I think I mentioned earlier in this thread that the inspiration was from Greenough's kneeboards. Remember Velo?
I have the template off that board with the crown tail. These of course are less like his and what Ted Spencer shaped and rode at Angourie, but it's still in that spirit. They have a lot of vee in the tail and that loosens them up plenty. Even modest talent surfers learn how to s turn and roundhouse way earlier than if on some sinky pro type board.
You are right too, when you say people look at a lot of volume and tend to stick surfboards into a stock category. Well, I laugh at that because these boards are high performance boards, just in a different way. If I wanted to make the eggy single fin drivers like the old Wilderness stuff, then I could (and probably will) in a heartbeat. But this is a different trip, and once I started doing them, even I was surprised at how all the feedback was always so positive. People from all level skill sets love these. That's pretty neat.
Once I got more comfortable with shaping these...... I mean in the begiining I'd look at the outlines and felt like it was an acid flashback or something. They looked WEIRD, but that WAS and IS the formula......... so they started to grow on me. There was sooo much history with other shapers doing them over a span of around 15 years. Stoker isn't a shaper but he has a discerning eye and knew what he wanted. I give him credit.
But being a shaper and doing them, and also handshaping all of them, I would listen to people and found very subtle design improvements I could make. Before me, they only used longboard blanks for these boards. I had to research a LOT of different blanks before I could find everything that worked within the confines of the decks desired, volume up front and in back with the vee, and the rockers that worked in different lengths. Many of the contemporary blanks over 7 ft. are wrong for these boards...the decks are wrong and the rail volume isn't there! I went thru a sh-tload of blanks to finally get what I wanted especially regarding the deckline rocker, particularly around the shoulder area. A lot of curve changes in the aft section too while always reading the blank for deck, tail and rail volume. Not every design in world has to be thin domed deck pinched rails I bitched to the blank manufacturers that the catalogs no longer showed a cross section so I could see what the decks looked like. What was I supposed to do? Order each blank just to see if the deckcurve is right? It seemd like the blank world is set up for CNC machining because people don't handshape anymore?!!
I had to do a lot of restructuring of older designed blanks that had some butt ugly blob ass decklines. I also made very specific but hard to notice changes to the distribution at certain points throughout the boards that would increase speed thru an improved planing profile. It wasn't just refining the bottom rocker that achieved this, but the distribution, deckline and tail rails and edge that boosted horsepower and trim speed.
Greenough would approve, as he has always been about horsepower.
I also borrowed from what I achieved on speed boards that we clocked by radar in the 80's.
The finer aspects of all these in proper combination are only picked up on by guys that are detail oriented. Some of the old Stokers that are still out there work, but by comparison they are crude.
The new ones are intentionally designed to ride ON TOP of the water as opposed to IN the water. In this sense, anyone that is used to a glass slipper, will have to adjust their thinking and approach in how to ride these boards. For beginner kooks, they are awesome because that skill level isn't good at developing trim speed nor setting rail edges or changing rails. Well, SVM's do all that stuff for ya kinda effortlessly. A kook that doesn't know how to set a rail to make a section might actually do it now, even if by accident. Idiot proofing? Maybe I should have let him crash!
Narrow glass slippers change edge to edge quickly........ wide boards don't, unless you have vee. But wider boards are also (generally) drivier by nature. So what you get with this design is a board that a good surfer can take out, and if they are open minded, just go "heck yeah, this thing will fly by changing edges and setting the edge here and there, driving it so hard your knees wanna buckle (the guys that regulalry make "impossible" sections know what I'm talking about). Stalling with all this excess speed by going waaay out on the flat and carvng an on edge cuttie or huge gouging roundhouse. Whee, what fun!
The progressive vee creates generous rail rocker that also allows you to pop off the top.
I had a guy tell me he took his 8'0" out the other day in small surf and a guy next to him on a long board looked at him in disbelief as he was gliding early into the wave when the longobarder thought he could snake him.
All the Stokers have that feature regardless of the size and length people get. I loosened up the tails from the old ones other people shaped.....but in doing so I also had refined all those other features I mentioned. And I glassed and sanded all those because I came to a realization that there aren't a lot of glass shops that I feel would block out all the work the entire way thru the boards to the level that I'm doing. Disc sanders in the wrong or inexperienced hands can really destroy a great design. I polished out a 7'6" today to a ridiculous Meguier's shine and looking at it, there are NO WAVES in the bottom. The thing is like plate glass where it should be and it looks like a super good quality mirror. That's hard to do with resin, and this was even hotcoat UV resin. I know I couldn't have gotten that bottom unless ALL the previous work had been spot on. Only the very best (domestic) glass shops are at that level when they have to glass volume on a daily basis to survive.
With all the blocking and the precision edges, I really believe the boards work better. Production shops that have freelapped slop and disc'd out sanded finish boards kind of count on it that people can't see the waves in all the work............ those boards don't work as good. I just really have come to believe that. I think Griffin, Mair, Barnfield, and a few other's are probably on that same wavelength? You have to have certain tools to produce at that level. Guys that think CNC machining negates the need to block out the final shape are nutzzzz!
Blocking..... I'm addicted to blocking. This design has NO concave(s). Vee + Flat. The right amount in the right places..... it works for this particular design.
I know the limitations of this design as well: they don't like chop, they max out in a couple feet overhead unless you are a very good surfer..... Stoker rode a stock 7'6" in two foot overhead Pipeline... but he knows the boards so well.... he also got2nd ina Hard Rock contest on the South Shore. The things ride Rincon, Jalama, C Street, San Diego breaks, East Coast stuff, Hawaii....... but a little chop and some big juice and they are going Mach 4 on top of the water and come unglued. Theyweren't desgined for that though...... they were designed to fly in gutless one foot slop to a little overhead max, and that is what they do.......... and they do it fully 3D unlike those flat ass limited fish. Since doing these boards, I've started hating fish..... Fish are ridiculously over rated. If you watch Rob Machado absolutely ripping a C.I. Fish in their video, alI I see is a phenom talent ripping a very limited design. Show me otherwise and I'll apologize.
It is great when a knowledgeable shaper gets enthusiastic about a design and goes all frothy explaining it. You go, DS!
I can imagine you had to do some searching for the proper blank. The 8'4'' I did for Rhyno would work for some of the bigger ones, but I'm not sure if that's being sold in California.
When Clark closed, Rhyno Foam started shipping containers into Florida for distribution. Really good PU foam, they are the guys that were making improvements to the Bennett formula in South America. They helped the East Coast PU/PE industry a lot. I did an 8'4'' plug for them to fill a big hole in their selection for the US market.
Blank hijack aside, the SVM has that ''coherent'' look I like in a design. The elements go together in a functional manner.
Really cool still we have some designer/shaper on this labor
yes, almost no more handshaping in "professional environments".
Im with you on the blowers.
In my opinion 50% of the plugs are wrong.
Who design most anyway?
not shapers in most cases, only a few are shaper s designed
Its imitation of older CF plugs tweaked a bit.
For ex.: the Rhyno longboard plugs are not good for almost all the longboard designs except a performer..
They don t have a good egg plug.
Surfblanks Brazil have a lot of mistakes and bad design in several plugs too.
-Not with you on the fish design
Yes, those retro fishes are not so good but newly fishes are very good
My personal board is a 5´2´´ modern fish.
I see that no one foil the fishes the way I do; also no one put gobs of curve in the places that I put
Other crappy aspect is those fins man, those twin are not so good in a fish
I ride in daily basis normally on points and fast beach breaks (backhand mostly); OH normally but with a range from 2´to OH and a half sometimes. Not good on mushy; not so good on gutless surf.
Fucking cool on perfect point walls; super fast on rapid beach breaks.
Not intended for the rookies or non fish connoisseurs.
keep on going!
---hey MD
I use Rhyno foam from time to time and never see those 8 4´´...
Hey reverb, we shouldn't hijack DS' thread too much. I'm not sure if Rhyno ever sold the 8'4'' in SA. It may have been an export only blank. I looked at their website and it's not there anymore. I don't keep up with what's going on in PU blanks these days, lol.
Damn Deadshaper, love your writeup and enthusiasm for this board. I really like this shape, looks simple but there seems to be a lot going on there to make it work. You mentioned a shop in Lavallette NJ carries them, do you know which one?
It's not one of the big established shops. He's friend that just opened a coffee shop combo kind of place and he asked me to send him a few boards to see what kind of interest he might get. He's a long time NJ surfer. I sent him three Stoker V Machine and another that was a custom order for last summer.
Tell him you got his email from me. You can email him a [email protected]
His name is Geo. SVM's are kind of a grassroots thing that is exploding. I don't want to bad rap glassers, there are some gr8 dedicated guys out there in the trench. To be able to supply fast growing demand I've already contacted some glassers I really trust and that means going into their places and thoroughly going over stuff that I want that can only be achieved through the glassing process. These boards can't just be shaped and finished out in normal fashion. Glassing and sandng is actually part of the whole final shaping process.
MD....... you're so sharp I'm sure you are onto a lot of what I'm talking about with the decks I need. Not the norm, to be sure, that uh, 'fashion' is currently out, yet when people get on them,they all say "hey, I really like this deck"! If you're thinking PR vs EA then yeah.
Looks fun, but just by the pix I can see it is a totally different animal than an SVM.
Bet it's a lotta fun though!
...hello DS,
Im more egg oriented but these looking interesting
would you mind explain where s originated the model name? (v machine) may be to be a victory machine?
In the pictures, those tails reminds me mid 80s shortboard tails, may be Im wrong.
-and yes, these are very different concept than the rockets, seems that happend the same with the retro fishes and the modern fishes, etc
people confuse lot of volume and put many things in the same bag.
Oops:
This was directed reply to Reverb:
I think I mentioned earlier in this thread that the inspiration was from Greenough's kneeboards. Remember Velo?
I have the template off that board with the crown tail. These of course are less like his and what Ted Spencer shaped and rode at Angourie, but it's still in that spirit. They have a lot of vee in the tail and that loosens them up plenty. Even modest talent surfers learn how to s turn and roundhouse way earlier than if on some sinky pro type board.
You are right too, when you say people look at a lot of volume and tend to stick surfboards into a stock category. Well, I laugh at that because these boards are high performance boards, just in a different way. If I wanted to make the eggy single fin drivers like the old Wilderness stuff, then I could (and probably will) in a heartbeat. But this is a different trip, and once I started doing them, even I was surprised at how all the feedback was always so positive. People from all level skill sets love these. That's pretty neat.
Once I got more comfortable with shaping these...... I mean in the begiining I'd look at the outlines and felt like it was an acid flashback or something. They looked WEIRD, but that WAS and IS the formula......... so they started to grow on me. There was sooo much history with other shapers doing them over a span of around 15 years. Stoker isn't a shaper but he has a discerning eye and knew what he wanted. I give him credit.
But being a shaper and doing them, and also handshaping all of them, I would listen to people and found very subtle design improvements I could make. Before me, they only used longboard blanks for these boards. I had to research a LOT of different blanks before I could find everything that worked within the confines of the decks desired, volume up front and in back with the vee, and the rockers that worked in different lengths. Many of the contemporary blanks over 7 ft. are wrong for these boards...the decks are wrong and the rail volume isn't there! I went thru a sh-tload of blanks to finally get what I wanted especially regarding the deckline rocker, particularly around the shoulder area. A lot of curve changes in the aft section too while always reading the blank for deck, tail and rail volume. Not every design in world has to be thin domed deck pinched rails I bitched to the blank manufacturers that the catalogs no longer showed a cross section so I could see what the decks looked like. What was I supposed to do? Order each blank just to see if the deckcurve is right? It seemd like the blank world is set up for CNC machining because people don't handshape anymore?!!
I had to do a lot of restructuring of older designed blanks that had some butt ugly blob ass decklines. I also made very specific but hard to notice changes to the distribution at certain points throughout the boards that would increase speed thru an improved planing profile. It wasn't just refining the bottom rocker that achieved this, but the distribution, deckline and tail rails and edge that boosted horsepower and trim speed.
Greenough would approve, as he has always been about horsepower.
I also borrowed from what I achieved on speed boards that we clocked by radar in the 80's.
The finer aspects of all these in proper combination are only picked up on by guys that are detail oriented. Some of the old Stokers that are still out there work, but by comparison they are crude.
The new ones are intentionally designed to ride ON TOP of the water as opposed to IN the water. In this sense, anyone that is used to a glass slipper, will have to adjust their thinking and approach in how to ride these boards. For beginner kooks, they are awesome because that skill level isn't good at developing trim speed nor setting rail edges or changing rails. Well, SVM's do all that stuff for ya kinda effortlessly. A kook that doesn't know how to set a rail to make a section might actually do it now, even if by accident. Idiot proofing? Maybe I should have let him crash!
Narrow glass slippers change edge to edge quickly........ wide boards don't, unless you have vee. But wider boards are also (generally) drivier by nature. So what you get with this design is a board that a good surfer can take out, and if they are open minded, just go "heck yeah, this thing will fly by changing edges and setting the edge here and there, driving it so hard your knees wanna buckle (the guys that regulalry make "impossible" sections know what I'm talking about). Stalling with all this excess speed by going waaay out on the flat and carvng an on edge cuttie or huge gouging roundhouse. Whee, what fun!
The progressive vee creates generous rail rocker that also allows you to pop off the top.
I had a guy tell me he took his 8'0" out the other day in small surf and a guy next to him on a long board looked at him in disbelief as he was gliding early into the wave when the longobarder thought he could snake him.
All the Stokers have that feature regardless of the size and length people get. I loosened up the tails from the old ones other people shaped.....but in doing so I also had refined all those other features I mentioned. And I glassed and sanded all those because I came to a realization that there aren't a lot of glass shops that I feel would block out all the work the entire way thru the boards to the level that I'm doing. Disc sanders in the wrong or inexperienced hands can really destroy a great design. I polished out a 7'6" today to a ridiculous Meguier's shine and looking at it, there are NO WAVES in the bottom. The thing is like plate glass where it should be and it looks like a super good quality mirror. That's hard to do with resin, and this was even hotcoat UV resin. I know I couldn't have gotten that bottom unless ALL the previous work had been spot on. Only the very best (domestic) glass shops are at that level when they have to glass volume on a daily basis to survive.
With all the blocking and the precision edges, I really believe the boards work better. Production shops that have freelapped slop and disc'd out sanded finish boards kind of count on it that people can't see the waves in all the work............ those boards don't work as good. I just really have come to believe that. I think Griffin, Mair, Barnfield, and a few other's are probably on that same wavelength? You have to have certain tools to produce at that level. Guys that think CNC machining negates the need to block out the final shape are nutzzzz!
Blocking..... I'm addicted to blocking. This design has NO concave(s). Vee + Flat. The right amount in the right places..... it works for this particular design.
I know the limitations of this design as well: they don't like chop, they max out in a couple feet overhead unless you are a very good surfer..... Stoker rode a stock 7'6" in two foot overhead Pipeline... but he knows the boards so well.... he also got2nd ina Hard Rock contest on the South Shore. The things ride Rincon, Jalama, C Street, San Diego breaks, East Coast stuff, Hawaii....... but a little chop and some big juice and they are going Mach 4 on top of the water and come unglued. Theyweren't desgined for that though...... they were designed to fly in gutless one foot slop to a little overhead max, and that is what they do.......... and they do it fully 3D unlike those flat ass limited fish. Since doing these boards, I've started hating fish..... Fish are ridiculously over rated. If you watch Rob Machado absolutely ripping a C.I. Fish in their video, alI I see is a phenom talent ripping a very limited design. Show me otherwise and I'll apologize.
Pardon any typos, you get the point.
It is great when a knowledgeable shaper gets enthusiastic about a design and goes all frothy explaining it. You go, DS!
I can imagine you had to do some searching for the proper blank. The 8'4'' I did for Rhyno would work for some of the bigger ones, but I'm not sure if that's being sold in California.
[email protected]
Mike, I can't even find a catalog for the Rhyno blanks much less your 8'4" schematic???
When Clark closed, Rhyno Foam started shipping containers into Florida for distribution. Really good PU foam, they are the guys that were making improvements to the Bennett formula in South America. They helped the East Coast PU/PE industry a lot. I did an 8'4'' plug for them to fill a big hole in their selection for the US market.
Blank hijack aside, the SVM has that ''coherent'' look I like in a design. The elements go together in a functional manner.
[email protected]
...hello DS,
thanks for your reply.
Really cool still we have some designer/shaper on this labor
yes, almost no more handshaping in "professional environments".
Im with you on the blowers.
In my opinion 50% of the plugs are wrong.
Who design most anyway?
not shapers in most cases, only a few are shaper s designed
Its imitation of older CF plugs tweaked a bit.
For ex.: the Rhyno longboard plugs are not good for almost all the longboard designs except a performer..
They don t have a good egg plug.
Surfblanks Brazil have a lot of mistakes and bad design in several plugs too.
-Not with you on the fish design
Yes, those retro fishes are not so good but newly fishes are very good
My personal board is a 5´2´´ modern fish.
I see that no one foil the fishes the way I do; also no one put gobs of curve in the places that I put
Other crappy aspect is those fins man, those twin are not so good in a fish
I ride in daily basis normally on points and fast beach breaks (backhand mostly); OH normally but with a range from 2´to OH and a half sometimes. Not good on mushy; not so good on gutless surf.
Fucking cool on perfect point walls; super fast on rapid beach breaks.
Not intended for the rookies or non fish connoisseurs.
keep on going!
---hey MD
I use Rhyno foam from time to time and never see those 8 4´´...
Hey reverb, we shouldn't hijack DS' thread too much. I'm not sure if Rhyno ever sold the 8'4'' in SA. It may have been an export only blank. I looked at their website and it's not there anymore. I don't keep up with what's going on in PU blanks these days, lol.
[email protected]
Damn Deadshaper, love your writeup and enthusiasm for this board. I really like this shape, looks simple but there seems to be a lot going on there to make it work. You mentioned a shop in Lavallette NJ carries them, do you know which one?
It's not one of the big established shops. He's friend that just opened a coffee shop combo kind of place and he asked me to send him a few boards to see what kind of interest he might get. He's a long time NJ surfer. I sent him three Stoker V Machine and another that was a custom order for last summer.
Tell him you got his email from me. You can email him a [email protected]
His name is Geo. SVM's are kind of a grassroots thing that is exploding. I don't want to bad rap glassers, there are some gr8 dedicated guys out there in the trench. To be able to supply fast growing demand I've already contacted some glassers I really trust and that means going into their places and thoroughly going over stuff that I want that can only be achieved through the glassing process. These boards can't just be shaped and finished out in normal fashion. Glassing and sandng is actually part of the whole final shaping process.
MD....... you're so sharp I'm sure you are onto a lot of what I'm talking about with the decks I need. Not the norm, to be sure, that uh, 'fashion' is currently out, yet when people get on them,they all say "hey, I really like this deck"! If you're thinking PR vs EA then yeah.
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