Just acquired a board made in early 1968. It has what appears to be a Waveset box and fin, but it is different from any other Waveset I have seen. Neither the box nor the fin have a Waveset logo. However I have every reason to believe they are original. The metal inserts are flush with the bottom of the box, rather than being above the bottom of the box. And the fin is flat on the bottom, rather than notched at either end. Hopefully this will be visible in the pics. The first two pics are of a typical box and fin. The second two are of the box and fin fromthis board. Has anyone ever seen a similar box and fin? Perhaps these were prototypes that made it on to a production board?
Are both boxes the same length? There is an Australian brand called Safeset that was a copy of Waveset but the fin base was shorter.
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Sammy, thanks for the info. I had not heard of Safeset. The base of the mystery fin is the same length as a standard Waveset. Also, the Safeset fin in your picture has 6 ribs in the base, while a Waveset has 7. And the mystery fin has extra “meat” molded in to the front and rear of the base, to allow tapping for a Wonderbolt screw. I have seen some standard Waveset fins with that extra meat.
I’ve had a couple Cons with front wonderbolts that had that second fin tapped and with the bolt. Trimmed and fitted to the wonderbolt box.
Thanks, Gene. The fin is not tapped for a Wonderbolt. It does fit the box, however the bottom of the fin is laying on the bottom of the box. Normally, the Waveset fins will contact the tapered side of the box and really snug up when you tighten the screws. I plan to ride the board and don’t want to lose the fin. It just doesn’t seem that secure, and the top of the fin base is about 3/16" proud of the bottom of the board. The Waveset repros don’t fit in this box. So I will either have to modify a repro fin, or pot a fiberglass fin in the box. Unless somebody has another solution…
One thing you’ve omitted is the brand name of the board, itself. I suspect it may have an early Waveset prototype that was later improved upon.
It is an O’Neill. The prototype theory makes sense to me. On a standard Waveset, the screws are 5/8" and 1 3/8" long. Which always seemed like an odd size to specify. Why not design for more standard and easier to source screw lengths? On this board, the screws are 3/4" and 1 1/2". I believe they are original since I purchased the board from the original owner, who only rode it a few times. It seems possible that Waveset realized they needed to drop the fin lower into the box, so they notched the front and rear of the base and used shorter screws went they went in to production.