SO yeah I had this idea to make a shortboard that would work like a Thumb–see THumb threads at SUrfermag design (TFAD likes them) as well as a Horan shortboard when I come in and switch the fin to the other end. Thought it would be fun all the way
Cheater fives with the round nose forward, and whip turns with the sharp nose forward?
I like the Starfin for both applications. Thought I’d post these to see what you guys thought (figured out that photobucket.com is really easy to deal with.)
Fin copped from chip’s excellent pics–the angle on the V element isn’t quite what it should be for the Thumb app
Rail contours to be roundy, pretty slight belly to bottom, pretty flat deck–stringerless is the plan with EPS
I get excited looking at it anyway. I’m gonna do it. ANybody that wants to, should do it too. I’m not a good enough surfer and the waves here aren’t good enough to get a proper sense of how it really is, so I invite conspirators
Oh, and I think that fin is mounted too far forward on that rockered pintail in the pic, but I’ll have to change that later
The boxes I don’t think will engender that much drag, but I thought I might sculpt a little epoxy putty in there to give the inside of the end a little curve
Well…I don’t really have much to add except build it! Looks perfectly reasonable on paper, no reason it shouldn’t work (keep in mind, this is from the guy who made the peanut).
For boxes & plugs, I’d probably drill through the ends of the boxes for the strings. You could also fashion a 3/8" thick fin base with roll pin & screw/plate and just no fin. Put that in whichever box was in the nose that day - you know it would fit & work. Or just put a piece of packaging tape over the unused box…
What do you have in mind for rails?
The only hiccup I can think of is the hard down edge around the round end will be a little grabby when that end is the nose. Maybe a chine rail would solve both purposes - a hard edge for planing when its the tail but a little more forgiving when its the nose.
Benny, yeah the idea is a soft rail all round–the Starfin is supposed to work well with softer rails around the fat round tail, and like you say, that’s what’s needed for it as a nose
I was kinda thinking about a bit of a point to the round end–maybe next one, as I already did the temp and all
Figured someone would have done something like it somewhere somewhen
Building a longboard skate right now with a similar temp/idea
Design by Ollie (aka Terry Hall) in Dec 1970 while station in Hawaii… Built by Thrailkill at Surf Systems in California late Dec 1970… Length 8’ 0" … Rides best with fin in the pintail position…
For what it’s worth, I like that idea a lot- it looks great on paper as Benny says and seems like it should work. I have friends who are very into the short (6’0 and down) stub boards, and I got a couple of waves on a generous soul’s Parmenter Stub Vector which was awesome, so personally I’d say it’s a design route worth travelling! I’d agree the pintail fin seems a bit far forward and I’d suggest going to the 6oz boardshop site as they have an awesome 6’0" Van Straalen ‘micro mal’ that may help inspire. Keep us posted…
ollie , what fin/s did you use in that 8’ double ender , please ? raky one ? upright one ? deep one ?
…interesting …
I wonder if more rocker would be any better / worse , janks ??
cheers
ben
[this is only me personally , but I would like it more pointy at both ends … being that my 7’ single fin is so flat , I could EASILY put a finbox under the nose . ]
Standard bananna fin. Pintail end back for riding larger waves. Wide end back for small waves, more surface area. Having both ends the same, ie pintail, defeats the purpose of the design… It was designed this way to surf in different surf conditions. It works, but pintail end back worked the best in all conditions, and this particular shape for some reason really hauls ass in larger waves…
“Having both ends the same, ie pintail, defeats the purpose of the design… It was designed this way to surf in different surf conditions.”
ah yes ,
that makes sense , now i think about it some more …
so it’s not a “true double ender” , in terms of identical nose and tail , but rather in terms of the fact that you CAN turn the board around and use the nose for a tail …I see clearly now … thanks for clarifying that !
I might have to shorten the existing 7’ single fin board , and round the ?nose ? / ? tail? [which would you recommend?] some before whacking in another finbox on the “nose”
Don’t think I’d waste my time on chopping up a 7’ board… My design decision way back in 1970 was to make a board that could be surfed in small waves riding one way and being able to reverse the board and take advantage of the pintail end in larger waves. Being able to surf south shore hawaii one day, and north shore the next. I don’t think I’d go under 8’ if your planning to use it as I did way back then.
I don’t claim this to be any big brake through in surf design. It was driven more by $$$ I had back then, which were not much, and to take advantage of having a board that I could use all round…
The idea for this for me was basically that I saw a Thumb on the Surfermag webstie, and read some very cool things about it, and I thought it was cool, and I really like the idea of that board by itself, and then I saw Horan boards here, and Starfins, and pics of Cheyne surfing Starfins and his boards, and I really liked all that stuff, and then I figured out that with rounded rails and bottom, and Starfin, I could probably have a lot of two different kinds of fun with one board and one fin.
Maybe mine will work on the same day at the same spot, being as waves here are pretty, ah, reasonable. I really think it will be the funnest thing to be out on a semi-clean waist-chest day, ride it for a while as a Horan style single fin shorty, swap the fin to the other end, and then grab some cruisy carvy rides with cheater fives and stuff.
It ends up for me being I’d rather spend the extra coin making two really good shapes rather than 1 trying to be two different things–I’ve been thinking about it that way anyhow. I’d rather spend the energy trying to think up fin-free designs that can swap ends on the same ride.
SO yeah I had this idea to make a shortboard that would work like a Thumb–see THumb threads at SUrfermag design (TFAD likes them) as well as a Horan shortboard when I come in and switch the fin to the other end. Thought it would be fun all the way
Cheater fives with the round nose forward, and whip turns with the sharp nose forward?
I like the Starfin for both applications. Thought I’d post these to see what you guys thought (figured out that photobucket.com is really easy to deal with.)
Fin copped from chip’s excellent pics–the angle on the V element isn’t quite what it should be for the Thumb app
Rail contours to be roundy, pretty slight belly to bottom, pretty flat deck–stringerless is the plan with EPS
I get excited looking at it anyway. I’m gonna do it. ANybody that wants to, should do it too. I’m not a good enough surfer and the waves here aren’t good enough to get a proper sense of how it really is, so I invite conspirators
Oh, and I think that fin is mounted too far forward on that rockered pintail in the pic, but I’ll have to change that later
The boxes I don’t think will engender that much drag, but I thought I might sculpt a little epoxy putty in there to give the inside of the end a little curve
They’re straight boxes too, I realize that
The leash plug thing…
Thinking still…
Janky,
Your one of the more interesting folks here, because you like to try many different things. Larry has been after to try one with the fins boxes on both ends thing for awhile because one of those types of boards was such a sucess for Greek awhile ago. Contact Greek, he is familiar with fins on both ends.
Look forward to seeing it and hearing some reports.
janklow, You are right on with your concept. Greek changed the surfing world in late 60’s with a double ender board with boxes on each end. I emailed Greek this link to try to have him post that board set-up. I seen one of the double enders from that time in his garage.
