Finished shots of board attached....
Thanks,
MWS
Good Morning:
Looking for some straight forward advice on what type of "general purpose" bottom to put on a 7' x 19" semi-gun for head and 1/2 to double overhead waves...
Single to Vee? Single to Double? Straight Single?
I'm making a trip to Hawaii in December and would like to ride this board.
In advance, thank you very much!
Mark
Re fin placement - my 7’1" semis are 19" wide and are 12 3/4" wide one foot up with a 3" baby squash tail. I place my fins at 3 1/2"’ and 11 1/2". I’m at one inch off rail and 3/16" toe in per fin. For cant I use a one inch spread difference between rear base and rear tip. This is with 1/8" v by side fins. The Rawsons I’ve seen had the side fins at 12". This setup works well for me. You’re heavier than me, on a thicker board so you might want to vary this to suit you. Hope it’s helpful. For years this was my go to board because of where I was living and the size of the waves there so I had a lot of opportunity to dial it in after copying Rawson.
Dingdingdingdingding!!! I believe we have a winnah! There are many reasons for this, but I have surfed and made boards here nearly my whole life and I’d say you couldn’t go wrong with that. keep the belly and vee minimal, pay lots of attention to rocker, foil and fins. This BTW is what Chuck Andrus uses a lot. Concave is less popular in gunny boards here than you would think. The change starts at around 7’ for most. Don’t be shy about volume, either, just taper your rails enough and foil the ends way thin.
Very slight belly to flat to vee.
My own preference is slight v for the first 24" then flat to the front foot, then v between the feet peaking in front of the side fins, about 1/8" v total, then fading to flat at the rear fin. You have to take overlap into consideration so you don’t loose the v. I find this bottom to be more fluid and willing to go on rail than a concave bottom. How wide are you going?
For me , it depends on how you want to ride it. If I want to draw out my turns on an open face, I go with the v, If I’m thinking race track down the line, concave. I’ve built both and I prefer the v. The concave is a little faster but the v is really more fluid .
All the options mentioned will work, your choice depends on where the board fits in your quiver (IMO). If this is the biggest board you plan to ride, I'd go with some type of convex. If you're used to deeply concaved hpsbs and want to retain that feel, go concave (plenty of small guns are done this way) and save the convex for bigger boards. If the 7'0'' is your ''big board'', I'd suggest a reverse V to slight double concave through fins. V peaks ahead of wp, but doesn't go flat until between your feet. Keeping a little V around your front foot makes it easy to roll the board on rail at speed, and the double gives it some ''jump'' off the bottom turn. A great ''general purpose'' bottom for island waves.
flat or lite single concave
I like a slight vee in the entry, to flat, to concaved vee from the wide point to the trailing fin that has the deepest vee and deepest concave just ahead of the leading edge of the rail fins, to flat out the back.
Just did ttwo 7’0s… a single fin and thruster with the same bottom on both. Can’t wait to compare.
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flat or lite single concave
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I agree,,,,, dang its only 7 ft long,,,, why belly or forward "V"?
Thanks everybody...I shaped it tonight.
Has belly the first 24", mostly flat through the middle section, then added about 1/8" of vee transitioning into and through the side fins. Flat through the rear fin and off the back.
I am 6'3" and weigh 210 so I made it 2 7/8" thick in the middle, 1 5/8" thick a foot back from the nose, and 1 1/2" a foot up from the tail.
Will post a pic when finished.
Mark
All good guns in the 7’ range are single to double concave.
Dick Brewer’s bottoms start single and finish double between the front fins going out the back ending in a slight vee behind the back fin.
Mike Daniels explains it better than I do in his previous post.
Other shapers do a lite single has Paul mentioned.
Oh deary, looks like you’ve gone and done it wrong. As have Bushman, Rawson and Schaper, from whom I have gathered the suggestion I shared here. I’d better tell them before someone notices. No offense to Mike Daniel, but I’d take the opinion of thse three over anybody’s, especially when there is, for the most part, consensus.
on this one:
I go flat then vee double concave vee: it’s seems to go wright.
he did say for head and half waves which at 40 year old and 87kg i ride a 5 11. i wouldnt really go near gun shapes for waves that small. if i wanted to step up from my shorty for crowd control id be into a 6 6 to 7 foot eggy fun shape for up to 3 times overhead wallls and maybe 1.5 to doh hollow. certainly flat bottom boards work great.
Better get him to reshape the board, then. It’s all wrong.
Ken… Stretch started putting vee in the entry in just about everything, even shortboards, a while back. I like his shapes and have made a few knock-offs, and since then I’ve started putting vee in the entry, too. I feel it adds a little rail rocker in the nose and makes steep waves a little more forgiving. It’s not so much dealing with big chop and current and all that, like on guns, but more of a performance thing.
My last 7’0 “semi-gun” had a single concave, and it felt a little bouncy in DOH surf. Concaved vee sounded right to me to address that. But unlike what’s been said above, I didn’t put the vee too far forward. I put it from the widepoint back to the fins, creating a flatter rail line between my feet for speed. We’ll see how it goes this winter when the big mackin Nor’ Easters start cranking. The surf from these storms, at my local, can be very thick and fast, with no time for turns. Just want to make the wave…
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‘All the options mentioned will work, your choice depends on where the board fits in your quiver (IMO).’
No offense taken, bammbamm. As ''big boards'' have gotten smaller over the last few years, it makes sense to use that bottom on a 7'0''. They're being ridden on some good-sized days, even by North Shore standards.
That's why I asked where it fit in his quiver. If it's a NS daily driver, there's other possibilities. But the ''regular'' bottom is not ever going to be a bad choice.
well im just a journeyman in bigger surf. im moderately confident in DOH and amping nervous in 2.5 to 3. actually a quite freaked out to be honest. but i will paddle out and get a few
i saw my best mate get a 3 to 4 second standup barrel on 76 mini mal yesterday. those indo style mini guns are pretty well horrible for everything except backhand barrel riding imo. where a 7 ft plus fun shape or bigger shortboard can be ridden in just about any conditions up to 3OH. a 7 foot board is a seven foot board and you can narrow it out with an exteme pin, call it a gun and invent a whole lot of complex bottom shapes for it if you like but in my opinion a 7 foot egg works better. The key reason why is volume and curve in the outline. if you do the sums in aku or whatever the standard 7 foot indo mini gun has less volume then my 6 2.
you dont need a lot of nose rocker 5 inch max with a low entry for any type of wave. have lots of tail rocker tho. the tail rocker will help you turn at high speed and the curved rail will release better in high speed turns. but thats just me im getting old and opinionated and dont have acess to hollow waves bigger then 1.5 to 2 times overhead. imo evidence of bottom contour performance aspects is ancedotal. Although you can feel a difference under your feet there is no way to accurately measure what they do! with rocker and outline changes the difference are easier FELT. but still personal preference.
a fuller rail is more forgiving and softening the back edges for a great deal more hold in bottom turns! stiffer fiberglass fins are also better in bigger waves. you could shape the best contours in the world and your wasting your time if you use a plastic fin in a flexible fin system
Also the surfer compensates for any differences naturally. . rattleling off a list of big names is pointless because surfing is a personal experience and opiniions on performance are for the most part entirely subjective
