When I was first shown the boards cut from the APS3000 I was blown away! Miki had impressed me very much. I took the opportunity to try the software and make a board of my own. I took about 3 weeks of intermittently playing with the program to cut my first one. I had a real busy period of work at the time and really only managed about 6 hours playing on it. I wanted to be pretty fluent with it before I cut anything. I needn't have worried. The first boards came out really good and the only problems I had were my own overdoing of things. The 2nd and third boards I made were for a new team rider who has a couple of Aussie titles under his belt. He loved the boards and couldn't be more stoked! I was wrapped as they only took me 20 or so minutes to finish. Half my time was spent double checking that I didn't need to do any more work on them! All up it took me around 6 boards to make them look like what I had been making for the last couple years only more even and accurate! Over the next 20 or so boards I dropped my finishing times down to 15 mins per board! My boards are cut to what Miki calls standard finish (26% of the machines capability). I have had a few at 95% finish and spent about 3 minutes gauzing the board ready for glassing!

The thing I really enjoyed was that no two boards had to be the same any more ( I didn't have to get 3 cut at a time all the same in a mass produced kind of way) now every board was a custom designed with the individual in mind. I can customize any single element in the boards design to suit my clientele. I now have creative freedom with my designs like when I used the planer but I can make simple accurate adjustments that I would have no chance reproducing by hand. I have reproduced all my models from high performance longboards down to mini grommets 5'0" boards. My whole life around my work has changed I can now spend time with my customers designing their personal boards a much less time wrestling with the planer and templates.

-- Dave Verral (Feral Dave)
Gold Coast, Australia

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