I have a 7’7" Clarkfoam gun blank, I plan to make a 7’6" X 19 1/4 Gun for beachies and rare trips to some steep reefs.I can’t really see myself going much beyond DOH unless it’s very tame. I mailnly ride bonzers in good waves and I want to explore something different. This is going to be a quad fin. I want to try a board with belly and V throughout instead of concaves.
Now given that the shops here pretty much only stock potato chip thrusters I have never seen a board like this, I would be grateful for any pointers for the amount of V and belly at each point on the board.
What started this train of thought was BamBams post on the Rawson quad gun,I tried to order one but the shipping & duty killed that.
I’d appreciate pointers on this from anyone with experience of building or riding this type of board.
If its helpful I could post the APS file of the outline & rocker.
Tell me about the actual waves you are likely to surf with this board?
What is your height and weight?
How thick and wide do you usually make or get your boards.
You said that you usually ride Bonzers. Exactly what kind… home made or real ones. Please describe as there are many people making boards that they call Bonzers but do not resemble what I would think they might be. Model names are dangerous things… as often the NAME becomes more important then the accuracy of how the design resembles the original designers intentions.
Mostly I would be interested in the bottoms on those “bonzer” boards and exactly what you are familiar with riding currently.
How many fins and where are they placed? Are we talking classic 5 Fin Bonzers here or what?
Is there an APS3000 machine in Ireland?
Post up the specs or send me your original file (if you don’t mind me having your original) and I can better give you some suggestions. Send to
The waves, What I had in mind is an offshore reef a buddy has been trying to get me to ride, jacks up real fast and runs down the line , about 800m out,it only breaks a few times a year. I almost exclusively surf beach breaks and mainly one high quality beach break a bit like OB SF. Occasionally I get to travel to the NW for quality steep world class reefs, which are crowded.
For the most part I have to make do with whatever the local beached throw at me (5 days a week). rarely more than head high.
I ride Malcom Cambells 5 fin bonzers, a 6’6" X 20 X 2 5/8 egg mostly and a 7’6" egg very rarely. I also made a 6’10" X 2.5" X 19" 5 fin semi gun Bonzer very like a cambell. I reserve this for strong offshores and steep drops. Faithful to the campbell bros concaves.
The summer I spent on a 5’10" X 22 compsand quad, WIth the Robin Mair Style Quad setup, which Robin tells me works well on Guns.
My style is all about climbing high and turning.
We don’t have APS3000 in Ireland unfortunately. This will be hand shaped.
in the resource section look in the board catagory that incudes boards that are 8-9’. there is an 8’8" paul gross semi gun known as rocket 88.(i think it’s in there) it may show some of the roll or belly or hull and rocker,etc.
Attached is a rework of your Aku Shaper file. It is really hard to design on the spur of the moment for someone without enough info or knowledge of the rider and the waves, but I gave it a shot. Some cautions though, while I tweaked the rocker a bit, I didn’t specifically measure points so use care in following the curve precisely here. My goal was mainly just to head you in the right direction for the proportions of the rocker curve. I also added a bit of thickness and thinned the rails and tail a bit. Hard to determine this for your described wave and conditions. But a small sacrifice in performance to gain some paddling mobility might be worth it.
just had to comment on how cool it is that a guy in Ierland can get hooked up by a legend like Barnfield, who is 1/2 way around the world, with the wonderful gift of a push in the right dirrection… going into a new board design with confidence in your mind can make a huge difference on the outcome… hats off to both of you!!!