Hi there. I am making this „modern fish“ for a friend. I have made him a traditional twin keel fish and a Quad Fish with a slightly pulled in nose before, so we agreed on:
more curves in the outline, more rocker, widepoint almost in center and a thruster setup for his next board. This is what we came up with:
I looked through the archives but have a hard time finding the right information. Those are my questions to you, dear readers:
How deep of a butt crack on a board like this and how does this effect the fin position?
Where to put the fins?
toe-in?
The fins will be medium sized glass-ons.
I will go with a shallow single to double to vee out the tail…
My friend is 185cm, 80kg and the board should work in smaller waves but also handle some more power and steeper drops…
I am looking forward to your ideas… this forum has taught me everything I know about shaping, so thank you in advance… yet i don’t really know that much, hahaha, so any advice is welcome ☺
thank you for your answer. looking at my thruster shortboard at home I had thought something like that about the depth of the crack… I have only built twins and quads so far, this is my first thruster, and from what I’ve read the fins have to be spot-on…
the fins are 118mm at the base, that’s 4,6", so your numbers should work?!
I will try to have a bit of a tucked edge all around the board. what is a suitable bottom for such a board?
Quote:
1) If it's a tri fin, the crack can't be any deeper than 2'' or so, because the trailer fin should be at 3.5''.
Your right, that’s why I used quotation marks. Looks like a fuller thruster to me too. But I have built “real” fishes for myself and some friends before, twins and quads, and we liked them. but we also like experiments, so we used those fish templates and changed them a bit this time…
I also had a look at Greg Griffins boards which look just fantastic, and he also uses a bit more curve in the outline for his fishes (and shortboards with swallow tails)…
I also don’t really know too much about contest surfing, it’s actually not that popular around here. I am more worried about how to heat up my working space for glassing this board in two weeks - there’s still plenty of snow outside…
i would go with a totally flat bottom. maybe a little v in the last 6 inch. nothing else.
weniger ist mehr :-); schön das es noch andere deutsche shaper gibt!
greets klaus
Good avise!
I go flat on fishes with vee starting 12" up. Unless your just making a thruster with a swallow tail then it’s just a swallow tail.
Butt crack 5" for fish and 2" - 2 1/2 for a swallow.
I’m with Reverb on the name calling? Modern Fish? Your outline looks very good however it’s really just a old school swallow tail.
We made a lot of those in California in the 70’s. Ok, they were single fins. It’s an old design modernized with thruster set up which has
been done a 1,000 times as well. As shapers we need to be realist and not to think we are inventing some new design. It’s not a reproch.
Your outline looks balance. If you want to play with it you could make it a quad?
Butt crack 4" - back fins 5" up and 2" from the rail with 1/8" Toe - front fins 11" up 1 1/4 from rail with 1/4" Toe - 8 degree cant - smaller trail fins in the back with the larger fins forward.
The one I just made had a 5" Butt crack - back fins 6" up - Front fins 12" and the Fish is 6’0" however it’s a Fish. You surf a Fish more centered on your board whereas a Thruster you surf it furter back. That’s why you need to think about how your board is to be surfed to determine your fin set up? I like a flat bottom with vee out the back.
I put concaves on shortboard thrusters however not on fishes. For me it’s a different type of surfing. Fishing can be fun.There’s always conditions somewhere to ride a fish.
Butt crack 4" - back fins 5" up and 2" from the rail with 1/8" Toe - front fins 10" up 1 1/4 from rail with 1/4" Toe - 8 degree cant (I’ll get hate mail on this one) smaller trail fins in the back with the larger fins forward
when you go with quad i would make rears 5" and fronts at 11" rears: 1 1/4" from rail 3-4°cant and 1/8 toe fronts: 1 1/2" from rail 6°cant and 1/4 toe
When you do a bump/wing after the front set of fins do you use the same distance from the rail for the rears (ie 2" from the rail as you prescribed above) or do you reduce the distance from the rail of the rears to compensate for the bump and keep the same relative fin placement as if the rail outline didn’t change (ie. say the bump is 1/2" do you use 1 1/2" from the rail for the rears)?
that’s great information, thank you! I like quads too.
for this one however my friend wants a thruster. he has a quad fish and a keel fin, so we said we will go further towards shortboard/thruster. i will put a swallow tail on it.
3,5" for rears and 11" for the fronts with a 2" - 2,5" butt crack… would flat to vee also work for a thruster, or would you recommend concaves on a board like this? compared to a modern thruster it’s still pretty high volume, wide and low rockered, but i will make thinner rails…
and thank you for explaining the history of boards like that, that’s really interesting. i didn’t mean to imply that i was modernizing this design, I am glad if my boards are surfable and provide fun for my friends and me.
I’d put the trailer up 3.5" from the tips…tips about 4.5" apart… crack 2" deep.
Moving the side fins up from the tips will make it looser…as far as 11.25" up from the tips…1.25" off the rail… 6 degrees cant…toed in 1" off the nose.
the fins havent been in in action yet. but the wood felt realy strong and with the laminate it will be proof enough.
flat to vee also works great with a thruster. doing concave right, isn’t so easy. in my opinion concaves are not nessesary in normal surfboardshaping.
most of the time flat works really well and you cant do anything wrong. for more control add some vee you dont need concaves. most surfers think concaves makes a faster board with lift… but flat is faster and concaves are primarily designed for control.
