Hello,
I recently picked up a Bing Foil serial # 4482 ordered in 1967, It has a Guidance System fin box (missing the spacers) with the fin.
Can anyone tell me anything about this fin, is it most likely the original fin sold with the board?
Also, I want to find out what type of material / plastic it is made from, and what the best way to remove small scratches would be.
The measurements are 6” Base, 8 ½” Height
Thank you,
Cody
Hey Nostalgic_Soul,
My best guess is that the fin is molded polycarbonate.
The fin tab looks similar to a Varifin box but it’s hard to say from the photo. The template is Greenough enspired and is very close to a Stage IV. The base may be proportionately longer than the original for an 8.5" fin.
There really isn’t a good way to work polycarbonate. You can fine sand it but I won’t polish well. It doesn’t hold a finish coat well at all. If you have to sand, fill and fair the fin somewhere epoxy will work but won’t give you a completely natural restoration. That’s a trick I don’t know.
No Worries, Rich
Hope this helps
Hi Cody,
If that was ordered in 1967, they took their sweet time on delivering it. Guidance systems fins were early '70s, if memory serves me well.
Polycarbonate ( like Rich said) is pretty much the same as plexiglass- look for a polish for that (plexi boat windows, for instance) and you’ll be okay. Oddly enough, toothpaste will work as a polishing compound for the similar Acrylic clear plastics, you could do worse than giving that a shot with a buffing wheel. I dunno if you can get out deep scratches, but it’ll take out the surface stuff.
Some of the real old surf shops may have spacers kicking around in the ‘odd parts/junk’ box. I think I saw some last year in mine.
hope that’s of use
doc…
The most likely material of that fin is lexan. Slow polish @ 1200RPM, with plenty of water for cooling. The secret is SLOW, and WET. If the scratches are deep, use wet/dry 320 up through 800, or even 1000 grit, then polish.
Halcyon, doc, Thrailkill
Thanks for taking the time to pass this knowledge on, to help me get going in the right direction.
Regarding the date of the board, I was a little thrown when Bing Copeland sent the birth certificate back to me with that date, I was expecting nothing earlyer than 69’.
Doc, you made a good point about the Guidance System, I could only find the history of it for 1970 forward….
I’m going to re-check the serial and the paperwork he sent me, maybe there’s a mistake somewhere.
Cody
Hi Cody,
Thinking some more on it, if I remember right the Foil was kind of Bing’s answer to the G&S Magic and the Weber Ski, a board with a length around 7’6", round rails amidships and down in the tail, drawn in nose and tail and typically they came through with a non-adjustable long-base WAVE Set fin or the astonishingly weak Variable WAVE Set insert and fin package. Call that the era of the first fun shapes- they were not bad boards at all.
So, a few possibilities arise here: this could be a replacement, a board ordered later but to the Foil templates and by then the Guidance Systems fins were what was hot. Buddy of mine ordered a Farrelly Stringerless from G&S in the mid-late 70s in a similar way when he just plain wore out his old one. Might even have the same serial as the one he originally had in '67 or so.
Possibility 2 is that at some time the owner of the board wanted to have an adjustable fin system that didn’t break every time you hit a turn hard ( as the Variable WAVE Set would - a truly bad design ) and had the old fin box removed and a new Guidance Systems box put in a few years after it was new. Typically, the WAVE Set box was about 1.25" wide and if I remember right the Guidance box was a little narrower, not much. You might want to see if there’s any evidence of a new box being put in.
Last- in the '70s, lots of board companies used the same name for different boards in different years. Weber called some boards Skis in different years, and G&S did similar stuff with the name Magic, I don’t recall if Bing did anything like that but I was selling Webers and later G&S, not Bing.
Hope that’s of use
doc…
I seem to remember Guidance Fins were Lexan which is a polycarbonate. One method used in polycarbonate polishing is to dip it into Ethylene Chloride (polycarbonate solvent). Then pull it out and let dry. All micro-scratches will have disappeared, leaving a perfect out-of-the-mold shiny finish. If you got deep scratches, do some wet sanding first with finer and finer grits, then dip into solvent.
doc,
I checked the serial again last night and sure enough, it mached. I posted a pic. of it below.
I’m at work right now so when I get home tonight i’ll check the box and post a good quality picture of it. I don’t recal seeing any markings around it, but mybe you will be able to tell better than me.
Thanks
Cody
Hey Thrailkill,
I have a few old fins made out of polycarbonate that could use a little sprucing up.
A little ethylene cloride (nasty stuff) would speed the process up but I don’t have clue where to get the stuff. I know it’s highly toxic and probably has a big specific gravity number like 2.2 or so. Any tips on where I can get a little bit of the the stuff mate?
No worries, Rich
Rich,
I checked with a major plastics wholesale supplier here in San Diego, they have cements for PolyC, but not the solvent. And they didn’t know where I might go. Seems the stuff is a real environmental no no. You might try making contact with the UCSC chem dept. (organic) and see if they have access to it, or can direct you to where you can obtain it. You might also try some of the chemical suppliers in L.A. Sorry I can’t be of more help.
Here are some pictures of the fin box. Hope these are clear enough.
Cody
Okay, that’s an original install, so this is now kinda mysterious…
I just re-checked my records and board #4482 was built in 1969 not 1967. Sorry for the error. The Guidance System fin box was a product that was designed by a group of Surfboard manufacturers and was used from 1969 into the early 70’s. There is another photo of it on my website “www.classicbingsurfboards.com/pages/4/index.htm” Click on the photo to enlarge it.
Bing
Bing,
Thanks for clearing that up for me. How was Mexico this year?
Cody
This forum never stops surprising me… 