Gsi $$$?

gsi is a major chinese board company geared towards new surfers. atleast my sweet potato was made in thailand lol.

 

$2800 in short boards, impressive. I bought an Italian motorcycle at an auction once for about that...

You guys are all tripping buying $700 surfboards.

 

do you know how many handcrafted customs i could buy for $2800, not saying that coil is a bad board, just expensive

 

not sure where everyone is getting the $2800 number...the OP didn't say he bought all 3 boards, nor are all 3 coils. he's comparing the most recent custom coil (a company who he considers to be at the pinnacle of advanced surfboard construction & produced here in the USA) he bought for $700 to 2 GSI boards recommended by the ad at the top of the swellinfo forecast page, which have a MSRP of $600 & $700, respectively.
GSI's boards are cheap, crappy, poorly glassed excuses for surfboards. shops like them b/c they have relatively high margins, so they get more bang for their buck, & can even "mark down" the boards & look like they're giving you a deal. it's pretty sad that this is what surfing has come to...& while a lot of it comes down on the shops for even beginning to carry boards like that, the same shops are almost obligated to continue carrying those products b/c it's become what their customers want...7S superfish, NSPs, mctavishes, robert augusts, most SUPs, webbers, the list goes on...

 

I have a Webber Fatburner ( no longer made I think ). It's regular polyester/polyurethane construction. The glass job has held up well and it's the best all 'round board I've ever ridden. It's made in Thailand by people who definitely do not surf but they do make boards all day long every day. Almost all boards today are computer assist shaped and then finished by hand, just like GSI. I only paid 299.00 new. That was a deal. I took it to Barbados at Christmas and an English guy was there who was familiar with Webbers and didn't have a problem. He thought they made good boards. I think the hostility is an American thing. As far as the 700.00 goes, that's for the new Epoxy vacuum bagged process they have ( over a regular shaped blank ). I haven't surfed one but they're probably strong and light and if designed by somebody like Greg Webber ( used to shape boards for Taj ) who knows their stuff they'll be a good board. For 700.00 I might buy domestic just to avoid the stink eye.

 

glass,

for a small time shaper, $300 new is barely enough to cover the cost of making a board. that's where the problem lies, IMO. companies like GSI can build & sell boards for what it costs an independent to build one custom board b/c they pay their employees pennies & don't have to abide by the same regulations that domestic shapers do. i get that everyone wants a deal, but eventually the small scale, local shaper will be a thing of the past & all we'll be left w/ is companies like GSI, the walmart of surfing.
as far as the vaccum-bagging process, domestic shapers are & have been doing it for some time...small scale guys like scott busby in nc, & larger production guys like coil in (i think) fla. you don't need to go GSI or surftech to get a light, strong, durable board. to be honest, almost ALL of the glassing issues i have seen, particularly fin plug problems, have been on GSI products.
so it's really not a question of whether GSI makes a good board or not (IMO, they don't), it's a matter of how they are systematically squeezing smaller shapers out of the business. yes, "hardcore" (or whatever you want to call them) surfers will still want to order custom boards, but most shapers DO NOT make $$$ on custom orders, not a significant amount, any way. they make $$$ from selling stock boards to local surf shops. besides word of mouth, showing their work off in shops is how they get their name out there. if cheap GSI boards are taking up rack space, something has to make way for it. will it be CI, ...Lost, etc...? not a chance. it's your local shaper that will have to take a backseat to make room for more popouts, SUPs, & charlie-made surfcraft.

 

not to derail this thread but, how's the flex on those?

 

not that i'm in the market for a new board, but i am also interested in learning more about the coils...

 

i know Coil is a local product, i think south florida, and that is comparable price with all the other boards (webber, Merrick ect.), but i just had a custom retrofish the way i wanted it made for me by my board maker for less than $450.00 and this person has made over 70,000 boards so its not like he dont know how to make a board. The coil board is a good board no doubt, but $700.00 that is a little extreme, i think the coil co. is taking advantage of people

 

You don't know what you're talking about, sorry.
Nothing rides like a Coil, you would know this if you have spent any amount of time on one. There again, they aren't the boards for you if you are looking for retro fishes.

 

Spending $700 on a board is not extraordinary.....most Firewire boards cost around this much. But you do get what you pay for, I have a GSI Webber and it's a decent board because of its shape, but the construction is nowhere near the quality of Firewire's I have. I paid about 375 w/ tax, fins included for my GSI board and about $700 for my FW board. Basically, you are paying for the construction and the name, but mostly the construction when you buy a FW or Coil.

 

erock, i do know what im talking about...as i said " the coil board is a good board", did i not, what im trying to say is they make a board for less than $250.00 (guarantee you) and sell them for more than $700.00, i would say that is taking advantage, wouldnt you, just like all these other companies do to the working class folks...its a buisness brotha, and it sucks for you and me.

 

how can you "guarantee" that? have you seen a wholesale invoice from coil? been involved in their construction process? have you built a board yourself? do you know how much it *actually* costs to build one? b/c i can tell you, there is not a SINGLE company, not even GSI, that has a $450 mark up on their boards.
i have to say, you seem woefully ignorant about how the board building industry really works.

 

Who did you buy a board from who has made over 70,000 boards? That would be 6 boards a day, 300 days per year for 40 years. You are either a) full of BS. b) buying boards made by a machine.

$700 is not the least bit extreme for a quality high performance surfboard.

 

Your right scotty i stand corrected, but my shaper has been in the buisness for over 35 yrs. and he has made his living and his share of boards, i should have said it that way, as far as someone going out and building their own board, yes, for $250.00 anyone can go out and buy the material they need to build your own board, excluding the tools of coarse. When it come to the Coil brand surfboard, and let me state this again "it is a excellent board" as far as construction, if im not mistaken i beleive they use a cnc computer milling machine, they set the dimension of the board in the computer and it cuts it exactly to their measurements, it takes all the guess work out of shaping (cookie cutter), i dont know how much these machines cost but im sure they are pretty expensive, and maybe that is why the coils and the other brands are so expensive (overhead), i dont know...njsurfer, yes i have built my own boards and i have been surfing close to 40 yrs., so sir, i have just a little experience and yes my friend it would blow your mind on the markup price of a surfboard...especially when it comes from overseas...maybe i shouldnt have put real numbers in my postings...i think that threw everything off...sorry about that

 

you've obviously not bothered to research how the coil guys *actually* constructs their boards. the cnc pre-cutting is only a small portion of the overall process. as may have been mentioned in this thread, the process is SIMILAR to to the construction process used by firewire (which are produced in thailand w/ far lower cost). most, if not all, shapers are pre-cutting their boards now...but few actually own their own (they are not small machines), but will take blanks to a location where there IS a cnc machine, have the blanks milled, then take them back to their factory & finish shape them.
i work in a shop (& have for quite some time), & am well aware of the retail mark ups of boards, & i can assure you that no board in my shop is marked up $450, even the GSI or surftech boards. sorry if your shop has ripped you off.
as i said before, if you had any actual clue as to how the board building industry works, you'd know that a shaper building boards for customers (not some guy shaping boards for himself in his garage) cannot survive selling boards for $250. that might cover the cost of material, but what about labor? waste disposal? not happening, sorry. the days of the $300 new, domestically-made surfboard are long gone.

 

does anyone know where you can order a coil? i'm not really looking to put that much money into a board right now, but they've definitely caught my attention. also, speaking of board prices, has anyone else noticed how incredibly cheap JC boards are now? someone told me that they're trying to get their customers back because they lost so many when they started making all of their boards with surftech. are their poly's just china boards now and that's why they're so cheap?