Recently aquired a 70’s flex spoon, its history is - guy vacationed in australia in the early 70’s. . saw this board in a shop, bought it… brought it back to the states, never rode it, sat in a garage for 40 years… fin got ripped off, than i came in and bought it.
The hull is in great shape, bottom is flawless, some cosmetic scratches on the deck and top glass pannel but those will be fixed when i throw a coat of resin over it. Im fixing the fin area now. as somebody tried to fix the fin at one time by slapping on some 6oz glass… so the hull itself is good. The question now turnes to fin setup.
The fin the board has currently is some super rigid glass fin about 6"… im looking to make a volan flex fin for it. I have been looking into Georges fins back in the day especially for his flex spoons, big base, taper at the tip with a heck load of rake. I have a 7-A template on my 6’ single fin and it gets the job done for sure on that, but was wondering if anybody knew of a template to go off of to make a volan fin for the old girl. Will probably end up making my own template starting with a 7-A but figured i would see if anybody has anything off hand.
*Edit - also, the board seems to have a structural “ring” around where the fin goes, and its built up on the deck, was thinking of taking a normal removable fin… trimming and cutting the flange for the box… than sticking it into this ring to give it some structure. (assuming thats what was originally done) but i have no idea… thoughts?
If there is row of little holes in that deck “well”, GG used to build wide-ish flaring (fully foiled) base on fin and drill and tap holes. Then just bolt thru to deck and row of holes allowed fore/aft adjustment if needed. The bolts just hold fin flush to bottom and the real stress is taken by the flared base.
ah okay makes sense, yeah im tossing around the idea for that, ive seen his flared base fins. was thinknig somthing similar. but never actually figured out how he did it. There arent any holes in the well which makes me think it was glassed in. but ill take another look today.
the stage IV - thats what i was looking for, from the guys ive talked to… the fin makes these boards what they are. (besides the flex panel of course)
as an owner of a velo replica paul made i can tell you the fin is near 10" in depth with a base of 7-maybe 8". it is glassed on with several layers of volan cloth-like maybe 12 layers. if you go to the blast blog that proneman listed in the pics you can see how those layers are applied. true ames fins has the 4-a that would be a good way to go. you can get them in volan as well
his later spoons/edge bards used the bolt thru method of attaching fin. those fins wherea lot smaller narrow base(but flared like the others) small tip and really thick and round leading edge.
best bet-as proneman said- get a hold of paul thru his surfmatters blog site.
another thing you might want to check the board and ask paul about is extra layers of glass in certain areas for structural integrity-ie- no snapping off. most of the spoons i have seen made by others-if not all- don’t have certain areas reinforced with extra layers of glass.
One thing to note, as sensitive as stand-up hulls are to fin placement (and shape and flex pattern) with the small size of flexspoon, it is that much more sensitive. That was the big advantage of the moveable fin, easier and faster tuning…
As a practical matter, yes. You’d be surprised by how often I’ve had a ‘‘professional fin maker’’ tell me how important the fillet is to fin performance. So, it just depends on who you talk to, whether or not you’ll get correct information. If one must do a glass-on, multi layers of bias cut cloth with NO ROVING, is the best way to go. Stronger, with less drag.
