posts: 223357
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| 223357 | 11440 | Molded, Reverse Engineered, Handshaped by One Only...WHAT IS ACCEPTABLE TO YOU? | 82 | Bruce Fowler | Oct 14, 2021 | 2021-10-14T11:07:20-0400 | SMUKES said: There's a few differences between surfboards and what are know as "durable goods". I'd be very surprised to see that model take off in any meaningful way. One of the biggest problems I see with Liarwire is hubris, and an overblown sense of potential, markets and surfing in general. They're kids playing dress up. And all of the business man businessy talk in the world doesn't hide the fact that they're taking a thing that has less and less appeal to new generations and putting a pair of DC puffy laced skate shoes on it and hanging around the playground looking like dorks... "Hey bruh, how about those X-Games, pretty 'sick' huh?" Click to expand... ....another solid observation. I read some back history about FW awhile back. They were all but going down the tubes then Kelly got involved. Last time I googled Slater's net worth was around $13 mil. The article involved somebody from Firewire speaking at a college about their business plan, being a sustainable company and other rose, glowing feel good things that young idealistic, impressionable minds would latch onto. No one wants to be equated to a sweatshop in Southeast Asia using Bondo by the drum then covering all that cheap EPS, Bondo and other slop with a beautiful paint job. Hence the Surftechs & Firewire of the world. Say it ain't so, but that was the m.o. happening with sailboards ing built in China in the 80's..... the Seatrends, Sailboards Maui, and other labels. C.O.B.R.A. is a different drill, that company w/around 2400 employees just outside of Bangkok is doing state of the art stuff for marine & other industries. Yater told me about a visit he took there years ago, and he was very impressed. Renny's trip was back when they were doing his longboards out of EPS w/vac bagged veneer. I was fixing a broken in half board that someone had snapped @ Ocean Beach, and they brought it down to me to put back together. Renny saw it and told me "yeah these boards don't have ANY fiberglass on the outside other than something like 1 oz, over the tail and my curved nose block. I devised that nose block because the veneer can't make the wrap of the rounded nose. Look close at the rails and you will see diagonally razors cuts that allow them to wrap the veneer when they vac bag it. When they finish them, they are in a special spray booth with a guy wearing an air system pumped into his mask and the board is up on a spindle. These guys are super skilled at spraying, and they apply high grade urethane coats over the veneer to finish them..... beautiful work". Somehow I don't think Firewire holds a candle to C.O.B.R.A. a multiple company owned operation working in conjunction with the Thai government. P.S. A clarification: COBRA started as an "OWN BRAND" operation. This means the manufacturer enters into an agreement to make the product for another, usually the party that owns the brand aka label and markets it for retail consumption. In this case, examples are C.I., NSF, other GSI brands, Bruce Jones, Sharp Eye, and many others. https://www.cobrainter.com |