid several longish posts under "guest"...forgot to log in didn't I? Quoting the industries very best-Merrick, Rusty etc and the good points they make about using machines to craft surfboards, I especially enjoyed the comments my local shaper made as well. In essence it frees them up from daily economic contraints of business survival in a competitive market to do product inovation; and it gives these very best some consistancy in their shapes. No-one can replicate a board by hand nor make 1/16th inch changes to rail volume or rocker manually


There will always be machine built mass produced boards from Asia, like there will always be Toyota Corolla's...but we all still desire & buy BMW's don't we?

[deathfrog]

I think I just had a bunch of thoughts flying through my head and not really putting them down in the right order.

oh yea, we figuerd the long guest posts were you anyway...

and I understand what you're saying

[WaveJunkie]

Reading is a lot of work. It gets arduous when the text becomes so freekin' cryptic that it doesn't make sense.

Epoxy boards -- Somewhere this thread steps into the middle of this discussion. Fine if you know what an epoxy board is.

I think it's CAD shaped foam with no fiberglass, just epoxy. Is that wha it is?

Maybe, I think I own one -- my first/only board. A 9' 4" "Modern" brand -- Thailand "pop out."

Triple stinger. Lightweight. I think maybe there's no glass in it. But it catches waves, and I'm a newbie geek.

In a year, I'll figure out what I need, and get a custom shaped board, glassed, etc.

This "Modern" catches waves, and serves for now.

[zorba]

I ride a 10" Robert August 'What I ride model' and a 7'10" both epoxy and they turn and paddle as well as any of my f/g models of similar length.

Some of you may not know the shaping machine takes the measured angles and lengths from over 200 points on the hand shaped 'original' to get its final shaping. This will increase with time and technology.

I have surfed since '69 and in 7 countries to date. No doubt the epoxy boards have a big future IMO.

I can't see myself riding my shortboards (6'-7'2") in epoxy at this stage because I still like the experience of talking with the shaper and ordering my board in glass, but again I think that will change in time.

Lots of people kid themeselves about their relationship with their shaper. Most shapers, regardless of the personal instructions of the buyer, will still produce (shape) what they think will work in the particular conditions in which the board is being used, taking into consideration weight, height, experience and surfing style of the buyer. If you look carefully at old custom order forms shapers may have lying around in their bays, you'll see the remarkable similarilty between the orders. (Unless they are shaping for surf conditions not within their locale).

I see the future (and to some extent right now) of surfing being
- buying a softboard for learning the basics (6 months)
- buying a few epoxy boards to suit various conditions for ensuing years (2-5) and updating as technology improves and new designs come and go
- buying a custom f/g board for the aesthetics (colour and graphics) and for tweaking the board for the custom needs of the competitive club to pro surfer.

Price - epoxy will be cheaper than f/g for sure. Right now you can buy an August epoxy cheaper than his same f/g model.

Just wanted to tag this post so I can find it, and unfortunately I can't find a way of tagging a post WITHOUT scribbling over it.

(Note to MODERATOR: this forum needs the profiles to have a personal knowledgebase and an "add to knowledgebase" function so we can add interesting posts to our personal knowledgebase - IMHO)

[jack18]

Hey guys

I've had plenty of traditional PU/Poly boards in the past, some have gone ok, some haven't. But they have all perished within 6 months or so of solid surfing. I finally invested in a Firewire (a form of Epoxy laminating) and have been genuinely stoked on it, had it just over a year and is still super lively. I struggled pretty hard to find a good stockist though, I eventually found http://www.naturalnecessity.com.au, even though they are online I was stoked with there customer service and genuine feedback they had on all there models. They also stock a solid range of other Epoxy constructions such as Tuf Lite, Ultra-flx, Fiberflex etc. So if you're in need of a new Epoxy board Natural Necessity could be a good place to check out, yewww.

Cheers, Jack

[Z mann R2]

Interesting reading these 6-7 year old discussions.....poly boards are still alive and well and in the shortboards dept they still outsell epoxy for sure (I'm talking hand shaped on both)....I just bought a new 9'0 and a new 6'0 this summer and both are poly cuz I still think ease of repair and craftmanship is still valued. In fact most surfers I meet and board shop owners (not the shapers) still recommend poly/pu boards. Both technology's have their place but all this talk in here of "why are we still surfing on 60's tech?" is kinda pointless. Are cars are still internal combustion and we still wipe our asses with paper. Ya there are innovations in cars like computers and even hybrids, but poly/pu boards are now shaped by computer too for the most part and hand refined. Some things just work and won't die

[travelzomg]

the general question that arises for me is:
is this about cheap epoxy boards (mass production) or is this about the technics of epoxy?

if you'd have Al Merrick shape you a CI-board and he would line it with epoxy, would you refuse it, just because its epoxy...?

tbh, i can't see, why a professional shaped short board shouldnt be made with epoxy...
you'd have the best of both worlds... a perfect shortboard shape with the bomb proofness of an epoxy board...

[Kook777]

Hi again Coz.
I was at the office before (a quiet friday) and didn't have sources to hand. I'm at home now, and want to quote you some references re epox surfboards and technology in shaping. You'll be quite suprised.

Re Epox:
Al Merrick, John Carpenter, Greg Webber, Xanadu, Rusty, Lost, Dick Brewer & Jeff Bushman all offer "Tuflite" models available from Surftech. There are over 200 production models to choose from (as at June 2004). According to Randy French there are about 12 additional different boards from various shapers per month being added to the list and made under licence. Tom Carroll especially is working in this field with R & D.

Quote: Greg Loehr "it doesn't matter what the percentage of the market is epoxy now, at some point in the future it will be near 100%. Everything in the world now that is good & fun is made from epoxy, from jet fighters to boats, from wakeboards to golf clubs, surfboards are the very last to follow, I know most don't admit it but even the stodgiest custom shapers are investigating epoxy as a means to compete in the future"

I'm not sure I agree with him Coz...but he knows more than me about surfboards & the Biz...

Re Tchnology & shaping machines etc:
Firstly, some background for you, the most common & best technology today is a "surfCAD.DSD" machine & software invented by Luciano Leao (Brazilian) in 1998. He was ironically, a medical doctor who surfed. His friend a surfboard shaper named Jeff Bushman was arguing with him about board shaping in 1994 and he challanged him to make an automatic shaping programme that actually worked. So the eccentric nutter doctor did. It took him 4 years to get it to production & release it on the market. It is a patented CAD programme & machine that can cut a whole blank to an accuracy of 1/100mm needing only a light sanding before glassing. It is used by some of the worlds best shapers you described earlier.

Rusty Preisendorfer; "I'm addicted to our surfCAD.DSD machine, it's allowing for custom board refinements never before possible, I have to continue to evolve as my craft evolves. Once upon a time the tool was a drawknife, then it was a planer, the next great shaper will be a computer wizard".

Eric Arakawa; "This is how incredible this technology is, no matter who you are, where you live or how good you are as a surfer you can get an honest-to-god Arakawa, Rusty, Mahem, Rawson or whoever you choose. No longer do you have to be a pro surfer to have a board shaped by the worlds best shapers. These are true custom boards from legtimate guru shapers".

Pat Rawson; "Fortunately surfCAD technology has leveled the playing field for guys like me. It's shocking my shaping business nearly didn't survive the lean years because of my adversion towards mass production. Now, I go to six different places in the world to service 29 different countries, I email files ahead of me and have 50 different boards cut & waiting for me to finish them off when I get there".
"85% of my customers have been surfing for more than 10 years, they know exactly what they want. My customers are guys who want each board to be better refined and a progression from their last".

Nathan Myers of Surfing Magazine writes;
"Every shaper involved with CAD systems is in total agreement. Pure Enthusiasm. There is nothing bad about these systems, large-scale shapers producing true custom boards for the least of their customers. Custom gurus raisning the bar of creative refinement while still meeting the needs of their expanding market."

The best till Last Coz....
Jeff Bushman; "The average guy buying a board, he's getting the best board possible, he's not getting something built off a plug 6 months ago. He's getting what's current. As far as the whole creative process goes we're going to see better boards worldwide Which is incredible, because if the boards keep getting better, well, that's what it's all about.

God.'ve I've written a novel again. Sorry. These are the worlds best shapers you talked about earlier Coz. They're not afraid of the future and technology ...neither should you be.

Brent
ps. I'm done on this topic.

I'm amazed this is/was ever a debate. Obviously, automated mass-production will ultimately produce better, cheaper boards for the masses. The right machine can shape foam far more quickly, accurately and consistently than any person can manually.

Custom hand-made boards may make sense for the wealthy. Not so much for the average guy. For most people, the only real customization you need is a board build to suit your height, weight, and experience level. And this can be done on an automated basis, where you simply plug in your numbers.

Even where a master shaper carves a board from scratch, it will make far more sense for him to scan that board digitally after making it, and then use that template for any future boards for the same customer. Because that's the only way to exactly replicate it if he wants/needs another one.

The stated concern about machine error ignores the fact that we currently make almost every other product in the world (including cars, motorbikes, bicycles, skateboards, and computers) through automated mass-production. And most of those products require more detailed/precise specs than a surfboard.

Hand shapers will still be there for high-end customers, and can still play a (more pleasant) role simply performing the final finish work, as noted. Otherwise, you can still have a hand-made board made if you really want. There's just no need to argue that everyone else should as well.

[oldmansurfer]

Well there is a lot more than height weight skill that go into a custom made board and they are at least where I am cheaper than the off the rack boards

[Big H]

Same here....local shapers make board that fit the waves here and are cheaper than off the rack boards from Rip Curl.

[steveylang]

God...we still use wax to obtain grip.. This is 2004 people. Why aren't we riding 2kg carbon fiber surfboards that never ding, with deck grip that never wears out, fins that cannot break with legropes that do not spagetti & snap.

2018, still using wax!

[BaNZ]

The smell of wax is the best thing ever!