The Marketing Bullshit of Hand Built
There’s this concept that marketing a snowboard as being hand built means that it has some higher quality of excellence and craftsmanship than one that is made in a factory that mass produces for multiple companies. The truth is it’s bullshit, the whole idea of hand built is just a marketing ploy to attract the uneducated or pluck at the heartstrings of people that relish the olden times of craftsmanship.
Here’s the real news flash for everyone; All snowboards are hand built! There is not one factory on earth that is fully automated and has some orange skinned Oompa Loompa running around singing songs about how if you were wise you would shred with he. Sure there are factories that have perfected the assembly line process created by Mr. Ford all those many years ago, but it’s not 100% automated.
Regardless of geographic location, factory size, or financing there is still a person doing layup in the factory, mixing epoxy, setting molds, trimming flashing, and doing the finishing. Sure some factories have better machines for this or require less labor, but as I mentioned before there is still a physical human hand involved.
The whole cry of hand built as a marketing ploy solely exists because a brand can’t think of anything else they offer to snowboarding. Buzz words and techno jargon are what people catch on and if you don’t have quadrilateralitarion tension box sidecut or double negative positive reverse mongo camber the old standby is HAND BUILT! It’s much like the played out pitch of “by snowboarders for snowboarders”, it’s bullshit. Of course you’re a snowboarder and you’re making a product for snowboarding and its riders, why else would you be in business?
So when you’re out there deciding on what product to buy, look past the bullshit of hand built and realize at some point in whatever companies board you’re looking at a human was involved with its creation. So until the machines rise up and overthrow us we’re all riding real man made stunt sticks of the snow sliding variety.
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Mervin …. Handbuilt by machines! Least they have the balls to call it out…
Hand built makes one feel so special like that first handjob. Its not. Quality of materials separates.
@burritosandsnow
It was O-matic’s motto that was “handcrafted by expensive machines”. Mervin’s is “handbuilt by snowboarders with jobs”.
Now are we to believe that the R&D processes is the same for a company that has an overseas facotry pop out predesigned boards a year before they hit the shelves and a small company in that produce boards in the US that can easily experiment with board design and manufacturing processes. Look who led the “rocker revolution” Neversummer, Mervin, and Signal. Would you ever see a “every third thursday” from a company like saloman? Then you have companies like Donek, who are developing sidecut technologies that are beyond what average riders can contemplate.
In my opinion there are WAY to many boards on the market that are all the same. Why support the big factories that pump them out.
WaLove. Flow produces over seas yet almost all prototyping is done in Michigan at their designers house where he has a press, Burton same thing they have Craigs, then you have K2/Ride that have a press in their offices in Seattle, Endeavor has their little factory for prototyping as well. Dealing with Arbor I know their board guy is working usually a year to two ahead of time to R and D stuff. I can remember seeing a Salomonder at a demo a year and a half before it was even announced to the market. Any company worth a damn in terms of product and development is at least 1 to 2 seasons ahead of what is currently out. I already have companies sending me 2014 product and the season hasn’t even started. We’re a seasonal business but if you’re not thinking 2 years ahead then what?
Also are you saying we should support shit bag fly by night companies that just have their shit OEM’d out of a place like Monson and claim hand built in the USA by snowboarders?
Good to know that one guy in Michigan has future of snowboarding in his hands. I wonder how much time he spent overseas implementing the new boob laminate technology. Hope he didnt miss too many epic pow days in U.P.
Burton does need somewhere to create all the new tech that doesnt help anybody. Then you have the team of mathematician to figure out what snowboards they don’t already make.
When is the last time you were truly stoked on a new design from k2 or ride, the new ultradream looks cool, but atomic already did it with the sir floats a lot. The first year return of the gyrator with wakeboard rocker is unmatched in the pow, too bad they had to dumb it down so people could side slip on it.
Im not sure how that Monson factory stays in buisness, $200 for a cap construction snowboard, might as well go to the pawnshop and get something from 2001.
when design is two years out, and manufacturing is a year ahead, the cost of taking a risk on a new design is a lot more.
I would like to see snowboarding move closer to surfing, where you have CHEAP boards popped out in overseas factories for kids and beginners (and park/rail riders). Then when someone has $500 or more they want to drop on a new board they head down to the local snowboard “shaper” discuss the finer points of the powder slash, and come up with a design that suits the riders needs. Maybe when snowboarding grows up and you have more thirty year olds that rip and are tired of the same old bullshit. Maybe im just old and bitter, need to start growing the beard and looking for a trailer to live in Glacier.
Isn’t there something to be said for building your own boards with your own machinery rather than just getting them built by elan or GLC? All boards from Elan and GLC share very similar technology whether its structured bases, engineered wood (pretty sure thats just foam), different core profiles, and whatever else.
I believe companies that spend the time to build their own presses, cnc machines, sublimating boxes and grinding stations should get a stamp of approval (handcrafted) and customers should reward those companies.
I know first hand that handcrafting a board in the states vs building it in china may not make a snowboard better but perhaps it does make it more authentic and once again, shouldn’t that be rewarded?
Alex do you mean GST cause I have no clue who GLC is unless you’re referring to the The Gondola Lift Company in Whistler which I’m pretty sure I once puked in their bathroom. I also want to know what world you live in where people having capital to buy equipment means they should be rewarded? That’s like saying the guy that can afford to buy a F1 car should be rewarded for having money. It’s just dumb and pointless.
WA I’ll agree you just sound old and bitter. Turning 30 change you? The idea of the surfboard shaper concept in snowboarding won’t fly 80% of snowboarding is made up of the 5 day a year warrior that doesn’t know anything about snowboarding.
Mervin ca 1994 “All snowboards are made by hand. Ours are made by hand better”
So lets talk monson. lets talk technine, lets talk k2. lets talk all the small brands that make decks all over the world. Monson, making alot of boards. who gives a shit if the small brands ordering boards from them and dont know shit about construction. i dont think thats a reason to talk shit about monson all the time. fuck is someone asked me to press them decks and said, “oh just give me a poplar core and sintered base i’d say sure. Technine, pretty much junk, every board is see them press gets broken unless it sits on a shelf. K2, hahaha probably the best one to laugh at. i;ve talked to 6 factories that say they press for k2 from all over asia. so who knows whats going on there.
mevin, endeavor, and the other few are brands who PRESS their decks in house or do thier R&D then outsouce, high five to them, dont bust MONSONS balls for pressing small brands decks who have no idea what they want in a board other than a topsheet. MONSON has the ablility to press comparable quality to all these other brands.
Angry, i mean you of all people should know that. i get you like to stir up the water, but stop being a douche and being butt hurt. you dont bust all the big brands that are all pressed in the same sweat shop, you usually suck them off in words, but you just bust some american guys balls with a bunch of presses and a bunch of clients thats making money and making those small brands content. Some brands dont have a few hundred thousand capitol to go do so……
tell me about echlon? some douche bag who puts gay graphics with bb guns, airplanes, bullets, fuckin frankenstein, and some military influence into snowboarding? guess thats cool, you obviously think so. then again, opinions.
what you think of crispy whips or caked, even GBP now? gonna bust their balls too?
get real.
think snow.
see
Ignorance is amazing. How’s NJ this time of the year? So many things I could point out about your statement that are just wrong.
ignorance, something you know so little about right? haha, and fuck NJ. of course you’d think that.
I’ve seen plenty of it from you and yes your IP says NJ. Why don’t you go look into K2′s factories a bit closer. Might actually learn something.
im in fuckin colorado you dildo.
ok lets look into their factories. not in china? not pressing other brands out if them?
Really since your IP shows up as Mt. Laurel NJ and your old IP you used shows up as Herndon VA. You’re really starting to sound like this douche bag company I know of near me that sucks.
K2 owns it’s own factory which makes sense for the multiple brands they have. You want to hate on them for owning their own factory and putting their brands into the factory then outsourcing certain things like X-country skies to other factories they’ve worked with for over 10 years? They saw the writing on the wall and realized moving to China in 99 was the smarter move at the time, it’s called big business maybe you should look into it sometime.
butt hurt, again. sorry, but i never lived in NJ or Virginia, sooo idk why it comes up like that.
so i’ll send you a list of factories making K2 and tell me if im wrong. Im positive they dont own what i’ll show you. maybe they outsouce…. maybe?
whats ya email?
There’s no butt hurt I just find you stupid and ignorant spouting off with a highly uneducated rant. info@angrysnowboarder.com
Lol… Fuckin’ Frankenstein! I think I just found a graphic for 2014-15!
Well everyone knows that boards without double negative positive reverse mongo camber are bullshit.
So I watched your buoloco interview and pretty much agree with you on 100% when it comes to big business snowboarding. But what does that mean for the little guys? Companies like Smokin, Gentem Stick or even Weekend. I know Smokin doesn’t invest huge dollars into their equipment because they build it all from scratch. Yes you can invest in equipment but at the bare minimum you can get away with just a press and a hand grinder. You can’t do big business and get rich but you can make a living. Shouldn’t the industry and all its haters have more respect for the smaller companies? Does finishing really make that much of a difference in the end quality of a board? I can understand that consumers who are spending $500+ on a snowboard want a quality product but are dimples and offset tip and tail grinds really going to change their ride?
And to your point if quality control is really important wouldn’t owning your own factory and “hand building” boards allow you to perfect quality control (lib tech and their hand base grinds for example)
Maybe they just need a different slogan, “Hand Built by our own hands” instead of just hand built?
OR would you prefer an industry where every company builds their boards at elan?
You know Weekend is out of business and they were built in Austria right? And if someone is plopping down any kind of money the finish should be perfect, the lay up should be perfect, it shouldn’t have any defect. You wouldn’t go buy a brand new car that only 2 doors opened correctly and pay full price would you?
A lot of handbuilt boards are over $500 like smokin, donek, prior, venture & some unity.. There is actually a huge amount of small factories, hell in michigan there is 4 sort of 5 factories for snowboards. Anyways some things are more done by hand at small factories just for the simple reason they justify automated or semi-automated equipt. or things like epoxy rollers, curtain coating lacquer since they can never do a large run of production….spend more time cleanig the stuff that its worth. For me, handbuilt does have a nice ring, but doesn’t mean the company knows jack about shaping a board which case most are glorified 1989 shapes or using good materials, which most don’t really use…they use the same old vectorply crap triax glass that is 15years old & super heavy. Just because somebody goes to snowboardmaterials.com to buy a starter factory set-up doesn’t mean the board is any good.
Finishing is important, especially since nearly 100% of the N.American made boards use Crown Plastics which is tougher to finish, throw in they most likely sublimate/cook the bejezzus out of bases they have a good chance of being slower than a plastic kmart board. Smooth/Clean base & edges shows they care about the details, if not, what else are they skipping….maybe your inserts are off or something will delaminate.
oops, can’t justify automated or semi automated…my bad
*weekend=spring break, my brain wasn’t fully functioning when i wrote that last night.