i wouldnt say set in your ways, i would say you dont feel like lowering your standards. and you shouldnt.
Exactly! But they really dont need to. Anyone whos dragged a three pound power planer back and forth 50, 60 70+ times over a blank to skin the deck and thin the blank from 2 7/8" to 2 3/8" knows that this is one part of the shaping process that a machine can handle just fine. Same with cutting the rail bands which is easily another 30-50 passes. Your custom 6'0" starts out with pretty much EXACTLY the same rough cutting process as the 6'0" on the rack. If my local shaper told me he bought a shaping machine (HA!) and that my next custom was going to be easier on his back, ears, and lungs, i'd say good for him...use the machine to handle the brutal parts and focus on the details.
Not sure how my statement indicated that I know so many shapers personally. To be honest, none. That's why I shop on craigslist and buy popouts on whiskey. And the other poster is right, anyone who works hard deserves any money they make and then some. I guess when you mentioned "shapers" I thought of anyone who constructs boards. From firewires to your backyard shapers, I'm still sure that the majority of shapers are thinking of money. Maybe I'm wrong. Just my opinion.
My point was that you are making an assumption. Out of the fifteen or so shapers, laminators, sanders, polishers, fin setters, I am personally friends with, not a single one makes surfboards for the money. Pretty much all of them know they could take the same power tools and go make more money in another trade. But they wont, because they love making surfboards. Now take Mark Price for example (the CEO of Firewire). He started his company because of his passion for surfing and surfboards. However, he got caught up in the money and forgot why he got into it in the first place when he moved his production from San Diego to Indo to increase his profit margin. That's the difference between a shaper who does it for the love and a shaper who does it for the money (although Mark is actually a business man and not a shaper). Most craft surfboards because they love what they do.
