Cutting a round pin to a Squash?

General Discussion
1

Hi,

Partly practical party academic question.

I have a 9’1 very HP longboard that has a thin (13 7/8 wide) round pin tail with some vee on the bottom. The finbox is 7 inches up from the tail.

If I cut an inch of the tail and reshaped it to a squash, what should I get?

Would shortening to squash bring more planing and easier cutbacks to slower speeds. What would be the negative effects?

I ride the board from knee to overhead, it is practically my only ride for all conditions. I’m on a mission to ride the board more from the tail as my cutbacks are often too slow to be useful. The board bottomturns very well from anywhere on the board and cuts back too when I’m on the fins. I just often end up standing a bit too much forward fearing that stepping back would stall the board which results in lack of good top turns & cutbacks.

Would this kind of tail job make me another Colin McPhillips or do I still need to surf more? :wink:


2

does it look like the board in “my next project…'maladjustment” thread ? [because THAT’S what I will be doing to …but probably 6" off the tail , instead of 1". ]

Some good info in that thread from people , anyway …worth a read , I reckon !

cheers Gonz !

ben

3

Good advice from Chipfish…

2" does nothing except to maybe seal the tail from any dings you might already have.

Cut length off tail, loose paddle, float, wave catching, since you’re riding a shorter board, and gain quicker turning.

Instead, I’d just move the fin up another 1", maybe more in tiny waves, to get quicker turns.

4

Try different center fins before surgery.

Rainbow makes a nice rake. 6.5 or 7" is plenty for a HP longboard. If you’re 175 lb or less, get the flex version; if more, get the non-flex one.

I use the 7" non flex (I’m 210# or so) in both of my HP 2+1 longboards - they’re both 9’10", one is a round pin & one is a squash. The round pin likes to hold better on steep walls and the squash gets into softer ramps a little easier, but once going, either one will turn quick.

http://www.rainbowfins.com/surf/longboard.php

5

Yeah, thanks folks.

The idea started from fixing dings but I suppose the surgery can wait 'till an even bigger ding.

I’ve tried to figure what makes a board turn well for me. It’s not necessarily looseness, all things relate to each other: like no speed, no cutbacks. Thus, the board that keeps going fast might be the one yelding good turns too? If all the rails lay in the water, no longboard will cut back very quickly?

My board has the fin cluster pretty far up from the tail, center box 7" and the trailing edge of sidebites 16,5". What do shapers search with a setup like this?

6

Forward set clusters on performance log because it’s sooo long, you can’t have conventional Thruster setup, standing on a pad 7 " from the tail block.

Once again, either use smaller fin, as suggested, or move centers forwards even more, if you’re not spinning out the turns.

You really need a more juicy wave, one that’s bigger would help also. Thin tails NOT for small, weak surf.