Howzit Jim, I think it will be great to be able to offer another fin system to the surfers here. The trick is to be able to talk to the person ordering the board to let them know it's available to them.That's one thing I like about being a back yard glasser who has a stable clientele is I have a relationship with them and talk with them about what's on the market that they might want to try. Futures seem to be fading while ProBox is coming on pretty strong around these parts. I have never been exposed to your system which makes me all the more interested in it. 8 days and counting. Surf is fun today and with SSE winds just about every spot is working. Aloha,Kokua
Thanks Kokua, and i will be there along side you to give customer support and service for any who end up trying the system. Gotta have the whole package. Now back to worrying about which boards to bring. Hmmm will i be surfing PK’s waist to head high, or 20 foot hanalei? Decisions decisions… Where’s an extended extended forcast when you need one? Lol
Well with all this Pro Box discussion lately. I just got an e-mail from Robin and a couple of phone calls from Mitch. There’s a strong probability that we may be making fins for Pro Box next year.
Aloha! Kaua’i hijack?!? I’m stoked that I’m friends with all the glassers here. I do all my biz ‘ala carte’, and get to give all my people a choice of who will glass their blank, and what fin system they’d like. I like to get the customer to participate in the making of their board, and having a selection of fin systems to choose from really helps to deliver a quality custom product. Pretty stoked! Aloha…RH
That’s funny Rick because here in california one of the big gripes is there’s too many fin systems. At $50 bucks an hour they don’t want to have to think.
Howzit Lokbox, I think that's one of the differences between us and Ca., we want to service our customers the best we can. Hawaii is considered the birth place of surfing so it's only proper we try to stay on top of leading technology. If people don't try new ideas they will get left behind. We have a saying in Hanalei " He who hesitates is lost ". We do have a couple of glassers who do say " not another fin system" but in the end if their customers want a certain fin system they will get it and use it, other wise they miss out on the work.Aloha,Kokua
Yeah they tend to get a bit spoiled over here. I’ve never seen options as a bad thing. Never liked having the same thing that everyone on the block had. But at the same time it’s gotta work. Done enough and worked with enough people here to see that all the systems are basically the same. A box or plug, some resin and glass. If your good, you get a rythm down and you blow the boards out. Otherwise it can take all day to do a couple boards. For all of us it becomes about the customer and what he/she thinks, but at the same time i’m stoked if the glassers don’t think it’s a nightmare…
My local fibreglass wholesaler stocks the Fin Solution system. His advice from the rep is that although they are able to fit FCS, there is often problems due to using FCS fins in their system. Just a word of warning. I intend on using the system in my next board and making up some Wood Keels to go in them.
Will let y’all know how they work.
Stavros
Stevo, with fin solutions it is so easy to make your own fins , keels what ever. very versatile system. It would be great and handy if more systems were compatable then the best pot would win.
I think Stevo has really nailed it there as far as backyard/emerging shapers/designers go. You need a system where you don’t have to think a real lot but is also versatile and easy to make things for. With the FCS system, if you wanna make some fins of your own design you have to stuff around laying up those pesky little tabs but with FS you just make the whole top of the fin a solid block and away you go. I would hazard a guess that this is especially important with timber fins because making those FCS tabs must be an absolute pain then having em break in the first 5 minutes would give me a case of the screaming sh1ts!! Something you might wanna check out chip!
Howzit Jim, We seem to see eye to eye on this subject. One thing I'd like to see as an improvement is plugs so that they don't need to be wiped with acetone or sanded before installation. FCS has their new plugs and they sent me some to try out and also sent a feedback form with them. The problem I ran into was the Jigs for the old plugs won't fit in the new plugs so if I can't install them how do they expect me to critique them. FCS rep said to sand the jigs til they fit but then they are no longer of use in the old plugs which I have about 200 of. I was told that they are coming out with metal jigs for the new plugs, and I feel they should provide them for free to existing accounts.Aloha,Kokua
Ok enough lurking I guess. With all of this FCS and solutions talk, firstly I would of thought that making your own fins for FCS would be just as simple as making fins for solutions. It is simply the same tab length with the fin foiled the same way just with a slot cut down the middle to make the two seperate tabs. This is how people make them, not by laying up the tabs seperateley. All you need to do is mark out from another fin as a simple template for the sizing. There is no cant in the fin so it’s easy peasey.
Kokua, as for the jigs not fitting: it is really not required to take the jigs back by sanding. All you need to do is clean the years of resin and dags from them. The new plug fits perfectly onto the same jigs. If your jigs were brand new they would fit the new plug as snug as a finger up a nose. Grab a bit of 120 and give them a good cleaning and you will see what I mean. You dont need to reduce the jig itself just the years of blood sweat and tears that are on them. Then you will have jigs that fit the new plug very snugly for an accurate installation and they will fit the old plugs as well as they would if they were brand new. Oh and please note here the new plugs fit the jigs better and also the fins themselves just with far less tolerance. The new poly carb material is that strong (sunglass lens, aircraft windows etc etc) that with the snug fit and strong material combined with a drastically improved physical and chemical bond with the resin via material and shape this has eliminated any flex from the base. Don’t believe? Try it! And most of all no Acetone or sanding required at all!
Don’t expect me to dump on fin solutions as a system here either. I might hold myself above that one!
Howzit seethesea, I have 4 sets of the older jigs and I always keep them clean. The new plugs will only go about a 1/4" into the plugs and getting them out was a real pain and that’s just 1/4 " into the plug. Actually I scrape the jigs with a razor blade to clean them and take off the burr where the screw goes in to hold the jig. I even have 2 brand new jigs that won’t fit either. FCS rep told me that they are aware of this problem and are working in it. So it seems that it’s a flaw that FCS is addressing. Fins fit in the plugs though. I don’t think any one is asking you to dump on F.S. and I would try them if they were available in Hawaii.Aloha,Kokua
These plugs are in full scale production here already and noone here has had to get any new jigs. Simply clean the old ones… I dont know whether your jigs are different or something???
And i was just asking you about this last week. Cool. I get my board with pro-box tommorrow. Look forward to seeing how the work as well as any partnerships with you.
I do believe your post inspired their call. I guess we owe you free fins for life!
Ok, I’m not dumping on FCS, if that was the impression you got, I apologize. Problem with the little tabs when you make your own fins…they snap. Fin solutions they don’t. End of story really. I have boards with FS, FCS and glass ons. Never had a glass on fin snap through normal wear n tear, never had a homemade FS snap thru normal wear n tear, had 3 homemade FCS break through normal wear n tear. They are just my observations. Granted it might be in my technique. Not intending to start arguing or putting one against the other, just sharing my observations is all.
Paul
Howzit seethesea, Like I said before the jigs are clean and FCS rep who works for FCS in Austrailia said there was a problem with the old jigs fitting the new plugs. There are other problems with the old jigs that I’ve discussed with FCS. A lot of the old plastic jigs warp which is an injection molding thing. I had to sand the flat side of the rail jigs because they weren’t flat and it caused the angle degree to be off as much as 3 degrees, and the center jigs also warp and then the tips that are supposed to center the plugs on the stringer come out off center. I got the center plugs centered on the stringer and then sanded the points so they were on center now.I’ve got 4 sets of jigs, my oldest set are 6 years old and the newest ones are about 2 years old and none of them fit in the new plugs. I guess I’ll just wait til I’m out of old plugs before sanding them.Aloha,Kokua
Well if you do land that contract i will take you up on that. I am very interested in trying out your fin system as well. Unfortanatly i can only do it one board at a time. And with so many options now it can be hard to get past all the hype. Speaking of which, what is your take on foiling the insides of the fins ala vectors,fcs newer ones, and speedfins? What do you feel would affect a fins performance more materials or inside foils? thanks
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Well if you do land that contract i will take you up on that. I am very interested in trying out your fin system as well. Unfortanatly i can only do it one board at a time. And with so many options now it can be hard to get past all the hype. Speaking of which, what is your take on foiling the insides of the fins ala vectors,fcs newer ones, and speedfins? What do you feel would affect a fins performance more materials or inside foils? thanks
Any design feature has its characteristics where it excells and features that are less than optimum. The fins you have named have concave inside foils. Effectively what they have done is reduce the amount of turbulence that the leading edge produces by softening the inside leading edge rate of curvature. And, then cupped the fin further back, which at lower flow rates gives you more to push against in a turn. So, for low to medium speed ranges they work pretty well. Problem is they create more drag at higher flow rates.
I’ve made our Next Generation X-2s with a convex inside foil. This has reduce the drag at both the leading edge and at higher flow rates throughout the entire foil. So, they are better top end fins. But, they don’t have as much to push off of at lower speeds. So, we’ve affectively specialized the fins into improved performance in specific conditions.
Flat inside foiled fins work average across the entire range and some people say they can hook turns more aggressively with sharp leading edges. So, I’ve been told by some very talented surfers that they can surf more vertically with flat sided fins.
Materials have improved dramatically. But, there are trade offs here as well. The new material I’m currently working with is much stiffer and resiliamt than the glass filled nylons. But, they are also more expensive and slightly heavier. Most people never push their fins hard enough to appreciate the difference. But, there are a significant number that do find a very noticable difference. These new materials also allow us to thin down specific areas of the fin with out giving up too much stiffness. So, again it’s all a bunch of trade offs.
Some people don’t want to think that hard and would prefer that their shaper/glasser/board builder make their decisions for them and just live with what they got. These are the same guys that the entire extent of their design vocabulary is “It’s a dog or it’s magic”
We’re just here making options available for anyone that wants them.