I was wondering if anyone might be able to help me out with this one. I just picked up this board off a guy on craigslist for $150, figured it’d be an interesting addition to the quiver. It’s a little before my time though, and when I took a look at it, I was really surprised. The fin box is about an inch and a half wide, and looks like nothing I’ve ever seen before. There’s no signature, serial number, or date on it, the logo just says Eastern Cuvll. It looks like there’s been some work done to it, the pinlines are actually car pin-striping tape, and I think they’ve been hot coated over. They’ll be the first thing to go, but I’m gonna wait until I know exactly what I’ve got my hands on.
Do you have dimensions on the box? If it didn’t appear to be too short (photo angle perhaps?) I’d almost want to say that it is a Waveset with the bolt holes filled in. I’m probably completely wrong, but someone has to go first…
The box is 1 1/4" x 9 1/2" There were a couple plastic pieces in front of the fin that I pried out. I took a couple more pictures, hopefully that will help. I looked up Waveset fin boxes, and it doesn’t look like that’s it. I tried to pry the fin out too, but it’s stuck in there pretty tight and I’m not quite sure how it’s supposed to come out.
Oh my gawd- it’s the last living Guidance Systems fin and fin box in captivity! I haven’t seen one of those in use in a good fifteen years.
Rachel, be very kind to both fin and those little plastic inserts, as you won’t find another one for love nor money. The fin goes in and gets thumped towards the tail, ideally with a plastic or other sorta-soft mallet. This pushes the wedge-shaped ears on the fin base against the similar bits in the box and in theory the friction holds it there - it was all kind of a reaction to people who couldn’t find Allen wrenches.
Now, the thing is, people would go and bang the fins into things like rocks and each other, etcetera, so that the fins would get to a position where they could fall out. So, the inserts, which at least in theory would keep it from going too far. The half-length ones are the ones that hold it in a tight position, as it were. That little one that was all the way in front - hang onto that.
Now, like Ambrose said, don’t go sandin’ off anything. Maybe polish it a bit, wax it, surf it…and don’t hit anything.
The Guidance System fin box was from a slightly different era, more like the first twin fins and those big-assed and big finned shortboards like the G&S Egg and Weber Pig - this could be kinda contemporary to those.
It shows reasonable workmanship, from what I can see, the pinlines may well not all be auto tape, instead they may be black-colored resin that was taped around, laid in and then hotcoated over - but it does show a ridge like hotcoated-over tape would. You want to clean it up some more before you go grinding stuff off…
would 1969 / 1970 be in the ballpark for a date guess , doc and others ?
I don’t see a hole drilled into the fin , and depending on the rails and the bottom contour[s] , that would be MY guesstimate ?
Can we have some more photos of the board , please R R RACH ?
… can we have a side on profile shot of the board , and a standing up planshape photo of the baord ?
Any chance of a shot from the tail looking to the nose , of the rail / bottom of the board , looking from the tail to the nose , please Rachel ? [you can crop yourself out of the picture if you are shy , I guess…but feel free to include yourself in it , if you like ! ].
…please DON’T sand off those pinlines , I agree with doc and ambrose …they were from that era , and add to the board’s character [I have a board with glossed over tape pinlines too , and it’s an "interest " to me !
Thanks for all the info. Here I was thinking I would just pop out the fin box and put in a new Fins Unlimited one! Guess I won’t be doing that.
There are a couple of dings and such that need to be fixed and one spot up near the nose that feels a little soft. Otherwise it’s in pretty good shape considering how old it is. I looked up the fin system on google and found a great site that says the system came out around 1970, and was shortly replaced by the Fins Unlimited boxes in 1971. Not sure of the exact date of the board, but I’d bet it’s from the early '70s. Which makes it about twice as old as I am.
The pinlines are definitely auto tape, there’s a piece that’s pulled off up near the nose on the deck. I’ve got to clean off the wax and the dust and take a look at everything, but I think I’m still gonna pull off the tape and do a posca pinline.
Chip, I’ll take some more pictures from all different angles. This is looking like it’s turning into a Swaylocks Mystery.
in another twenty years ["so what ? " , says Rach] that board may be the only remaining s-deck with tape pinlines and the original 36yo fin system [by then it will be a 56 year old fin system , possibly making the board valuable ? ]
regardless , get it waterproof , and ride it . Single fins can be fin [an amen from josh in the background , I’m sure !]
I stick with my 1970 guess then …
that board is 36 years old , if that is the case !
as you say , twice your age . But not nearly as good looking as the owner now .
[was the guy you bought it off an old fat biker , a “Woodstock” survivor, by any chance ?]
ben
even if the board does not surf well [and there’s a very good chance of THAT !] , still try to hold onto it . Imagine when you are 70 , and you pull out that board to show some grom , what a spinout THAT will be for them ?!
Yeah, the timing is about right, there were two versions of the Guidance, if I recall correctly, and the Waveset version/variation ( which is even rarer I doubt I saw more than 3 or 4 in boards ) - we even had a Guidance fin that was cast aluminum, god alone knows where or how we got the thing.
There were lots of the fins left over after they stopped putting the boxes in boards and I know I wound up resining lots of them into Waveset boxes ( original style) when the waveset fins ( also old style ) became extinct…especially the Variable WaveSet, which were amazingly weak, I think they made them out of the same hard candy they use in lollipops.
I dunno if I’d bother putting more pinlines on the board, just polish the beast.
the board is twice as old as you are? Hell, I got out of high school the year they made the thing, which makes me… depressed, actually…
Took some more pics and measurements. It’s 5’9" x 14" N x 18 1/2" x 13 3/4" T x 3 1/8". The fin is around 9" long and the base is 6". I bought it off a guy who had gotten it at a yard sale, doesn’t surf and has never ridden it, and has just had it lying around in his garage for about 5 years. I think this one might be a wall-hanger for sure. It’s such a great shape it’s hypnotizing, I just sit in the basement and stare at it.
I got my hands on an interesting piece of trivia I guess. This makes the hour and a half long drive to pick it up totally worth it. Tomorrow I’ll strip the wax off and see what I have to do in the way of ding repair. I can’t be sure, but I think the wax on it is straight paraffin. My mom will be stoked, whenever I try to explain wax temperatures to her she just sighs and says in her day all they used was paraffin.
nat young rode something like a 5’6 board [from memory] at the 1970 world titles at 8’ johanna in victoria , australia. .
while rolf aurness [a californian ] rode a more suited to the conditions 7’ pintail and , not surprisingly , won !! [nat is about 6’2 tall , from memory]
the point being …boards had definately dropped in length by that year !
and …wow 18 1/2" is quite narrow …
definately RIDE it , once it is watertight .
hard to tell from the photo of the bottom …
is it flat , or a bit rolled / “hulled” ?
the rails …50/50 , or more downrailed in the tail ?
can I just have one more shot of the [board’s] bottom , please ?
…looking fom the tail towards the nose , with the board laid down at the same level as the camera [got an ironing board to put it on , Rach ?]
It’s about 5’8" - 5’9", pretty short. The bottom is pretty flat, slightly rolled. The deck is very flat, and the rails are more 80/20, they start maybe 3" or 4" in and the apex isn’t in the middle of the rail, it’s closer to the bottom.
I think that logo says Eastern Curll , not eastern cuvll.
Interesting board. Sorry I can’t offer any info. I’ve got a hand full of 70’s and 80’s boards. Let us known if you find out any more information about the board. Wierd fin system
FWIW I’d agree with Ambrose… looks like a Homie to me and not a bad job at that. At 5’9", it might even have been cut down from a longer original with box left intact. If so, that might put the age a couple years later than the box would indicate, not that it matters.
It’s got tons of character and soul. Definitely one of a kind. Doesn’t look like a mass produced model by a big name brand.
I’d clean it up as much as possible, leaving what’s left of the original pinstripe. Maybe even superglue what’s peeling off and resin over it.
As Chipfish points out, it’s in pretty nice condition for it’s age and very unique - don’t do anything in ill-considered haste or boldness.
Maybe someone will step up, take credit and tell us more about it.
Drat- thought I answered this, but…two computers = confusion squared. Three = confusion cubed, etc…
Or it could be simple senility…I am, after all, old enough to be your grandfather, just barely. In any event, and having overcome that bit of depression…
As Ambrose and John have said, this is definitely a unique item. The shape’s a fair amount more refined than a lot of the boards of its era, in some ways. You have an earlier type rail contour with a newer bottom and rails…
Sand with care and if I was doing it myself, I’d limit myself to just getting the drips and slobbers off that redone hotcoat/gloss rather than going for a major redo job. Don’t go into the original hotcoat if you can possibly avoid it. Even if it leaves a faint brown uggggly there.
And when you remove the wax there may be a little scent left at the last where it hasn’t all been lost to passing zephyrs , if it’s kind of a cinnamon/spicy smell it’s old Waxmate.
That was a hell of an interesting time to be surfing, for what it’s worth. They were coming out with something new all the time, some of which even worked.
