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Longest you have waited for a custom order?
- Thread starter dk1973
- Start date
That was just an erbber looking for a signed shirt!
My last custom order was for two customs for my son during Covid. Took almost 6-months which is an eternity with a growing teen. Waited so long that when the boards arrived we had missed the contest season they were intended for and my son had grown enough that the boards were too small when they arrived. Sold them on Marketplace and he's gotten boards off the rack since.
I'm sure like many shapers who have a following, he has an ego about his boars. enough people tell you your boars are magic, and maybe you start to believe you’re a wizard. LOL I have no idea how many boars he shapes a month, but it seems like a relatively small niche. Maybe he's gotten better at dealing with customers. Here's my experience from Fall '22...
I really liked a couple of his used boars I'd had, so yoloed a Superchunk when I saw he was pushing his delta-v channel bottoms in DarkArts build. Great communication by email/text. I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted based on the 5'6 SC quad EPS/epoxy I was updated to 5'8 EPS/carbon, but we made some tweaks based on the spots I surf and the other boars I ride. He assured me the extra 2" length of swing weight would be minimized by the lightweight and responsiveness of DA's CF build, and that I didn't need a quad and the twin works great (with the slot channel adding hold).
Never talked timeframe, but he said DA was turning them around pretty quick and he was stocked to be working with them again. Took a few weeks for him to get the blank for some reason. Met up with him before it was shaped to grab some fins for another boar. He seemed nice and had a good chat about the order, confirmed final dims. Didn't hear anything for a few weeks and then email that it was done (looked perfect in pics) but DA forgot to do the deck color under the glass we ordered and he offered to remake it. Not worth it to me since the DA color job looks pretty DIY anyway, and I wanted to get my grubby hands on that superchunky carbon beauty. We met at DA factory that week to pick up. I think it was 3 months total, which was shorter than I expected. The boar is a magic carpet that does everything I hoped. Very pleased with how it turned out.
CC: @Swiftvelo
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meh, needs more yelling to complete the boar ordering experience
yelling at a customer for asking for what they paid for seems kinda lame
Yeah, definitely. Hopefully he’s learned how to deal better over the years. it’s hard to even imagine adorable lil Manny yelling.
So glad not to have these shaper "issues".
Getting yelled at...deposit theft...4 year wait times...
How do people get into these messes?
Getting yelled at...deposit theft...4 year wait times...
How do people get into these messes?
There should be an ***official thread of yelp reviews for custom shapers. Some of the posts in this thread aren’t helpful without naming names. Why protect the guilty?
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I think a lot of times the customer is at fault.
Shoulda seen it coming kind of stuff.
For instance, why anyone would ever give Pavel their money is beyond me - mysto persona with a ripoff reputation.
Guys switching around their orders, odd behaviors by shapers while ordering, letting shapers run you around, etc. All this stuff sets you up for failure and is largely in your hands.
The guys who repeatedly order Mayhems despite the order being wrong or super late every time are beyond my comprehension.
I just had a really great experience with a shaper. Excellent communication, boards actually delivered in person to me on time, as ordered. No BS.
Things turn out as ordered, and in the time frame expressed, pretty much 95%+ of the time.
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didnt a shaper challenge goodfish to a fight when he inquired about a boar?
Maybe 20-30 years ago. Nowadays there’s too many other world-class shapers who treat their customers right and manage their boar business in a competent manner.
manny's on this list and maybe the spectrum.
ordered a board from him 10 or 12 yrs ago. unbeknownst to me he was about to enter his artist phase and was only going to shape for friends and supplicants, of which i was neither.
started fine with quoted 6-8 week wait. wasnt until around week 12 that i called or emailed (cant remember) a hey checking in whats up. no response.
rinsed and repeated a few times. he ghosted
wasnt until the 6 month mark that he got back to me. acted surprised that he "forgot"
board arrived a few weeks later. quad fish. was a sick shape. was also the softest board ive ever had. i think he didnt ever bother to get the correct blank and just overshaped a bigger blank he had laying around.
never got yelled at tho
oh, ok. I could see that. certainly a bit quirky in person.
edit: couldn't there be a lot of this (undiagnosed) amongst shapers? think about the personality that wants to spend hours alone in a shaping bay mowing foam into a perfect form, year after year. No offense to anyone here who shapes, but I couldn't do it. It seems unlikely that the same person who would be able to do this at a high level of craftsmanship & effectiveness, might be capable of running an efficient customer-facing production business. Very different skill sets. I can do the latter, but not the former.
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