Tell me again why your boards start at $700

I bet you could get that number up with a couple extra hands and a bigger number of boards to work on. A significant portion of time is devoted to waiting on the resin to cure.

 

My two Coils took like 2-3 months. My custom LB from Orion took almost 6 months if I recall. He was super busy at the time so it took longer than expected but the end result was worth the wait. Great boarts. Good shapers have a long list of repeat customers, take a number.

 

A production shaper can produce a finished shape in 2 hours, max. It takes me double that... more if it's a complicated design or a longboard. And I'm pretty sure if you're a production shaper shaping at that level, you've done thousands of boards and are getting a lot more than $30 or $35/hr.

I can glass and hotcoat a clear board in a day with UV poly. Two days for MEKP, but I'm a hack. That's setup, mark, route and set fin boxes, patch over boxes, cut and glass bottom, fair lap line, flip... route leash plug hole, set plug, cut and glass deck, fair lap line, tape and hotcoat bottom, pull tape, flip... tape and hotcoat deck, pull tape. Color slows everything down... for tints or pigments: mark and tape cutlap, glass, cut lap. Double that process for both sides. Pinlines add even more time and materials.

Sometimes I sand with 80 grit and do another hotcoat or gloss coat.

Sanding and polishing is another 2 hours or so for me.

And for the record, I'm told shops typically add 20% to wholesale for their profit.

 

It's no secret, you can go to any of the distribution sites and find the pricing to build a surfing board.

Blank: $75.52
Glass: $34.50
Resin: $39.95
MEKP: $1.50
Wax: $3.00
Boxes: $6.95/each
Leash Cup: $1.25
Sandpaper: $1.25/sheet (4 sheets minimum)
Tape: $7.75

That would be the base cost for a surfing board under 6' (unless I'm forgetting something). The following is the "assumed cost", or the cost that you are planning to fully disregard.

Time (especially considering local/backyard builders)
Tools
More tools
Shaping bay
Glassing facility
Electricity
Distribution
Transportation
Sponsored Riders (if any)
Hired hands (if any)
Research and Development
Experience

I'm certain that I have forgotten a bunch of other costs, but there's a small list for you to consider. I think if I'm tallying up time without the additional wait time I would be at about 7 hours.

$30/hour is pretty light for a craftsman.

 

Don’t sell yourself short dude.

 

Not that it really helps or matters but employee benefits/taxes are a huge cost. Unemployment insurance, liability, payroll cost/tax. I could go on. Point being its expensive to have employees.

I agree with whomever said it earlier - if you think something is too expensive then dont buy it.

 

Roy stewart was right?

 

Correction. I went back and checked my emails. The time it took from me putting my deposit down to getting my LB was about 4 months, not 6. Greg Geiselman did a great job and gave me exactly what I wanted.

I was probably annoying him following up on my boart toward the end because I was anxious and was expecting it a little sooner. Hard to believe it's already been 4 years in August since I got it. I have ridden the shit out of this board and it has taken on minimal damage and all has been repaired and is hardly noticeable. Great boart.

 

People like this are the reason so many surf shops close up. Not because they're unprofitable, but because its hard work, and it makes it harder to grind it out on an emotional level when you deal day in and day out with ignorant cheap-ass people like this. They have to make a big margin because its such a niche market, supported by a fully discretionary spending decision competing with a vigorous secondary market, and to top it off, super-slow inventory turns and super-vulnerable to seasonality.

 

Oh, and it was only $625 out the door. For a 9’ custom single fin LB. Its a cross between a HPLB and a noserider.

 

Most shapers and shop owners that I personally know are not living in estates and getting paid bank, quite the opposite.

The few that became reasonably wealthy were able to do it because they had a knack for "branding", not because they were exceptional craftsmen whom overcharged their customer base.

I've often wondered why these guys continue to toil for what is, essentially, crap wages. Skip Frye and Steve Lis charge upwards of $2000 a pop minimum, and they are in no way living like kings.

Guess they love what they do. They are master craftsmen and could easily charge $100-$200 per hour. Just for the shape, no glass or color or all the other factors that go into building a complete board.

The answer is quite obvious

 

Exactly. Businessmen. Not a real shop. Real businessmen is all. Some shops are still real surfers and shapers.

Real is a fraud. They pour the advertising magnet into nc12, magnet pull you in, and the local shops like rodanthe and natural art suffer and you wonder why?

Why have you gone there several times but then chosen rodanthe? I wouldn't buy a bar of wax at real.

Scott deserves a lot more than he charges people. I have seen him do it start to finish and it is embarrassing that it doesn't cost at least $700!

 

I always buy local and never spent more than 600

 

5 hours is a ridiculously low estimate. As some sort of time-record challenge it might be possible. For a practical very fast shaping/glassing process for a plain white shortboard:

Shaping 1.5 hours
Glassing bottom 0.5 hour
Cure time / prep and flip 0.5 hour
Glassing deck 0.5 hour
cure time / prep and flip 0.5 hour
hot coat bottom 0.5 hour
cure time / prep and flip 0.5 hour
hot coat deck 0.5 hour
cure time 0.5 hour
fin box and leash cup install and cure 1 hour (cant use UV on this!)
sandout 1.5 hours

8 hours. If the blank is a machined CNC blank so just the machine lines have to be sanded out then shaping time is 0.5 hour so 7 hours but someone had to run the blank though the CNC machine so its not totally time saved.

I really think this is a pretty close bare minimum time to produce a stock, plain white SB and this would apply to a production setting where multiple boards are shaped/glassed/sanded by a skilled shaper/glasser/sander team. One person actually stepping a single board through these steps would take a bit longer. This obviously includes no cleanup, no prep, no breaks, no quick spray job, no nothing.

 

No matter what board you buy, make sure you attach your leash properly.

 

Never specifically said backyard shaper, this applies to the entire market.
BTW did you find any shapers by name that will state for a FACT what their building cost is per board? Only the board, not rent because those are variables. For instance, the price of a box space in Melbourne, FL is probably 35% less expensive than Cardiff, CA
Thanks for your thoughts[/QUOTE]

My boards come from a guy who has been through the retail nightmare and back again. He shapes in a "backyard" set up (that puts many other shaping set ups to shame). The Clark foam demise certainly created some issues for supple and pricing for a time. But then, miraculously we had blanks o plenty and a gap up in price. Couple that with inflation and prices have become higher.

I get my boards </= $450 depending. I'm pretty content and it is fun as hell being present and engaged in the process. Build a relationship with a shaper...or buy boards at retail (++*)!

 

Yes--he doubled his price so often his market disappeared.
Business 102 : Never listen to Barry Cuda for business advice.

 

What dimwit thinks you can build a board in 5 hours

 

Im hungover.... so i didn't read everything here.

But the talk about making 30 bucks an hour or whatever. That's the workers pay. Not the cost of the actual labor. In my trade it costs 165 just for me to walk in the door. 110 for every additional hour. So let's chop that down. Labor to build a board is 50 bucks. 5 hours? Your at 250if my math is right. That's one guy.

Not saying boards should be 700. I buy local for 550 or less. Just stating what the workers hourly wage is and the actual cost of labor are two diffrent things