yeah it’s there alright… got rocker & twin fin closeups? how about board dimensions, ray?
cheers,
Spend some time in Quiver......aka photo archives........Ray.....
are you a taker or a giver?
both! but not at the same time lol i only got 2 thumbs, ray!
cheers,
[quote="$1"]
[quote="$1"]
how about ride reports, ray? sweet pretty buttcracks all in a row! lol
cheers,
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I am programed to post pretty pictures. If you want well informed answers to complex questions you need to talk to the people that posted without photos. LeeV is a good source. Everysurfer is good. SharkCountry and NJ are really good too. I'm more in tune to glassing not so much design....
Look for the "gun" inside the Shipman Fish....Let me know if you see it. Shipman's art Blows my mind!
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thanks ray
these photos of shippy's boards bring back good times [even though I never surfed them or unfortunately go to meet him
please keep the fish / swallow / ?crescent? tails photos coming mate !
cheers
ben
p.s. -
for me , the question[s] is [are] still the same as I posted [with very little response , at the time ] years ago
...WHY we persist in standing up on basically a kneeboard design ?
And why a "widetailed , big buttcracked " thing , at all ? ... as we are not using flippers [I read an interview years ago with steve lis , where he said the 'cutaway bit' helped his flippers not drag in the water ?? ]
so ...is it more than the love of / fixation with keels / "nostalgia" ?
kneeboards and standup boards are two different animals / centre of gravity / weight distribution , etc , so ..... dot dot dot
hi ben,
coming from steve lis, that’s a very revealing tidbit you got there! i wonder what the twin-pin fanatics on sways will say about that, hmm !
cheers,
"if there's no consensus on the validity of this category of tail configuration, there should at least be a few good reasons why they persist " )
....EXACTLY !
i too look forward to more fishy testimonials & pics, ben! " )
cheers,
I’m stoked just sitting here and looking Ray. How about a few more?
You want and answer? I’ll give you an answer! You just have to promise to read it all…
I don’t know why anyone else uses this design but I’ll tell you why I do. I spent 10 years riding kneeboards before I got into standing. The first boards I stood up on were single fin hulls so my entire surfing experience has been with surfboards that tend to be drivey and carve turns rather than pivot. I rode and made thrusters for a while but, for me, they were tail driven, and pivoty; like kick-turning a skateboard. They also lacked any glide or what I liked to call “follow through”.
For the waves I surf, the hull worked great on a couple of reefs but was kind of limited on most days. My hulls were also limited to use on waves less than head high. Its a real bitch to switch back and forth from hulls to other designs so I started a search for a board that was drivey, carved its turns, had some follow through and could be used in bigger waves (board size adjustments without changing the performance feel). I tried short stubby single fins, hully midlengths with Halcyon clusters, and short hulls all with mixed results.
Just for giggles I made a fish from my stubby single fin template. Suddenly I had a board that had a sweet spot a couple of feet long instead of 4 inches. You could put your foot over the fins and turn crank a short radius carved turn (try that on a hull) from anywhere on the wave and yet the boad trimmed out nicely. With some fin template adjustments, it worked great in surf up to 10 feet. The only thing missing was rail turns.
I made few more fish playing with rails and nose outlines and varying the v or hull from flat to pretty pronounced. I finally found the combination that gives me pretty much what I want from a surfboard…performance in a wide range of surf sizes and shape, forgiving, can be turned from the middle of the board, uses the rail like it’s meant to, turns are carved but I can step back on the tail and pivot if I need (or want) to and it has all the drive I could need (and you don’t have to grab a rail to lay it over). Lastly, they’ll pump up some down the line speed if you want (or need).
I currently working with Rich Sanders on a California gunnyfish; 6’9" with a twinzer set up to see if these ideas will work in 10-15 foot surf…Pictures soon.
The fish works for me in the waves I ride. I love the drive and versatility from a short, wide board with parallel rails. I can’t get there without cutting that wedge out of the tail and slapping keels on the rails…
I like LeeV’s reply. If I didn’t have to deal with all the people in the water where I surf, I’d probably only ride my Griffin 5 fin fish. It will handle anything I am willing to go out in.
But with all the people in the water here on Oahu, it can be frustrating. 8’ eggs and 10’ longboards take care of things when the waves are small and the crowds are a problem.
I ride twin keeled fish about 80 percent of the time. If you like the coil/unwind/coil/unwind type of down the line speed runs they work great. They also get up to planing speed quick. Or, another way of describing it is my input results in large burst of speed. I don’t like them in mushy, junky surf or if the waves are really heaving on the take off(cuz I’m old). I had a younger guy tell me my fish is just an old guys short board. I told him, ‘sir, you are correct’ and continued to have a blast. Most guys my age ride a 9-6 because they HAVE to. Dont even nose ride. Mine typically have 12 inches between the tips and a 6.5 inch deep crack. I usually use the keel fin for the board to make the inside curve of the crack. And, for the fish I make for myself it seem the longer the board the smaller the sweet spot. Don’t ask me why…5-10 to 6 foot seems to be where I’m at right now. Ten foot surf on my fish would really be pushing it and I would go with something a bit longer or a different design. Mike
anyone notice a fish buttcrack, and a real (chicks) butt crack look similar?. There’s some inspiration for ya!!
Must have some funny looking chicks in the Illawarra…
[quote="$1"] anyone notice a fish buttcrack, and a real (chicks) butt crack look similar?. There's some inspiration for ya!! [/quote]
Got any photos? Here's some nice girls in the back seat.......
howdy mike, any pics & dimensions of your fin setup & fishtail?
cheers,
great testimonial, leeV!
any pics & dimensions of your fin setup & fishtail?
cheers,
[img_assist|nid=1064947|title=fish bottom|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=478|height=640]
[img_assist|nid=1052237|title=KK resin swirl retro fish|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=480|height=640]
SURFIBER… I like my tip-to-tip dimensions scaled to my width. I have a somewhat cumbersome formula I use to get that, but you could simplify it by just scaling… width x .6 = tip-to-tip. So on a 21" wide board the tips are between 12 1/2 and 12 5/8. On a 20" wide board, the tips would be 12" apart. And so on…
Depth of crack is scaled to tip-to-tip distance… tip-to-tip x .49 = depth of crack. So on a 21" wide board, with a 12 1/2" tip-to-tip distance, the depth of crack would be 6 1/8. on a 20" wide board with a 12" tip-to-tip, the crack would be 5 7/8" deep.
Shape of swallow is done this way… Make a mark 1/2 way between your stringer and corner on each side. Cut along the line that connects those marks to the depth of crack mark, removing a triangle of material that sets your depth of crack. Now make a mark 1/2 way between the outside corner of your tip and the new corner on the inside of the tip. Make another mark the same distance up the crack, and connect the dots. Cut that triangle off the inside corner on each side, and you’ve just roughed out your swallow tails. round the corners off and blend them into a smooth, accelerating curve, and viola! The resulting shape will remove 14% of the material from the last foot of board.
Keel placement is more related to type of fin (single or double foiled, base length, etc.) and rider preference. For me, I like them set 7" up from the tips and 1 3/4 off the rail, which puts them about 2" up from the crack; single foiled, slight toe and cant. Loose. Fast. Drivey. Fishy goodness…
handy formulas you got there, NJS!
in a prior thread on fishes, another shaper recommends a simpler buttcrack depth formula (one half of tip-to-tip distance) but none for tail width. it would be interesting to read about the basis for the ratios considering the variety of buttcracked boards these days-- fishes, twin-pins, bat-tails, moon/crescent-tails etc.
cheers,
Keel placement is more related to type of fin (single or double foiled, base length, etc.) and rider preference. For me, I like them set 7" up from the tips and 1 3/4 off the rail, which puts them about 2" up from the crack; single foiled, slight toe and cant. Loose. Fast. Drivey. Fishy goodness...
This is the same as i had on my old keel fish. Just as you say, fast loose, fishy goodness!. I tried keels further back, but i found them too stiff for me. I have another keel fish being made and the keels will go in pretty much the same spot, give or take. Single foiled ( maybe 80/20 ), 1/8'' toe, and normal cant ( 4deg? ), glassed on for rock solid feeling. Will post pics when its done, i think people here will be stoked to see it.