In response to Blakestah re:spider racks. I've done extensive testing with a solid fiberglass wedge driving it into the box with a hammer to split it. It's extremely tough and why I made the wall thicknesses what they are. Usually it takes me several very hard hits to split a lokbox. One half hearted hit with the others. ...
This I am sure of.
The thing I was curious about would be simply tightening down the fin, and removing it. About 200 times…which is not that unrealistic if you have a gung-ho surfer who removes his fins, or re-positions them, every time he surfs for a year or two.
Each time you tighten it down, the box will widen, a few thousandths of an inch. Each time you remove the fin, the box will contract.
Over time, these strain cycles will cause failures. The spider cracks I saw with Lokbox were concentrated at the front and rear ends of the boxes, and were puzzling to me, because they did not occur with Futures or my system (neither of which puts a press on the box). It was not any major deal either. very small, and someone could easily have ignored them. I still consider it a far smaller issue than those in other systems - and still think, fundamentally, the best way to mount a finbox in the hull only is a tightly routed box, a cabosil/Q-cell paste into the foam (not too hot), and glass-over.
Anyway, my friend who processes dozens of ding repairs a week, knows I am curious about finbox issues, and points out the common failures for each system to me. FCS pulled plugs were the most common, and the raised circles on the deck were the second most common. A broken Futures occurs for a blunt front end contact, and requires nearly a complete re-build of the entire area on the board - it is a massive fix job. And the Lokboxes showed up with tiny spider cracks around the ends of the boxes. With a large number of units, every fin box system has ways it fails more than the others, and by close attention to these, the most bombproof light design can be achieved, and I still think Lokbox is closest to that because of its install and use of the taper. But I saw too many of the spider cracks to think it was not an issue, or that I was imagining things.
Seems like very good intel--thank you very much. Have you seen any ProBoxes with issues?
I haven’t seen any at all…nor would I recommend avoiding any of these systems because of the types of ding repairs they present. You also need to know the number of units in service for the ding numbers to be meaningful (other than as a design issue in that common failures indicate failures in design).
I have been doing some more homework on the different systems as I believe the combination of the right system with the boards I am working on right now will make one really good all around alternative.
I was also concerned about your comments on the probox systems; that bit about parts fitting into parts that fit into parts. From what I can gather it’s not quite as your sentence says. The probox appears to be a structural integrity box capable of accepting various fins that can change the cant and move forward or backward via a pliable pre canted insert made to withstand the elements of surfing and weather. I was thinking more that it was two structural integrity pieces that fit together which would eventually either break down or become loose. Instead as a laymen I think of something akin to a more rigid gasket but working in a similar fashion. You place the pliable insert into the box and the fin into the insert which should create a compression . When you put the screw into the hole which goes through the box and onto the fin slot it should suck both the fin and the insert into a nice snug fit. Damn…I feel like I just described a good porno flick. Oh behave.
Anyway, that seems to me to make good sense and it’s much better than what I thought it was. In some ways…I wonder if you would not get an even better fit than using simply a hard fin into a hard structural integrity box with little give and eventual wear and tear. It seems the insert could actually act as a buffer as well as giving different fin cants.
Anyway…still looking into them all. Also from further study……It seems to me like Futures is nothing more than a continuation of boxes that have already been on the market and gone away. I appears to be in the line of Star fin systems and another system that I can’t remember the name of at the moment but looked almost the same.
Thinking out loud….if those systems are the best, why have they gone away only to come back again in a different name? I remember the old Star systems many of us tired of loosing fins and having tabs break. Also unless you used fiberglass fins they wobbled like a wounded dog.
More homework. Wow! What type of fin system is this. I kept trying to remember that other fin system and found this. I believe it’s called …The California fin system. Look familiar? So much for new…latest …greatest. Boy the business side of our industry does not change much.
Anyway…I guess the next bit of homework will be on installing under the glass floating in foam or through the glass. which is better and why? Also…I appreciate the input…this has been an informative thread.
….if those systems are the best, why have they gone away only to come back again in a different name?
Marketing and a small surf industry. Here’s an example that can be carried over from other threads. It’s not just how good something is… for it to survive, it’s about business skills, perseverance, and luck.
The surf industry is tiny. 30% of the “industry” is controlled by two companies - quiksilver and billabong. The rest of the pie isn’t very big, and there are still some big eaters at the table. Fin systems don’t account for that much of the remaining pie. Injection molding equipment is expensive and you can make more money using it to make more lucrative parts. Ask LocBox If they’ve made enough to send their kids to private schools yet. If you’re in the business of making fins, you better be doing it for love.
There are a few reasons glass on fins have all but left board crafting.
As Kendall mentioned they aren’t good to travel with. If there was a possibility that your board was going to get damaged say on your way to Hawaii, it would be a fin that most likely got whacked. So what, you get to your destination and need to find a repair guy to fix a fin. $50.
From a production stand point it takes a higher grade craftsmen to do fin lay-ups. Good laminators are getting harder and harder to find. Sanding boards with fins on them is more difficult. Now if the board is a Gloss Polish…like most long boards…Polishing fins is not easy and has it’s own set of troubles.
As some of the big name labels started shipping boards to dealers all over the place shipping boards with glass on fins has the same problems as traveling. Shipping boards goes much better with removable fin systems.
Permanent glass on fins leave you with no options. Even if you don’t ever exercise your options at least you’ve got options.
There are probably other reasons but, even at that there are still guys using glass ons and boards being made with them.
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Anyway…I guess the next bit of homework will be on installing under the glass floating in foam or through the glass. which is better and why?
Through the glass systems have a tendency crack around the seam and can distort during installs. Glassed in systems become part of the laminating process so are better integrated.
Red X is not going away…Larry just isn’t putting as much effort into marketing it as he was.
Marketing is absolutely cut throat
While we will continue to produce Red X, we also make components for LokBox and 4-Way
Kendall is right injection molding machines, the tools and talent to make the custom molds does not come cheap. But, we also diversify what we make so we can survive and let others do the marketing.
It all comes down to make something better and being able to afford to do so. So, we make parts for Block Surf, Body Glove, Crow Haley, Da Kine, Destination Surf, Famous Wax, GLS Surfboards, Hobie Surfboards, INT Surfboards, Rainbow Sandals, Stay Covered, and Wax Research. along with a bunch of medical and consumer related products.
We’ve been around for over 30 years and we’re not going away soon. Just working towards making better products here at home.
from a non-marketing viewpoint or what my CEO or Chief Financial Officer would grill me on me if queried…
“So this fin system thing its only gonna cost me more money in the long run over time, to either purchase an airplane ticket somewhere to make use of it or because I have to buy something else other than what I’m getting in the first place to realize any benefit out of it? hmmm… Now why would I want to do that again?”
So is this fin system thing really benefiting the surfboard buyer or everyone else they’ll need to dish out some cash to in order to have it prove it’s point?
That’s the difference between marketing and the bean counters
Unless they’re the bean counter of the company marketing the concept…
Of course those companies have other problems outside of the “good idea” with their accountants.
So…
if you don’t travel alot on planes with your surfboards, need to stack them two to a cubie, or need to add another fin on to make it work better than how you bought it from your builder in the first place and are willing to learn how to fix your board when you damage it, then you folks are all saying you don’t need a fin system right?
Seems pretty straight forward.
So I wonder why no one ever thinks like that anymore?
They sure do with other stuff though…
Hi Onuela,
I think Boxes add more versitility than the way we used to be stuck with only a shapers idea of how a board should ride and buy another board for experimentation. Subtle changes in fins can give a board a different ride and now you can actually ride multple fin configurations as well. Seems like some of the more advanced box systems have improved to the point where there is little difference. I also remember what it was like to have a fin glassed back on after it was snapped or be out of the water waiting on ding repair. I think some things have been improvements.
what you’re saying–it’s a very pure thing. But (playing around with) fins is fun, and as new foils become available, and new materials, you can add (or just change) a board’s performance… it just seems like more fun available to a surfer, aside from the valid transportation and damage issues. Value is added, if you choose wisely, and want to access it. You can buy boards with glass-ons from shapers, or you can buy boards with systems from shapers, or you can make your own however–it’s all just choices ain’t it?
I can totally understand what everyone is saying here.
It’s a circular argument with no real right or wrong answer.
But the bottomline is that it ends up as the acceptance of mediocre products that have to rely on other products for improvement taking the pressure off the original designer to put out something that actually works for you without the need for such add-on equipment.
The end result of pumping out mediocre products is the so called china syndrome which you’ve so passionately expressed your feelings about elsewhere…
It’s all connected and a result of the continuing degradation of who and what the item was being created for in the first place. Once the design focus migrated from the rider to the fin system (and the fins available for that system) being used the board becomes generic enough to where the phases of how generic a product we were willing to accept from the designer has increased to the point where the designer itself no longer became important and production could be moved offshore and the product became a true commodity.
I would care to say that in today’s world if you add up all the fins you would need to own to make your board work well in most conditions, that the fin system has actually become more important and more costly than the board itself. Which brings up the next question as to then what is the real value of the board itself now a days if its just become an accessory to your fins…
But then again if we all are students of the industry, we know that it is your shorts or your GPS unit that make you surf better anyway… The board and fins you use are actually just to accessorize your choice of surfwearz.
Good stuff Bernie.
From my homework: Probox: $75.00 retail thruster set up forward…middle…back fin adjustment. 4…6…8.degree cant adjustment. FCS: Nada… Futures: Six sets of fins to get the same result in Cant and fin adjustment @ $60.00 per set = $360.00
You certainly make your point with Futures. I think probox is on to something thats not quite that expensive and have a variety of adjustments should you choose to play.
I ride wide tailed singles…so fin systems are mostly a non issue for me personally…but I like the idea of being able to ride a quad…twinzer…thruster…twin on one board when I switch back. I like the idea on selling surfboards that have more than one function also. However…you do make some valid points.
Also…I am not so sure the focus was ever on the rider in general as much as it was a shaper doing a board that he believed surfers should be riding and then promoting that board. Since the industry is realitively young our nostalgia looks back at shapers with some guru status when in fact very few shapers were visionaries or creators. Most simply shape and promote the “in” design of the day. Otherwise…you certainly would not see something as expensive as FCS as the leader in the industry and few surfboards would be thin narrow little toothpicks.
Look at the evolution of the fin. Foiling REALLY took off when fins became removable. So did playing with cant, because these are easily changeable by removing the fins.
And their interrelationship with commerce was detailed, long ago, in this forum, by Bert, who preferred glass fins because he felt the fin choice was dictated by the surfers choice of board, and implemented by the shaper. Is choice good? Some very small fraction of surfers will use it. 10 times as many surfers may play with fin position the first few times they ride a board, then leave it alone. And over 90% will never change it at all. Marketing says giving someone options helps.
I’m staring right now at a huge box of fin systems that needs to be unpacked and re-packed… More options…but unquestionably their performance is different, and in some ways substantially better, than you can achieve without a fin system.
Look at the evolution of the fin. Foiling REALLY took off when fins became removable. So did playing with cant, because these are easily changeable by removing the fins.
And their interrelationship with commerce was detailed, long ago, in this forum, by Bert, who preferred glass fins because he felt the fin choice was dictated by the surfers choice of board, and implemented by the shaper. Is choice good? Some very small fraction of surfers will use it. 10 times as many surfers may play with fin position the first few times they ride a board, then leave it alone. And over 90% will never change it at all. Marketing says giving someone options helps.
I’m staring right now at a huge box of fin systems that needs to be unpacked and re-packed… More options…but unquestionably their performance is different, and in some ways substantially better, than you can achieve without a fin system.
It’s not only marketing that says giving someone choice helps. The fact is…choice is only recently something we have had an abundance of. Competition adds pressure for minds to compete. Inovation has come out of trying to solve problems. If people didn’t want choice…there would not be Twin Fins…four fins…three fins…five fins…twizers or wide tailed singles etc. Now with some systems you have many of those same choices, but you can get if from one board using certain fin systems. You know me…I hate the hype end of our industry with a passion. There is a fine line between hype and something that works. In fact…it pretty much all works to some degree…(look at that turbo tunnel monstrosity) people that surf alot can tell the difference…the average surfer does not know anything other than what someone who he thinks knows more than him tells him.
75% of surfers simply like the way a certain surfboard/fin system with a certain labels looks under their arms walking down the beach. Surfing to them is mosty about feeling and conversation. I think those that are looking for legitimate alternatives can find with with companies like probox…lokbox…speedfins. I believe probox is even made 100% in the U.S.A. not sure about the othe two. For those wanting hype and rehash of the same old same old you have futures and FCS with their mininum order requirments and pressure to buy accessories. Like Reef…it wouldn’t suprise me to see either of them trying out clothing lines or boardshorts programs.
The best I can tell the first group of fin systems that took hold and made money FCS and futures were simply designed for the surfer who wanted to travel or shops who wanted to cram in more boards. Now it seems you have other fin system companies attempting to design systems that can actually work and improve certain charateristics of surfing and give you more options. So far…I am leaning in the direction of probox and still looking at Lokbox. I am not opposed to the other companies…I just don’t see much there other than magazine adds and the fact that they were first in. Especially after finding that old picture of California fin systems. Futures is nothing more than a rehash of that that old system and the older star fin systems. If those went away once…I wonder why they are now back almost the exact same?
Like Onuela said…the boardshorts are really what make the surfer after all. If you aint flying the stone…your just not cool enough.
More options…but unquestionably their performance is different, and in some ways substantially better, than you can achieve without a fin system.
More options…but unquestionably their performance is different, and in some ways substantially better, than you can achieve without a fin system.