A new week, a new rant

[PsychoBaller]

If my xbox had a beer dispenser and a vagina, I would never leave the house.

Hahahahaha.... i'll give ya that one purely on comedy genius, and i rarely give out that award.

What ya do my friend is get urself a nice g/f like me to pass you the beer while you are playing on XBOX, take a couple o nice 30min "stretch" sessions here and there, couple more brews, then back to the game

College and Fraternity Life have their benefits!

[mandatory]

I totally dissagree the idea that custamisation is a slow and time heavy procedure. Maybe in paintball. I know this is a little off topic, but im tired if people saying, "if you want custome stuff, youd better be ready to wait a long time." that is BS......MY father has runs his own custome surfboard business out of our back yard for over 30 years. He hand shapes 20-25 boards a week, still. that invloves taking the customers weight, height, skill level into account and the exact dimensions the customer has give him for the width, hiegth, and thickness of the actual board. Others custome parts of the board are the color (he uses the best professional airbrush artist in the surfboard industry), types of fins, type of wood stringer, logos, channels or grooves in the board, the list goes on. Then he has to draw and scale the dimensions to fit the blank, the raw material surfboards are made of (kind of like your block of metal befor you mill the frames). then, by hand saw, he cuts the shape out and then uses a variaty of planers and sanding blocks to carve out the surfboard from the raw blank. then he sends to the glasesers, the guys who put the resin or hard covering on the shaped blanks. About 2 weeks later those boards will be back from the glassers, with custome colors, fins, or what ever the customer orders. so basicly it take roughly 3 weeks to get a compleatly hand made custome board, from time of order to recievement of theproduct.

Now get this, since my dad is a "backyard shaper" he cant charge as much for this boards as a larger "smart parts" type manufacturer because he doesnt have the advertising or the pro endorsments. The larger companies boards are made exactly the same way out of the same materials and even uses the same glasser/ airbrusher as my father, but my father charges $325 and the large company charges $850. Its like if AGD and SP made the exact same gun but in different colors and with different logos, but SP's gun costs $500 more cause they are in the lime light. In the end my father makes around $35 per board, which isnt much for the labor involved. Its no problem since shaping isnt my fathers primary job. He is head of the math department at the high school he teaches at. he teaches calculus and AP calc. He does all that work shaping because he ENJOYS it. its his life.

Custome work take expertise, commitment, hard work, and imagination.


Heres another example:

My brother is in the car customisation business. He does body work, interior, sound systems, and engine work on lowered trucks. he works most nights till 1 or 2 in the morning. His truck was compleatly re-done in 4 weeks. that included but was not limited to: 4-link airbag suspension systen, custome extirior paint, custome interior, new tailgate, custome roll pan, custome fromt air dam, and complete engin swap...all done by him and his co-worker. he currently is working on 3 cars. he cant be happier.


I guess my whole point of writing this, if ther is one, is to say that even in the nich "mom and pop" stlye customasation businesses, low turn-aroud time and quality can co-exist and should co-exist. You are only limited by the effort you put in. Enjoy the work you do and do it well.


Lastly i would like to thank anyone who has the drive, knowledge, and love of paintball to privide the rest of us goons with top quality products for a gun that isnt very economicly enticing. thank you.

[BigEvil]

I guess my whole point of writing this, if ther is one, is to say that even in the nich "mom and pop" stlye customasation businesses, low turn-aroud time and quality can co-exist and should co-exist. You are only limited by the effort you put in. Enjoy the work you do and do it well.

Lastly i would like to thank anyone who has the drive, knowledge, and love of paintball to privide the rest of us goons with top quality products for a gun that isnt very economicly enticing. thank you.

Bravo and well put. Feels good to get that off of your chest I bet?

[Alpha]

Ahh the mag. How understood it is. How great are its possibilities.

Ions.. Heh..

This is my take on it.

Smart parts uses money from lawsuits/sales/actiosn over the past 10 years to make a new marker as cheap as they can.

They sell it as cheap as they see fit.

They aren't losing money because they are so stuffed.

The rest of the market's mid range guns have two choices. Die, or find some way to spit out a cheap marker.

Everything else goes down.

Smart parts patents paintball?

As much as I think PTP has plenty of legal right to patent the pneumag, I dont think its morally right.

Why? Well for one, Deadlywind had a pretty darn thing going before the lawsuit. I bet if they sat on their hands, we might have hAir triggers on our mags right now.

Like I've said many many times, competition feeds innovation. Take war for example. Look at aviation. Only in war time did aviation go so far forward. Its becuase everyone wanted to outdo each other.

When you make it so that NOBODY has the right to outdo you, your slowing the industry to however fast YOU can go.

Do I think its right that PTP develops a trigger, then someone else comes along and blows them out of the water, rendering everything they've worked on out of the water? No. They deserve to get profit out of their invention.

But like I said.. The pb industry is just steps from someone taking over and creating a monopoly.





Back in the day, before I was even born, it was said that competition in the paintball industry was good. It meant the industry was growing.

Imagine if the guys who first invented the game of skirmish patented the guns they deleoped. And not just THOSE guns, but all paintball markers.

Wait, lets take a step back.

Imagine if the guys who made the cow/tree markers patented them. There would BE no paintball, Tom Kaye would still be a hippie hitchiking in canada, and we wouldn't be on this website.

Gotta think.

[mandatory]

Bravo and well put. Feels good to get that off of your chest I bet?

It sure does!!!!

[CoolHand]

Blah, blah, blah, etc, blah . . . . .

You know what the main difference is between what your dad does and what Chris is doing?

He does the shaping by hand and then sends them out to be glassed. That's two steps, only one of which depends on another business.

Take Chris's situation now.

He is not doing the machine work, so that's out of his hands, he doesn't manufacture the circuit boards, so that's out of his hands, he doesn't do the ano, so that's out of his hands, he doesn't manufacture the 'noids or the other electronic parts, so that's all out of his hands.

Basically, the only thing he has control over is the assembly, which I imagine he is banging away at just as fast as he can (provided that all four of the other businesses are running on time).

Building a complex mechanical part and building a surf board are totally different. There is no parallel there. PLUS, your dad looses money on the damned things (or only makes about $1.50/hr). If that is the way you think all custom businesses should be run, you need to have your head examined.

Your brother builds custom cars. Cool. I have built at least a dozen race cars, from scratch at times, and I can say that I can knock out an entire car in about two solid weeks, with one helper. If the parts are there, they go together pretty quick. But what happens if all the parts aren't available? That's right, the project takes longer. Car parts are fairly easy to come by, because they are made in vast numbers. What happens if you are the only person in the world using this one part, and you are out? Yup, you have to have them made. Can you have them made a million at a time, so that it's worth the machine shop's time to drop what they are doing, and get your job done ASAP? No? Well, then you get to wait until they have time for you.

The more complex the assembly, the more potential for delay there is. Add to that the fact that most PB businesses can't afford to buy things by the thousand, and you get an even bigger chance of delays (everyone pushes off the less profitable work for the slow times).

Unless you are working in a market that has parts in stock all over, or you are big enough to buy them by the thousands to keep yourself in stock, there are going to be delays.

There just isn't enough money in this business to warrant a huge investment in stock that you all might never buy (because PB players change their minds like most other people change their underwear).

The risk to reward ratio to way too close to even to bet big. Smart Parts does their own machine work, so if an idea of theirs tanks, they just wasted their own time, but they aren't left with a bunch of worthless parts that they have $XX.xx tied up in. All they have lost is time and material (which is still a loss, but not nearly as big of one as a great huge lot of contracted parts).

Guys like me and Chris, have to contract out for the machine work. Chris isn't a machinist, and doesn't have a shop, and even though I am a machinist, my shop is no where near big enough to crank out parts by the hundreds. I would spend all day every day in the machine shop, and still be behind (and with no one to fill orders, ship packages, or answer emails, I would get so far behind it would look like I was ahead).

We are doing the best we can, all of us are. Do you think we like to make you all wait? Do you think we like seeing all the *****ing and moaning and triple guessing that goes on here? Do you think we relish the back seat businessmen who constantly think they know what is best for OUR businesses, and tell us as much at every turn?

NO, we don't like any of it. And we try our damnedest to see that it doesn't happen, but since we are in the situations that we are in, there is only so much we can do to mitigate the delays. The rest we have to live with and work around. We all give these horribly long turn around estimates so that people will not pull a bone head move like you did, and send off their only marker, expecting it to come back in three days.

If we could do any better, we certainly would.

Alpha - DW was not sued. They never even got served papers. PTP had the patent filed four or five years before DW started on the hAir. PLUS, the hAir was a non-starter anyway, because DW needed a big partner to fund the production, and AGD wouldn't do it. THAT is why there is no hAir, not because of PTP. But, we all know it's a lot easier to hint at sinister patent holders and impending lawsuits/expensive licensing fees, rather than to fess up to a shortage of capital on your own part.

Holding a patent does not stop innovation. It forces it. Taking someone's idea, changing it or refining it, and re-releasing it is not innovation, its engineering. Want to out do PTP? Fine. Go do it. But don't do it like they did.

This business is rough. It sucks, and people like you two aren't helping a bit. Dig a little deeper before you spout please.

[SpitFire1299]

Nice reply coolhand, i agree with you all the way.

[mandatory]

coolhand i agree with everything you are saying, i am just a little bummed that the information you just gave me wasnt readly avaliable to me BEFOR i payed and sent my gun in. Its not the wait that bothers me, its the cloudy and ambiguous information i have been recieving about my gun. If cris would be hones and say, bla bla bla hapend and put us behing schedual. bla bla bla happend and we are even more behing schedual,. Bl bla bla I am going on vacation for 2 weeks and wont be in contact and will put us bening schedual. I just dont like being told that "your gun SHOULD be done by next week, IF ALL GOES WELL" every month for the last 5 months. I dont like being being lied to. I dont like being lied to multiple times. And i dont like bening coersed and trapped into an un appealing situation. Not once in my contact with chris prior to sending in my gun did he say that it will be an openended time frame and that the outsourced part of the process, ie machiening, parts collection, anno (which im not getting), ect.. , wasnt prefected or reliable. Had he used this machienist befor? Are the parts readily avaliable? I would think that that would be pertinate information to the customer. He even said that he was PRETTY SURE he could get it to me in time for CA AO day on April 1st-3rd. Now even if he was guesstimating then, it was a pretty un-accurate guess. Why would he even tell me that? Why didnt he just laugh me out of that e-mail? Not a couple weeks later did i find out on AO that people had already been waiting for 2-3 months. I feel the flow of information is quite pinched on his end, and he only tells you what you want or need to hear. He throws you a bone now and then with an ambiguous "it might be done soon" but i have quite and extencive bone collection now. I know i sound ungreatful, but i feel that i have been sucked into an un-appealing deal, be it by my own ignorence to the "process" or by un-correct information from him, or a blend of both. And calling me a bonhead for sending my only gun in??? I told chris my exact situation prior to sending my gun in: "this is my only gun, i have a few tournies lined up in about a month and a half down the line. If i send you my gun on march 2nd, will you have it back to me to me in time for the tournies?" Why not then, did he tell me that it was going to take longer than that??? why not then did he say, this gun is not for you. I cannot get you the gun by then? Why did he not even caution me as the the possibality of it not being done by then? Why??? I mean when he was selling me on the devilmag we had a few conversations in instant messager in real time. I felt like he was giving me this wonderful product with personal attention and a cool attitude about it. He answered alll my questions about the performance of the gun. Even the video on the website makes you think its a streamline process "...the guys at TAG factory are really hooking this thing up for chris...". now fast forward a month or 2 after the purchase and the attitude and tone are way different. It will get done when it gets done. All these e-mails are slowing me down. my machienist isnt returning my calls. TAG is out of pred boards and we are waiting for more. Everything is going wrong. Now in the present, im sitting here checking my e-mail account i set up specificaly for this transaction every week, to find it empty. I check the website. no info. i check AO and get blasted and flamed. I honestly came in to this with no prior expierence in the paintball world. I now have some. Although the deal has gone sour, in my opinion, I am still as excited or even more excited to shoot this thing. It will be my first electro gun and and quite frankly the first top of the line product that i have purchased in a long time. I HOPE it done soon.


And about my father. the process takes himself, and 5 other skilled craftsmen to compleate the board. He does the shaping, a guy does the art and color, a guy does the laminating (first coat of resin and placement of logos), another guy does the hot coat or top coat, another guy does the fin design, machiening, and fin application, and lastly a guy does the wet sand and fine sand for the final product. Most of the people in this process, my father included, have been perfecting their craft since the mid 1970's. and in between each process there has to be time for the paint, resin, or whatever to dry befor you can go on to the next step. And they do thousands of different types and shapes of boards. It is in no way a simple task. My fathers shapes are a culmination of 30 years expierence. His products are top quality.

I on the other hand work on the compleat opposite side of the induatry. I work in a surfboard factory. Im actually at work right now and am writing this in fragments in between the machines trunaround time (8-11 minutes). I run and program a CNC machine that milles the surfboard blanks and take my dad, the skilled craftsmen, compleatly out of the process. I cut around 25-30 boards in a single 8 hour shift. We send out more that a thousand boards a week. we have 3 machies at our location, one in australia, one in hawaii, one in south africa, one in florida, and one in japan. So the thousand boards a week that we do are just for california sales., I work for the big business side of the industry. Kind of ironic. actually my father comes in and runs one of the machines on the weekend, so its cool. So you would think what i do isnt custome work. wrong, actually the customers send us a certian model that they want replicated, an what we do is scan it into the computer and creat a program for that particular shape. We than can scale that model up or down to what ever dimensions (width, lenght, thickness, rocker, tail shape, challels, ect) the customer wants and create compleatly custome shapes in 15 minutes rather that 5 houres. We only do the shaping then we shipp them to the sam factory where my dad gets his boards glassed. I know coolhand was saying that the parts are hard to get and only few companies make tham., well in the surf induatry ther is only one company that makes blanks. ONE for pretty much the entire industry. And do you think there are tons of companies making surfboard shaping machiens?? no they had to design the actual machien and the programs it runs off of them selves. 2 years of design time.

[CoolHand]

coolhand i agree with everything you are saying, i am just a little bummed that the information you just gave me wasnt readly avaliable to me BEFOR i payed and sent my gun in. Its not the wait that bothers me, its the cloudy and ambiguous information i have been recieving about my gun. If cris would be hones and say, bla bla bla hapend and put us behing schedual. bla bla bla happend and we are even more behing schedual,. Bl bla bla I am going on vacation for 2 weeks and wont be in contact and will put us bening schedual. I just dont like being told that "your gun SHOULD be done by next week, IF ALL GOES WELL" every month for the last 5 months. I dont like being being lied to. And i dont like bening coersed and trapped into an un appealing situation. Not once in my contact with chris prior to sending in my gun did he say that it will be an openended time frame and that the outsourced part of the process, ie machiening, parts collection, anno (which im not getting), ect.. , wasnt prefected or reliable. I would think that that would be pertinate information to the customer. He even said that he was PRETTY SURE he could get it to me in time for CA AO day on April 1st-3rd. Now even if he was guesstimating then, it was a pretty un-accurate guess. Why would he even tell me that. Not a couple weeks later did i find out on AO that people had already been waiting for 2-3 months. I feel the flow of information is quite pinched on his end, and he only tells you what you want or need to hear. He throws you a bone now and then with an ambiguous "it might be done soon" but i have quite and extencive bone collection now. I know i sound ungreatful, but i feel that i have been sucked into an un-appealing deal, be it by my own ignorence to the "process" or by un-correct information from him, or a blend of both. Although the deal has gone sour, in my opinion, I am still as excited or even more excited to shoot this thing. It will be my first electro gun and and quite frankly the first top of the line product that i have purchased in a long time. I HOPE it done soon.


And about my father. the process takes himself, and 5 other skilled craftsmen to compleate the board. He does the shaping, a guy does the art and color, a guy does the laminating (first coat of resin and placement of logos), another guy does the hot coat or top coat, another guy does the fin design, machiening, and fin application, and lastly a guy does the wet sand and fine sand for the final product. Most of the people in this process, my father included, have been perfecting their craft since the mid 1970's. and in between each process there has to be time for the paint, resin, or whatever to dry befor you can go on to the next step. And they do thousands of different types and shapes of boards. It is in no way a simple task. My fathers shapes are a culmination of 30 years expierence. His products are top quality.

I on the other hand work on the compleat opposite side of the induatry. I work in a surfboard factory. Im actually at work right now and am writing this in fragments in between the machines trunaround time (8-11 minutes). I run and program a CNC machine that milles the surfboard blanks and take my dad, the skilled craftsmen, compleatly out of the process. I cut around 25-30 boards in a single 8 hour shift. We send out more that a thousand boards a week. we have 3 machies at our location, one in australia, one in hawaii, one in south africa, one in florida, and one in japan. So the thousand boards a week that we do are just for california sales., I work for the big business side of the industry. Kind of ironic. actually my father comes in and runs one of the machines on the weekend, so its cool. So you would think what i do isnt custome work. wrong, actually the customers send us a certian model that they want replicated, an what we do is scan it into the computer and creat a program for that particular shape. We than can scale that model up or down to what ever dimensions (width, lenght, thickness, rocker, tail shape, challels, ect) the customer wants and create compleatly custome shapes in 15 minutes rather that 5 houres. We only do the shaping then we shipp them to the sam factory where my dad gets his boards glassed. I know coolhand was saying that the parts are hard to get and only few companies make tham., well in the surf induatry ther is only one company that makes blanks. ONE for pretty much the entire industry. And do you think there are tons of companies making surfboard shaping machiens?? no they had to design the actual machien and the programs it runs off of them selves. 2 years of design time.

Yes, I can definitely see how that would chap a fellow's ***.

I don't doubt that your Dad makes excellent surf boards, I didn't mean for my post to trivialize what he does, its just very hard to compare the two things and come up with any sort of relevant data.

And as for the surf boards, the machines, and the suppliers, RE above about that whole "enough money to buy thousands of pieces so you never go out of stock" thing. Plus, that one company supplying the board blanks, is a good thing. Those guys will always have them on hand (they don't have to worry about getting stuck with a bunch, because everyone has to buy from them).

The solid scanner that takes in the board and spits out the GCode must be really cool to see working. What did that set the company back? Half a million? More? Now I see why you are impatient, you've been spoiled by the best tools in the world. lol No wonder it seems so easy to you. Trust me, the rest of us can't afford that sort of thing. Around here, a shop with two (2) three axis VMC's is considered a big operation. There just isn't enough work to pay for a $250,000 machine, much less a monster like you are running.

Enjoy yourself, you are working with some of the best equipment available today. I would kill to have a machine that could do what your company's does. Mine is a decade old (more actually), and runs like it. It still holds the mark, but it can't cut real fast (5000 rpm spindle), so everything takes a good long time to do. I contract out to three other houses that have all new (or nearly new) machines, which lets them do the work faster (and therefore cheaper) than I could have (notice how my prices have gone down in the last year and a half?).

I always tell my customers the same thing if something goes to hell ---> "I'm real sorry you got bit, I didn't do it on purpose. Every once in a while, something goes to hell and someone gets bit. This time it was you. I'm doing all that I can to take the sting out of it."

And that's really all I can do. Yell at my suppliers, and try to ease their anxiety.

Also, if you take nothing else from this debate, remember this: Occasionally, a customer gets burned by a wait time, this sucks, but no matter how much it sucks for you, it is ten times as bad for the airsmith.

Last year, when I was so far behind (I had people's money spent on material, a broken machine, and no way to deliver the parts, which were about 30% done, and no good way out) , I got an ulcer. Seriously. It almost put me down. I stopped taking work, and nearly went under. But when it got really bad, it pissed me off that I was failing, so I stood back up and went on like a man. I borrowed money to do refunds, I found outside suppliers, I got my machine fixed, and I got it all done. Once I found my balls again, my ulcer healed and I started feeling better again. Now I am more confident that I can survive a run of bad luck. Chris is just having a run of bad luck. Maybe he didn't explain the process well enough, maybe you didn't understand what you were getting into, I can't say for sure. But I do know that these constant rants about how "industry X can do custom parts in two weeks for $XX.xx, why can't anyone in the PB industry" are not helping at all. They are just giving people ulcers.

I will answer the question once and for all, right here and now. Are you guys ready?

Audience - "We sure as hell are!"

OK, here is why PB can't do what other industries can. Money. Capital and Market share. Too little of both to be exact.

Your surf board manufacturer can do what they do because of the uber machinery and software that they have. They spent an absolute ton of money to get that capability, and are now reaping the rewards.

We can't do that. There isn't a one of us that could borrow enough money to build/buy one of those machines and the software to run it. (and if we could, we be loony to actually do it) We have to do with what we can afford, which then limits our abilities. If we were to stay inside these limits, I think we would always be fine, but the market demands that we constantly do newer, more complex, yet cheaper things. It has to come from somewhere, and since we are in this far, we figure hell, we'll try to stay afloat a little longer, so we extend and extend, and if we are lucky, we will make enough money to eat. If we aren't, we get a deal like the DM thing. If we are really unlucky, we go back to working at Mcy D's.

I would love to have the resources of SP and DYE put together, to devote to the Mag and all my other pet projects, but I don't, and I can't, so we'll both have to make due with what I can muster.

I do understand the need to rant though, blow off steam and such, but you should also think about what the constant brow beating does to a man's health.

[mandatory]

I always tell my customers the same thing if something goes to hell ---> "I'm real sorry you got bit, I didn't do it on purpose. Every once in a while, something goes to hell and someone gets bit. This time it was you. I'm doing all that I can to take the sting out of it."

I would love it if chris would tell me that. I would love it if he wouldnt wrapp everything in an ambiguous cloke. Tell me if something is going wrong. Dont make it seem like its my fault for not planning on having setbacks. Im not the one making the product, im the one buying the product or rather already bought it. I have no controle of the situation so its the manufacturers responsiblity to parley any important info. If a part of the process takes longer than expected, take responsibility, apologise to the customer, and keep on truckin. like i said the wait is not the problem, its the communication that is the problem. Im not looking for a long winded discussion, just tell the truth. Im tired of getting the least ammount of info that is needed. I can tell you care because you are answering posts, and showing interest in a product you dont even make. Where is chris in all this? where does he stand? what does he think?

And for a ironic note, my brother (dont worry, hes a married, 28 year old elementary school teacher and wont have the same temperment as my 23 yearold ***) was one of the first to order your electro farmes. hopefully we can have a Devilmag vs. coolhand mag in the future. He just better not get is befor i get mine.

[CoolHand]

I would love it if chris would tell me that. I would love it if he wouldnt wrapp everything in an ambiguous cloke. Tell me if something is going wrong. Dont make it seem like its my fault for not planning on having setbacks. Im not the one making the product, im the one buying the product or rather already bought it. I have no controle of the situation so its the manufacturers responsiblity to parley any important info. If a part of the process takes longer than expected, take responsibility, apologise to the customer, and keep on truckin. like i said the wait is not the problem, its the communication that is the problem. Im not looking for a long winded discussion, just tell the truth. Im tired of getting the least ammount of info that is needed. I can tell you care because you are answering posts, and showing interest in a product you dont even make. Where is chris in all this? where does he stand? what does he think?

And for a ironic note, my brother (dont worry, hes a married, 28 year old elementary school teacher and wont have the same temperment as my 23 yearold ***) was one of the first to order your electro farmes. hopefully we can have a Devilmag vs. coolhand mag in the future. He just better not get is befor i get mine.

Well, I'd say Chris isn't here, because he's still off working on his ulcer and DMags. I know when I got down, I hated coming here. Every time I looked it was a different pissed off customer. It made me sick not to be able to solve their problem, or even give them any good info. I doubt that he's actually lying to you on purpose, its just that things continue to happen that make a liar out of him. I know that when I first started having trouble, it looked like I'd be back up and running literally "any day now", but then something else would happen, or the machine parts wouldn't show up, or the ones that did were the wrong kind, or I'd screw something up, that would push it off another week. When things are going poorly in your shop, the weeks seem to fly by, but nothing happens. Meanwhile, time is grinding on for your customers. Case in point, I sent off FireBlades to be anodized towards the end of June. They are still not back, and I have customers waiting on them. To me it seemed like about a week, but when I checked the calendar, it has actually been nearly a month now. They are dieing, and I can't seem to get anything done about it. I told them three to four weeks, but its looking like I'm going to be made into a liar yet (and I thought that was an overshoot ).

Oh well. I do hope that at the very least you are impressed with your marker when it is done. That would be truly crappy, for you to have waited so long, and then not like it. (not that you won't like it though, everyone who's gotten one so far, loves it).

God how I hope my crack at an EFrame goes well. I'd hate to go back to having to buy a case of Tums a week. Endless Heartburn = teh suck

Here's to good luck for all of us Mag customizers.

[mandatory]

First off, i would like to thank coolhand personally for quelling one if the worst moods i have been in for a long time. You addressed me with respect and intellegence, well not with the bonehead remark, and privided me with an insite to another piece of the paintball puzzle. Like i said, i am very new to paintball and even online actvity in general. this is the only forum i have ever been on, barring a 5 min. stint at PBN befor i came running back here. I dont use e-mail very much and have never visited a chat room. That being said, you can see why i have such a thirst for more info and just more contact with paintball in general. Our conversation has enthraled me that i have recessed into a pathetic internet geek. I will probably regret saying this but, the dialogue we had earlier tonight interested me so much that i couldnt sleep and had to come post my thoughts. And thats not the bad part. heres the kicker...i was sleeping at my girlfriends house and woke up, and drove home to come on here. My lowest moment yet. I left a warm naked body to come here. I think im going bonkers..


OK now the reason i came...I figured out why im so mad about the devilmag situation one minute, and then the next minute im totally understanding of the situation. Why im so conflicted about this. I have been living your guys situation my whole life. The grass roots operation. The "backyard business men". My fathers surfboard business has exactly the same dinamics as a single peson, low budget or no-budget type of business. My life (23 years) and my families life has revolved around it for 30+ years. Alot of the things you have said happen similarly in his business. Being the underground guy. Battling the big corprate giants. fighting for customers and sales. In growing up around the his business, ill call it our business to keep it simple, I got to expierence alot of the business world subliminaly. Only now, lookng back, is it that i understand what was happining.

first A little about the surfboard industry: the surfboard industry is alot like the paintball industry, or any competitive industry for that matter. You have large corprate giants, who mass produce an entire array of surfboards, accessories, cloths...ect. they Advertise like crazy, look at any surfing magazine and you will find mostly adds when 20 years ago it was mostly photos. they sponser all the top pros as well as most of the amature surfers. the sponser all the events and contests. They dominate the forign market. Your basic smart parts type of company.

Next is the medium sized operation. this usually consists of a main shaper, usually a master at the craft but not always, and a groupe of understudies. padawans if you may. (oh god im even quoting star wars. my cool shell has been breached and my geeky core is leaking out). They do custom orders, usually through a surf shop, as well as provide local surfshops with a constant supply of stock boards. They may have a few t-shirts printed up and usually sponser the local rippers, providing them with a discount or maybe a free board now and then. Your ICDs, MACDEV, AKA.

Lastly there is my fathers type. Around the industry they are called "backyard shapers". funny storie: one of the big corprate companies actually came out with a side project called "backyard boards or BYB". Quite ironic i would think. The backyard shaper usually shapes at home but sometimes they will "borrow" space at one of the medium level shapers factory. my dad shapes in the backyard. We built a new shaping room for my dad a few years ago. They have no investment capitol, ther for have no inventory other than their shaping tools. they definatly dont advertise and do all business by word of mouth. All other materials are paid for by the customer. Unlike chris though, may father only collects $45 from the customer when they order their board. This pays for the raw blank that the board is to be shaped out of. the rest of the payment is due upon recieving the compleated product. I guess this only works with face to face business as on the internet you get alot of people who back out halfway throught the process. Every surf town has an abundance of backyard shapers, some good and some very bad, and thus the competition at the local level is intense. The small time shaper most resembles AGD.


The surfboard industry is also quite different from paintball industry. Mainly, moast all surfboards are made the same way, using the same materials and usually have very similar shapes. If you had 5 of the top shapers in each of the 3 levels of the surf business make you their versions of a 6'2" tall X 18 1/4'' wide X 2 1/4' thick surfboard (6'2" x18 1/4' x 2 1/4" is the industry standard short board) and then left them blank white with no logos, i would doubt that anyone, even the shapers themselves would be able to tell them apart. Its like if everyone made the same gun, just annoed it differently and put different logos on it. You have no brand seperation, as far as physical make up and performance is concerned. The only way to seperate your self is by emphisis on advertising, logo recognition, sponsership, or hype. this leaves the small man high and dry, as they have no extra money to dump into non-essential ventures. Oddly, Pro riders have the most impact on the sell-a-bality of your sufboard, rather than like in the paintball industry where innovations in the equipment has most impact on sell-a-bility. Most surfboard giants rose to dominance on the backs of young talented surfers. Behind every great company, usually lies a linieage of top class surfers, used to promote thier products and to show the world what you can do on their brand of board. Dynisty, lasoya, and rocky cagnonie (sp?) come to mind in the paintball world.....................

well its getting late and my cooler self wont let me geek away any longer. this is only the first part of what i was going to write but im too tired to finish. Ill finish tomarrow. This is like the preface. A little background info about the surfboard industry befor i get into my own personal expierence with small time business, which was the point of this little essay. I just wanted to compair and contrast our expierences with running or being around a small, nich business. Alot of what you said sparked old memories in me, some that i even try not to think about. well have to wait for another time.

Oh yeah befor i forget, i just remembered my first upgrade for my mag was a red vert frame from you around october of last year. I want to thank you for the wonderful service, and the great product. It has been the best upgrade i have purchased yet. It got me so many compliments and questions at the field. And honestly, anyone that asked me about it was told to check out your web page. I, comming from a small business background, think it is the customers obligation to spread the word about companies that provide good service. I recommend you to all the maggers i see, although very few, as well as all the shocker/ impulse owners. If you do good by me, I will definatly returne the favor at any opportunity i can. You guys deserve sucessful businessess and should be supported by the paintball community. That red frame is now on my brothers RT mag that hes about to send you for your electronic gripframe. Soon we will be some mean mag toten brovas!!!

lates

[CoolHand]

Well all right. As it turns out, you are an intelligent poster. Man, am I glad to see it.

I will officially take back the bonehead crack. Sometimes when I get on a roll (and those last few posts were certainly on a roll), I get sarcastic to the point of being nasty. I gotta watch that closer in the future.

When I first happened onto your problems with the DMag, I instantly got this mental image of a 15 yr old kid banging on the keyboard, who would never be satisfied with his purchase. I am very happy to see that I was wrong. You're just a frustrated guy (who is naut but a couple of years younger than me), who is new to the internet. Like I said, I am glad to have been wrong.

Hang in there, this whole debacle will blow over in time, and you will be left with your DMag and a warm fuzzy feeling.

Also, do finish the essay you started above, I am always facinated by the dynamics of other markets.

Thanks for the insight so far.

[hitech]

I left a warm naked body to come here.

You, sir, need help. Badly.

[mandatory]

I just want to shoot out a quick apology to Big Evil for comendering his rant thread. Hopefully i dont bore you all to daeth with this hippie surfer mumbo jumbo. Im very greatful that you (big evil) have provided me with a positive enviroment to "rant" out your frustration, ideas, and quandries. Its definatly therapudic for me and helps to analize the situation with opinions other than mine. Its very cool that someone as knowledegable and expierenced as coolhand is, will come on here and straighten out all us monkeys who dont know the half of whats going on. Hopefully ill be finishing my "backyard industry" rant soon.

thanks



PS. look out for an article on my dad, Gary Hanel, in an up comming issue of The Surfers Journal. He did an interview and photo shoot a few months ago, so hopefully the article will come out soon and he will get the recogniion he deserves.