For 6’2:
At wide point, 3/8” tuck, rail apex 5/8” up from flat bottom of board.
At tail between trailers and mains, 3/16” tuck, rail apex 7/16” up from flat bottom of board.
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Thanks for sharing that [Cosmogenic]!!
Any one got any measurements off one of his upright twin fins designs or hovercraft 3 in a row designs?
Here is one of the fin templates Greg posted long ago.
The context was of the benefit of a constantly decreasing chord ratio from base to tip.
I’ve made some shortboard fins off this template and they work really well.
Hey tucked edge have you gotten any other details or numbers to share from the griffin hovercraft?
I have a 5-11 hovercraft sitting in my house. I’ll get you a couple shots and the measurements this week. My brother has a slightly longer hovercraft at his house. They both belong to my brother. The Hovercraft is a great board for small days.
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Great looking forward too it!
Griffin Hovercraft 5’ 11" x 22 1/4" x 3"
Fins rear edge are 1" maybe 1 1/16" from the rail, and 5 7/8" or 5 13/16" from tip of tail, front edge of the fin is 10 3/4" from tip of the tail.
The fin tabs (FCS 1) on the fin are all the way forward placing the rear edge further back. Fins with the tabs in the center would make the fin too far up, but he pushed the boxes up and made a set of large keels to work with this board. I haven’t tried using it as a twin because I lost one of them.
What size are the fins base and height, also what’s the toe and cant angle of the fins?
Sorry for the delay, I have a bad lumbar disc and every now and then I do something that has me bed ridden for a while. This one took longer than normal to get over.
The Hovercraft fins are 4 15/16" wide at the base and 5" tall. The cant, I estimate it to be 5 degrees.
The fin tabs are set all the way up front, so the measurements I gave for where the front and rear edges are, are important. If your fins have the tabs more centered on the fin, you will need to adjust where the boxes are.
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First time logging in here since the switch over. Thought I lost my account. Someone tagged this thread from the erbb GG thread. Thank you.
Greg charged me $40 for a shape3d file for a twin/twinzer. He wanted me to let people on the erbb see/ride it. The file didn’t have rail profiles and there’s an error in the nose somewhere. No bottom contours, of course.
See post #195 on his erbb thread
Here’s the link to the file:
Link
This is Greg Griffin’s daughter. If anyone tries to recreate his products, they will find themselves in the courtroom. We are not going to allow heathens who disrespected his work when he was alive to profit off his work due to his death.
Even patented technology and designs can be recreated/copied for personal use. Just not for profit.
Are Greg’s creations patented?
Not respected at Sways? Reality check…
This post is for anyone who is a fan of your father’s work and was meant as a celebration of his life’s work. He has amazing functional designs that were unique to him and his life long design theory’s. The people that are contributing to this post loved your father’s designs and want to keep and spread the stoke that your father put out with every board that anyone lucky enough to have one was able to enjoy! His legacy will live on like all the greats.
There is a very real possibility this is a troll if this thread has been referenced at the Magazine Surfer forum…
Never have seen a GG board in person, but he posted a lot of pics. I think the rail profiles could be duplicated from handling a board, and from the pics, it looked like bottom contours were minimal if at all. To my mind, the secret sauce was in the fins, their shape, foil, and placement. Although plan shape & foil were all part of the package.
Again, this is just my impression from his postings and photos.
If the daughters post is legit, she should know no one here has spoken of making money off his designs. Although it seems like it would be difficult to build any kind of legal case even if someone did. It has been my observation that even patented work can be legally duplicated for profit if some modifications are incorporated to keep from being an exact duplicate. And like stoneburner sez, for personal use is not an issue. And patented surfboard designs are pretty rare.
Greg was very protective of his design theories and details, and the post claiming to be from his daughter did seem like it might be a reflection of that. Not sure about the “ heathen” reference tho, that did seem a bit over the top. Its normally used in a religious context, so the application is not totally clear to me.
Greg’s boards seem to be well loved by the guys who rode them.
BTW I got a chuckle from the $40 file story, seems true to character, lol. The surfing world lost a one of a kind in that horrible accident.
Typically, if the claims are broad enough, modifications won’t get around a patent.
Furthermore, if a technology or design (etc.) has not been patented within 12 months of being made publicly known (e.g. posting pictures on a public forum or website), it becomes public domain.
When it came to forum interactions, Griffin got what he gave.
Regarding his skill, ability and builds; I can’t think of anybody who did not respect them.
BTW like most, pretty sure Griffin copied Byrne’s channel bottom concept…
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I had forgotten about those channel bottoms. Greg used to post on swaylocks pretty frequently, back when I was the main moderator in terms of forum involvement, and as I recall we had a few conversations via DMs.
I always liked his designs and the positive chatter they generated, and tried to encourage him to post more, share more, and get into more meaty discussions. He often didn’t like some of the responses, and (like many others) would constantly engage with trolls and want me to delete posts he didn’t like. He steadfastly refused to discuss his design philosophy in any depth, and frequently resorted to posting pictures of his lunch along with his surfboards. Towards the end I think he stopped posting on Swaylocks altogether.
I remember that he made his own fins, and had his own fin placement system unique to him.
Its been a few years, and things are kinda fuzzy to me, but I recall a lot of his boards as fish tails, with that felix the cat kinda shape, thick boards, a lot of volume for the size, with rails that taper kinda steeply.
I also recall that he used to shape for Town & Country Surfboards, and have seen some of his longboards with a kinda channel nose.
Doing a Google search, I see he still has an account on Facebook with quite a few pretty clear and pretty detailed photos of his boards. I think even a backyard shaper like myself could do a passable job of duplicating a shape using mostly just pictures on the internet, and maybe a few specific questions to someone who has a board, or handling one in person. Whether it would be close enough to perform like his handmade boards is another question, but I think it would be enough to use as a starting point to explore his particular design direction.
I don’t know how he might feel about this endeavor now, after he has left the scene, but I know while he was here he wasn’t interested in anyone going in this direction. But now that he’s gone, it seems better to keep his concepts alive, rather than let them fade away. I don’t know if his label is still producing boards or not, maybe under the direction of his kids?? Nothing recent on the Greg Griffen Surfboards page on Faceboook, but going back to 2022 there is a post by his wife Kay, and Madison Chase, who I assume is his daughter who posted here in this thread.
As far as patents and lawsuits, the whole thing seems moot at this point because the bottom line is there isn’t enough money involved to be worth involving the very expensive legal process. But who knows what someone else thinks, I recall one time I posted a board made for a friend and he wanted a lightning bolt, so I incorporated it in the design. I posted some pics, and next thing I knew I was getting threats of legal action, and lawyers showing up at my house to destroy the board. It finally blew over, but threats are cheap, and may discourage some. I even heard that Roy Stewart made a few threats to Paler for legal action.
Gregory Griffin is his personal Facebook page, and Greg Griffin Surfboards is the business page, both are still up, with no recent posts. The facebook personal account page has a link to the website griffinsurfboards.com, which is no longer up.
I remember your “Bolt” post well. Lucky Thor didn’t come after you.
Bottom line, without patents, copyrights and/or currently licensed trademarks,
hostile posts and threats are just words to intimidate…
BTW, reading the Magazine Surfer “Griffin Post” Gshaper alluded to, Griffin appeared to have the same interaction issues there too. I had to agree with McD, more than once, that many of Griffin’s posts/customer testimonials felt more like Ads.
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I haven’t been over to the ERBB (surfer magazine forum) in years, but you got me curious so I checked it out. I found a thread Greg Griffin RIP that is 20 pages long, about his designs and design philosophy. I assume this is the thread being referenced.
Surprisingly, although I’m about halfway through the 20 pages (going last to first), I haven’t seen anything from his daughter. Lots of talk about computer files. Which begs the obvious observation that both boards and fins can be scanned and made into a file. Being old school, I sometimes forget that.
They also talk a lot about flat bottoms and down rails with an edge for the whole length of the board. And custom fins. And there are some pics. They also mention this thread, but not much conversation on it, I think the demographic is pretty different over there, and not many frequent both forums.
At any rate, it is a pretty good place to read up on GG surfboard shapes, and a few anecdotes about the man.