Dale Wilson Revisits the Channel Cutter
These days machine cutters can produce an array of curves and contours out of a crude foam blank. Every popular design feature can be sculpted with ease, except for one - channels.
Five years ago, upon the release of a router that could cut inlays for carbon wraps and fin systems, and also approximate a channel bottom, Swellnet spoke to three leading channel shapers to get their opinion, one of whom was Dale Wilson from Byrning Spears.
Dale was curious about the technology but still hesitant about its application. “I can see how the tool can work,” said Dale, suggesting they’d be ideal for shallow tail channels. Yet the channels he usually shapes - think deep, sharp, and long - lay beyond the router’s capabilities. He was, however, open-minded about the possibilities.
Fast forward five years, and Dale has again been playing with a router on a machine cutter, this time at Elite Cutting in Tweed Heads. “The program is better,” says Dale, who’s working with Shape3D now, “and I really like what the Elite Cutting crew are doing.”
The cutter in operation
“We’re just trying different things out,” continues Dale, “We’re getting close. In fact, they can do what I want, the only problem right now is the time.”
The issue at this point is that the bulk of Dale’s orders are customs, with each board slightly different to the one before and after. “The set up time is what slows it,” explains Dale.
As the router is a different cutting head to what’s used on the rest of the board, it takes time to switch out and set it up, and that time has to be billed for.
“Right now,” says Dale, “the set up just ties up the machine too much, and I can do it by hand in half the time. I can’t justify that money for something that’s not yet going to save me time.”
Top, cut by computer, and bottom, finished by hand
“It may be worthwhile for the guys that don’t have my technique,” admits Dale, who has been shaping channel bottoms for a quarter of a century and has the skill down pat.
“It may also be worthwhile for the production guys who are doing the exact same board 100 times over,” says Dale who, up until a month ago, relied on individual custom orders.
What happened a month ago, you may be wondering?
“I put a photo up [on Instagram] of a twinny with glass on fins and channels,” explains Dale, “and I got 20 orders of exactly the same board!”
“I know the exact photo you’re talking about,” I replied. “And you almost got 21 orders.”
6’0” x 20” x 2 5/8” 34.5L six channel, swallow tail, twin fin with glass ons. You like? Hit up Dale for an order.
“It’s the best worst thing I’ve done in my life,” sighed an exasperated Dale. “I could’ve just gone print, print, print.”
Yet that experience was an outlier to his bread and butter custom work, which involves individual set up work for each board. Dale’s recent experience with Elite Cutting shows the technology is there, the only obstacle is introducing it into the workflow.
Readers at home may be wondering why shapers who specialise in channels, who’ve built their name around the feature, may advance technology that’ll eventually make their unique handiwork obsolete. To that question, Dale has a simple answer.
“There’s no thrill in mowing foam. Ultimately, it’s the board that matters.”
Comments
There absolutely is thrill in mowing foam. It is the thrill of mowing the foam (which comes from the tool vibrations, sounds and change in shadows) that allows the shaper to access a true sense of intuition. From here you're responding to another sense of embedded intuition - your surfing experiences. It's all thrilling
For sure it is a buzz mowing the foam and sculpting a board out of the amorphous chunk of blank, through I can completely understand a career shaper losing a bit of the romance. Picking up the shaved foam from where it’s shot everywhere whilst open air shaping on the lawn is way less appealing.
I assume there will be dozens of comments stating they’d also love one of those channel twins in that exact dimension. May as well throw my name on the pile.
Channels are purdee.
Not according to Bean from Balin who has hand shaped at least a thousand. Couldn’t wait for the machine all the fun for him is the initial design then the final fine tuning.
And somewhere out there is footage of Dale cutting in Channels with a Disc sander = Skill !
Almost 22 orders...
Any footage of that twinny above in action, or know how it’s meant to feel and ride
I've had a few of Dale's boards, not twinnies, all thrusters and all 6 channels bar one. I can absolutely vouch for the quality he produces... second to none.
And there's something magic about channels.
With Dale's standards, you know that if he does adopt a technology you'll still get a top line product.
Yeah including the line about "technology that'll eventually replace him" was facetious. Reckon everyone knows by now that machine output is only as good as design data input, and when it comes to customs - which is what shapers of Dale's ilk are mainly trading in - that knowledge is irreplaceable.
would love to get one.
been riding a Phil Myers shaped Col Smith 6 channel.
little stubby shape with 4 fins that flies.
I've got one that sounds similar freeride, lots of fun to ride
Can't say enough good things about Dale and his skills.
I have a 6'2 deep six thruster from him, and I love it. Would love to get a slightly bloated version of it :-)
Nice article and interview, Stu.
I think we talked about it before for your mid length/gun all rounder - get raglanray (ray finlay) to make a custom as he made all the byrning spears/al Byrne designs shapes in NZ.
I'll go and check out his boards once this lockdown mess is over.
6’1 by 20 by 2 5/8 hand shaped by Daniel Thomson in PU in 2009.just dragged it out of the garage from the boatdbag.still in mint condition.rode it a few times then moved on and it sat in the bag until now when I seen the article by Stu.
VelocityJohnno, let me know when you get this machine in your shed!
Genuine question.
How many times have you seen anyone ride a channel bottom, in beach break conditions, well?
I can understand them in walling, running, point type waves, but for the average joe scratching around at the usual average beach break?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The old man had a deep 6 channel thruster (rounded pin I think) until fairly recently, and ripped on it (most of our surfing is done at local beachies). Can't for the life of me remember the shaper, I'll see if he remembers. Went best in waves with a bit of grunt.
Few local guys are surfing channel twinnies, and surfing well if smooth/drawn-out/graceful does it for you.
I surfed mostly channel bottoms for quite a while. My take on them is that if it is clean they are amazing. Beachies, points, reefs as long as it is groomed they go well. From what I have seen most people have channel bottoms (at least deep channels) on boards designed for waves with a bit of grunt.
Never surfed a groveller with channels which I reckon might be why Dale is getting so many people wanting one of those twins?
I also want to give it a go!
I’ve seen a couple of people with channel bottom twinnies surfing beachies. Makes sense to me that the channels give a bit more hold off the bottom that some twins lack
Too bad AB left us. Some input from the godfather of channel bottoms would be gold right now.
He's sorely missed in many places. Dale Wilson still writes "In loving memory of AB" on all his channel bottoms.
Jamie - - The Forgotten Byrne
Simon Jones would have a good take on all of this.
Anyone riding a MOTE at the moment?
Hear! Hear! Dale, Master of the Channel.
The other awesome thing about Shape 3D and AKU Shaper combo is the ability to do supergrom boards. For any of you mere mortal shapers out there...Try shaping a 4'2 x 15 1/4" x 1 7/8 shooter for a kid like 7 year old son of Robbo Robertson, Teddy...I couldn't if I tried! (well, I certainly wouldn't have wanted to out of the smallest blank I could find!) When it came off the machine at DMS I almost cried. My dream had come true.
I recall a well-known - though unnamed - Aussie shaper once grumbling about how hard he found it to shape Hawaiian guns; how he was so used to the flowing curves of shortboards and struggled to link all the soft, elongated curves required on long guns.
I saw that board of Teddy's and it sounds like you'd have the exact opposite issue to the gun shaper, having to reduce and sharpen up all those contours while keeping everything in proportion.
What came off the cutter was an absolute weapon. Amazing little board.
Not only is it the flow of curves that vary from Gun to Grom, but the volume of foam that must be removed that is contrary to the curve of the blank is outa control! Blank to finished shape tolerances are usually governed by the design and dimensions of the plug. Skim the top, remove volume from the bottom, add or sometimes flatten the bottom curve/rocker etc, is all pretty easy with close tolerance blanks.
But a 4'2"? You may as well start with a square block of foam.
Trust me... It is a whole lot harder to hand shape a 4'2" than a 10'2"! Thank my various gods for AKU!
For a board that is that hard to shape, how long does it take for the grom to outgrow it? 6 months?
Little Teddy Robertson will probably grow out of his board in 6 months so, for a kid at that level of surfing, being coached by ex-pro surfer and dad, Adam ‘Robbo’ Robertson, he needs to be working with a shaper of note (not just a designer who has never hand-shaped a surfboard who can give him new boards for as often as he grows.
When I look at the program in 3D mode and scan my eye over the curves looking down the deck line or the bottom rail line, it is almost exactly the same as me looking down the same lines in my shaping room of a real shape, (that is a learned skill not an acquired one).
Imagine yourself as an adult growing rapidly, not putting on weight and getting less and less fit but literally being fit and growing (?)…How much would that affect how well your boards go for you? So for all groms through to teenagers they most certainly need to change their boards more often than us old blokes, doh!
And what I mean by changing boards is simply length, width and volume.
For those who don’t know, or remember, I was actually instrumental in the fine tuning of shape3D and AKU in the early days with Emanuel Vimlin of Shape3D and Jimmy and Ralph Freeze of AKU, paying for and inspiring these math-heads to tune their programs for us dumbass CAD illiterate, soon to be digi-shapers! Haha!
Murray Bourton is the perfect example of this, and I am sure he’d agree! (Not being a dumbass..I hold that mantle proudly). I soon realised that it would be impossible to encourage surfboard shaper/designers, not non-shapers to learn to use these programs There are exceptions however!! I believe and stand corrected that Eric Arakawa did so on the KKL machine in the early 90’s(?) on the AutoCAD styled computer program he had access to. Smarter than me obviously!!
I realised that all the jargon and measuring fundamentals needed to become that of a shaper, not an engineer…A fundamental example of this would be that in CAD you measure from 0 to X, Y and Z…Shapers have always measured 12” or so from the nose and tail, and in from the rail and, without boasting, (haha, sorry, sounds like it ) I was responsible for that
The beauty about shape3-D and AKU is that in my view, it is much better than the hand-shape result, technically (maybe not soulfully?)
I am an artist who can if I now CHOOSE to handshape a sweet board like thousands of shapers worldwide or use the other tool.CAD/CAM.
BUT there is no doubt in my mind that it is way easier to simply alter the data on a proven original surfboard, and beautifully extrapolate that data into the exact same board with perfect dimensions and volume alterations. Like I said with Teddy’s boards, which when I saw what came off the best and most versatile machine going…AKUSHAPER (which was an epiphany for me that my dream had been realised, that I could literally take a 6’6” Burleigh mid step up and turn that into a 10’6” Mavericks paddler, in 10 minutes, or take Michel Bourez’s favourite 5’11 performance proven Firewire (circa 2015) and reduce that down perfectly to Teddys 4’2!!! It absolutely blows my mind, and this coming from (I don’t mind admitting), an numerically and aesthetically accurate and prolific shaper who could hand shape 15 boards a day of full hand shapes (with wings swallowtails, channels etc), albeit a 12 hour day when I was in Japan in the early 80s. My fingertips would literally bleed after being rubbed away (This is how I got away with a lot of local robberies in Chigasaki after shaping, because I left my fingerprints as evidence. They are still looking for me ! )
So, I think my knowledge of computer shaping and hand shaping is relevant enough to make the assertion that computer shaping is the best thing that ever happened to the design and manufacturing of surfboards.
Oh boy, open the floodgates!
FYI, I’m about to launch Nev Customs which will allow individuals to custom order a surfboard anywhere on the planet and then have made locally, encouraging local industry…
Too excited to words! So, like Dale, I’m no Luddite.. Just a dumbass ranga/Nevil no friends bloke having fun!
I'll be your friend Nev...
Mates rates??
Baha! Yep...I buy friends...Its the only way. You should see how much I paid for my wife!
I was living at Palmy when I was a grom and remember being awestruck when all the pros would stay at Nevs place. Surfing shitty beachbreaks with Sunny haha. All my mates had custom Nevs back then, not me, parents wouldn't buy me a new board. The chunky dinged up piece of shit I had was fine they'd say. But the good thing about surfing chunky boards when you're young, is they teach you to surf with power.
That is so cool to hear mate
Great memories, eh! Palmy rules!
Lived in Palmy around 89 - 93. Good times. Great memories. Plenty of friends had Nev's. Neva had one myself though. Neva say Neva.
Yeeeewww!!! haha!
Fist custom was a Nev sometime in the 90's i had shipped down to Adelaide. Paid for by delivering pizzas in my battered LH torana where thermalben worked at the time as well.
Haha! classic....Such a great memory!
I shaped a board with almost those 4' × 16" × 2
Setting it as a quad, keeping the sharp edge in front of the fins was the most interesting part.
Started with a square blank !
LOL.
Tricks you should and do have under your belt ol Nev.
Awesome work mate...Amazing...You have photos?
My question is "Do I in fact want to?"
That little twin looks outstanding.
Tumbled into a Jed Done custom twin with channels this year and in the right waves it has been a bit of a revelation. Longer arcs and access to way more of the wave than on the conventional thrusters been riding for thirty years.
A thought on automated processes in general, and for each area that automation enters I understand that there is a seperate set of dynamics, but at what point do we step back as humans and say, well, maybe we’ll keep those jobs/processes for ourselves? Does the efficiency/convenience provided by machines outweigh the benefits of decent jobs and the flow on that they provide to society? I’m thinking here more so of transport: ferries, trucks, ships, wharves etc, but I’m sure it applies in many other areas that currently provide meaningful and well paid jobs for humans.
Don't rely on machines people!
Don't lose the art.
I've been mowing eps the last few years.
Its an absolute nightmare .....
Shit gets everywhere. Everywhere.
Only a shaper knows the feeling......
100% agree mate...Both are crafts/knowledge/experience etc.
I will soon be launching
Nevashaped?
A comprehensive master class on all the intricacies of the art..
Ive never shaped a surfboard, however i have melted a chunk of rail on a Laser Zap back in the 80's after adding too much hardener into the resin hoping for a 2 hour setting time so I could get back out there,...It must be a satisfying feeling transforming a "Blank" into a precise finished product ready for the glasser.
SKILL !
Jeez that was informative - How to ride a Channel bottom - Fins etc And how Width plays a big big part...so very narrow..
Muscle memory from sanding all those glass jobs he's done over the years. He's definitely a master of his craft