Classic fish modification question

General Discussion
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I know almost every design element has pros and cons in how it performs. Thinking of a modification for Mandala fish I am soon to order. Probably many here know manny makes flex tail via tapered stringer. I’m thinking to increase both the amount of flex (a little) and amount of snap back/energy return (hopefully a lot) by having him foil the board a lot more than the normal fish is done and then beefing up the glass job with a few staggered layers on the deck. Questions:

What are pros cons, esp cons, of foiling the thickness flow particulary of a “classic” fish which to my understanding are not normally very foiled?

Is it true that glass jobs are weakest in compression and therefor if flex tail were to fail under load it would likely be the deck and so that would be where to add the extra glass?

Anyone know how many layers at tail of an Greenough spoon for approx 130 pound rider in NorCal winter surf? (I made one long ago but can’t remember how many layers I put and don’t even remember where I got the info originally–the 60’s must have been good to me but I don’t remember that either!)?

Very greatful for any comments on this idea and questions.

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so, will you be wanting to ‘spoon’ out the fish ? did I get that right ?

I think it was ‘Run’ who did that…

are you out there , ‘Run’ ?

        ben

ps - there’s a photo somewhere in the forum archives on that…is it something like ‘my 2nd experiment’, from memory ?

hope this helps…

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here’s a photo, Dr. strange man … in case you had this in mind ? there’s also a Ron Romanosky website, might be worth doing a ‘google search’ on that… he describes the process there.

[ I hope I got this right…these are KNEEBOARDS… is that what you wanted to do on your fish ? ]

The entry is under ‘2nd experiment’ [june 12th original posting by ‘run’] . And I think there’s a Paul Gross one in the archives too from what ‘run’ said… maybe a search under ‘spoon’. 100 hours work to do Paul’s apparently !! [that’s GOTTA cost !! [no wonder Greenough didn’t make MANY of the things, and why they’re expensive… and heavy!]

cheers!

ben

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Kneeboard is right. But I was thinking more along the lines of NOT spooned out. More like VERY foiled thickness flow so that the deck line runs more or less straight line to tail ending with not much more than the thickness of the “rail at the tail.” Does this make any sense? The profile view would make the board look almost like a very long thin triangle from widepoint back. That’s why the question about foiling effects on performance i.e. pros and cons of tail only a little thinner than the thickness at the widepoint vs a lot thinner. Bruce Hart of Flashpoint makes kneeboards that are very foiled like that but I’ve only seen one and not ridden any. The classic fish I’ve seen seem to have more thickness in the tail. I imagine that is for a reason? Or is it just because that is how Lis did it back in the day?

Wouldn’t be surprised if GG passed this way during his early experiments but was headed in a different direction as he was working w/ single fins and hulls as opposed to twin or quad fins and more of flat bottom (w/ subtle concaves and subtle V etc.)

Anyhoo, is that more clear what I mean or more confusing? Manny already makes a flex tail (as I mentioned) along these lines but I was thinking to have him push the parameters a bit by thinning the tail more and adding a bit of glass to the deck in the tail to add back strength lost by thinning the stringer…and hopefully gain more and snappier flex. Question is, what would I lose besides “lightness” and some paddling ability?

Here’s a link to what he is already doing:

[url]http://www.mandalacustomshapes.com/twinkeel.html

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…" paging dr. strange …private message for a doctor strange… paging strange "

‘chip’

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Not for old farts like me!

Hmm… start with a 5’6" x 20 fish…take out the foam in the tail, but ADD weight in lam layers…hmmmm…

And the board is made for small point surf, I presume? So you are going with keel fins, with no flex?

Canards barely flex, twins barely also.

Methinks you are taking the front foot surfer idea a little too far.

Sure, go for it. We all need to take a big step forward before we can reexamine and moderate backwards to middleground.

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…it’s for kneeling on Lee…a kneeboard…[as fish originally were]

  "chip"
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Quote:
... [no wonder Greenough didn't make MANY of the things, and why they're expensive... and heavy!]

And don’t float themselves, let alone the rider. :wink:

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Yes, small to medium point surf (maybe up to 10-12 foot faces) but the idea behind leaving foam in there is hopefully to compromise and get something that will be quick and agile enough to work in beach break too. Hence the quad fins, a bit angled and also some template modification as well. Manny has a pretty nice fish-relative that he puts two bump wings in to narrow the tail a bit/change the tail outline shown at bottom of the page I referenced above.

Basically what I am after is an all around board that will work well in wide range of conditions but have extra snap and drive. Could always just go with his current state of the art but my mind is restless…I tried shaping once and realized that there was a pretty significant learning curve to get through before I could get close to accurately duplicating my ideas in foam and without accidently putting in complicating factors like poorly foiled rails…