Board width variable

[sterbo]

There seems to be wide spectrum of opinion as to how annoying it is to be misled by claimed dimensions. Personally it bugs the hell out of me when I'm told something that is patently untrue. But many other people seem to not care much. And of course then there are the brand fanboys and dealers who will defend their brand no matter what.

Area 10 - I absolutely agree with you regarding (among other comments in your posts) people saying / publishing something that they know is incorrect. This is especially so when one forks out some serious coin.
I say, either get it right or be clear when publishing data and/or sales literature that there's a plus/minus factor.
Simple communication and disclosure. At that point it's simple: each individual consumer can decide whether or not it's important.
In my case, I would have measured how ever many boards were on the 'floor' and made my choice.

That said, I still stand by my assessment that there's absolutely no reason that boards that fall into what I would call a high end (not fully custom) build, utilizing CNC, should not vary in tolerance, spec wise, over .25 re: length, width, volume.

Thanks all for your feedback on this. Not to get sappy but before joining I spent a fair amount of time here and the manner in which most everyone speaks to each other, bends over backwards to help each other - the overall energy is magic. As a child of the '60s and still a true believer, you guys embody that path we all desperately hoped would stand the test of time

If you will allow, from a Haole boy,
Mahalo

[hbsteve]

Even your favorite  brand of jeans allows some variance within the same "exact" size.
It doesn't seem like it should be that way.  But it is.

[sterbo]

Even your favorite  brand of jeans allows some variance within the same "exact" size.
It doesn't seem like it should be that way.  But it is.

Seriously?
:eyeroll:
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.
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[sterbo]

By happenstance, as I was at the tail end of a 6 miler on Saturday I was hailed by a boater who asked me to participate in an upcoming local race. As we chatted he mentioned that he's a sponsor; a board maker in Southern Calif. I took the opportunity to ask him if they use a cnc. He said that they make both pure custom as well utilizing cnc technology. Getting to the point he seemed rather shocked that I should ask him what their completed board spec variance was given that it seemed an obvious conclusion to the fabrication process. Said those generated from cnc were checked, then checked again.
In the case of board width, length, volume variable -  no greater than .125 variance.
Fair enough. Easy enough for board manufacturers to publish their spec's along with their plus/minus factor.

Ultimately my point is one of communication and transparency. Whether one cares or not about these specs, it's only right that those of us forking out serious coin have the choice...

[PonoBill]

Most manufacturers hand sand their blanks after CNC. A little enthusiasm in the wrong place and you've eaten up .125 pretty quickly. Who is doing that sanding?

If glassing just means sealing the eps and laying on glass then there shouldn't be a lot of added variance, but more sophisticated stuff, like PVC wraps for a true sandwich construction changes that too. Ultimately these are all hand made products with rare exception. CNC is one step. Like starting with 2X4's and then having bubba build you a cabinet. The tolerance still rests with bubba.

[sterbo]

Most manufacturers hand sand their blanks after CNC. A little enthusiasm in the wrong place and you've eaten up .125 pretty quickly. Who is doing that sanding?

In my profession we save that kind of enthusiasm for extra curricular activities.
The minor sanding of whatever ridges are left from the cnc is about as straight forward as it gets.

If glassing just means sealing the eps and laying on glass then there shouldn't be a lot of added variance, but more sophisticated stuff, like PVC wraps for a true sandwich construction changes that too. Ultimately these are all hand made products with rare exception.

Glass, PVC, and carbon matrix fiber are machine manufactured (including printers), and therefore a complete known quantity specification wise. Add simple arithmetic to the robotic beauty of a cnc and it's basically 123.

CNC is one step. Like starting with 2X4's and then having bubba build you a cabinet. The tolerance still rests with bubba.

LOL. We all love Bubba. A soul so disparaged but what ever would we do without the reality check...

[supuk]

im sorry but if i was paying $3000+ in this day and age i would be pretty pissed if a board turned up and it was any more than 1/4" out on width. i really can't see any excuse other than poor craftsmanship or b/s coming from the manafactures. Having spent the last few months shaping boards from cnc'd blanks i know that when that black leaves the machine it is with less than 1/32" of the size i drew it on cad. You would need to be very poorly skilled when sanding the blank to lose any more than 1/8" of the original design as you are only sanding the high ridges off. a straight forward hand layup probably adds 1 or 2/16ths. If you are adding a sandwich its as simple as stating in the cad program what thickness the sandwich will be and it will just the cut accordingly.

[supsurf-tw]

As far as widths changing that really shouldn't be happening. CNC or hand shaping when the outline is cut the flat spot at the rail apex should stay flat until the final screen pass. Glassing will add +- 3\16" overall That is to thickness and width.

[TallDude]

We still have a lot of old CNC machines in this area. Some use a wheel cutter that leaves a good 1/8" deep corduroy like finish. Marko charges extra for more passes on their old CNC machine. Basically if you want a finer finish, it takes the machine longer. You pay for that finer cut. UK, your machine produces one of the finest finishes I've seen. 

[supsurf-tw]

We still have a lot of old CNC machines in this area. Some use a wheel cutter that leaves a good 1/8" deep corduroy like finish. Marko charges extra for more passes on their old CNC machine. Basically if you want a finer finish, it takes the machine longer. You pay for that finer cut. UK, your machine produces one of the finest finishes I've seen.

True.
I started using Procam and their cuts are amazing. Awesome operation and they deliver cut blanks right to my shaping room for finishing.

[supuk]

From what I have seen of photos of the factories were most of these production boards are made they all have large and prity up to date machines which should be accurate to the thickness of a pice of paper not 1/2 inch. Like you say td it depends how long they leave them on the machine as to the quality of cut, but surely if they are out as much as there dimenshions say perhaps they need to do something about it? How are they ever going to have any board size restrictions when they are so far out? Give a + 1 or 2" tolerance? Out of all the dimenshions width is probably the easiest to get right, if you take a cnc blank and over sand it by 1/4 or 1/2 inch you totally change the rail shape,no two production boards would look the same.i wonder if we email starboard they would say were they take there width measurements from? There is only one place I can see to keep things consultant and that's the apex at the widest point!

[supsurf-tw]

I think a lot of the overseas boards have quality issues. I've seen some irregular rails, etc in one of the major manufacturers boards built there. VERY expensive boards. There is no excuse for widths to be off....ever

[pdxmike]

You can be off by rounding alone, even if every board is made exactly the same with 0% variation.  Most companies have board widths in 1" or at best 1/2" increments.  If a company offers boards in 1" width increments, I assume the actual width could be up to 1/2" different.  If they offer them in 1/2" increments, I assume 1/4" difference, etc.  So if a catalog says a board is say 27", that doesn't mean to me that it should be exactly 27", or that anything above or below that is due to manufacturing variation.  The manufacturing could be flawless and exact, with the variation only due to rounding. 


My standards, and I think most people's, are along the lines of Area 10's list (i.e. up to 1/2" difference from advertised is "to be expected") and I'd guess most board companies think their customers have standards in line with his list.  So they won't make a point of warning people about small discrepancies from advertised widths unless they start seeing that they're making a lot of people unhappy, and I doubt they are when they're making boards within 1 or 2%  of advertised widths.

[Area 10]

I have a Boardworks C4 Waterman Switchblade 12-6 that is a technically tricky but surprisingly fast DW board. It has it's width announced on the bottom to the nearest 16th of an inch. So at least some brands have been confident enough in their builds, and the customers' intelligence, to present accurate and precise dimensions.

The Mk1 Naish DW boards gave their measurements to within a quarter inch.

Giving accurate and detailed dimensions lends an air of precision to the brand IMO.  It feels classy. It gives a good impression of the thought that has gone into the design and the care taken in construction. So I think that actually the marketing people are missing a trick here in rounding dimensions so loosely. It was not always that way. We seem to have gone backwards over the years in this respect. Announced dimensions are now far looser than they were in the early days of SUP. We get the level of service and information we tolerate.

[supuk]

most boards are stated to within a 1/4", if its marked at 24" that shouldn't mean any different if its 24 its 24 if its 24"1/4 its , if they are happy to produce board to only with in 1/2" tolerance then they need to state +/- 1/2". you can't just assume people are happy with that sort of variation in size surely!

If each board is going to be so different and they are going to put dimensions on them to within a 1/4" maybe they need to measure and dimension each board separately? is that to hard?  When i used to compete water skiing each ski would be flex tested and the dimensions put on it so you knew exactly what you were getting to within .01

People really need to start pushing the manufactures to change the way they do things and not just settle for these huge tolerances on the most basic of things to control and just putting up with what ever they get landed with.