[quote="$1"]
with the d fin 
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I think of that as a pivot fin, to me a D fin is more like this...
I'm no expert!
Yah I guess your right huck. Only one way to fix my error. Make a d fin like that !
I've got a question for any knowlegeable person. A mini-Simmons at face value appears to be an overly wide fish without the swallow. I have read comment about how a shortboard down rail sticks and then accelerates, but the boat nose Simmons rail works. How come, I thought the Simmons was just about aspect ratio?
Stoked on the boards in this thread, I'm planning ahead to my next couple of boards, and I want one to be a mid-length Simmons. 7'6" by 23" wide by 3" thick, 14" square tail, 18" at one foot, 18" nose at one foot, nice round longboard type nose.
I've got my template figured out, I've got the relaxed rocker, the nose will be convex (hull-ish, like most the pics here) with upturned rails, transitioning to flat in the middle with round 50-50 rails.
My question pertains to the bottom / fins at the tail. I've gone through this whole thread and read all the comments and studied all the pics several times. My gut says V out the tail, with quad fins, and at least one other poster said the same (about the V). But some of the pics look like guys are going concave between the fins out the tail, and at least one pic of a true Simmons showed the same.
This is mostly just gonna be a "glide" type board for me, but not a noserider per se.
Am I OK with V out the tail, or is the concave required to make this design work? The tail seems too wide to leave it flat, although some of the pics appear that way, not sure if its distortion or if some of these are being built with a flat bottom out the tail.
Don't go 50/50 rails through the tail though. Sharpen them up for lots of release/speed. The loan board i have has a single concave out through the tail, and from the few waves i've had on it, really flies up on the wall. That's with a pretty wide tail block
Hey Beerfan, thanks for the response, did you ever get around to making one of these for yourself?
This is the third board I have shaped and glassed. The first board I have ever glassed with PE. I have wanted to share it’s story with you guys for a while since I lurk on a daily basis. This seems the appropriate place.
It started it’s life as 9’6" Finished it up in SoCal but moved to Japan before I had a chance to surf it. Truth is, it wasn’t a very good board. I had a couple of fun sessions on it but the board definitely did not surf the way I had envisioned.
Then, one morning some friends of mine took me to a little reef point in the Sea of Japan. Getting there requires driving down a tiny little dirt road through extremely dense foilage. Dense enough to where the windshield is covered in leafs and your just peeking through to see the road. We were so excited about the impending surf that all of us forgot the board was on the roof… We heard what sounded like an explosion come from the roof. It was the sound of my glass-on single fin being violently removed by a tree branch. Bummer.
Got a loaner board from a friend and caught some waves all the same. Also caught an urchin spine in the toe. My first, it made me feel legit. lol.
Once the lineup cleared out I decided I would try it finless. Went to the car and globbed a ton of Solar Rez over the area where the fin snapped and paddled it out. No real rides, just a handful of unintentional 360s. I decided to head in by riding some white water while lying prone. Thing is, there is a lava rock on the inside that sticks up a couple feet out of the water. It’s easy to spot so normally you just lean over and go around it. This is made a bit more difficult when you have no fin on your board, this hadn’t crossed my mind. I saw it, leaned to turn, and the board spinned out (shiiit). I slid off the board about ten before the rock, but the wave deposited the board right on to it, then me on top the board. It made some sickening sounds puncturing the bottom of the board but I came away unscathed by keeping the board between me and injury. Pretty bad day for my board though.
I originally planned to just reglass that fin on but the glob of solar resin was going to make it a real pain in the ass. So, taking inspiration from the simmons planshape, I set my jigsaw at 45 degrees and sawed the tail off. Glassed on some bamboo keels, a poplar leash plug, filled the holes with resin and cloth scraps, and called it a day. I didn’t have high expectations for the resulting board.
I was in for one hell of a surprise. The first time I took it out I could instantly feel the difference in speed while paddling. It felt like there was zero drag on the board. First wave I paddled for took maybe 2 strokes and the board started planing. The board feels super loose/pivoty/fast, and gets into waves earlier than a 10’ Hansen 50/50 I used to own (no exaggerating, I thought this impossible at these lengths). For my style(if you could call it that) the board goes unreal. I like to get in early, crouch to beat sections, and draw roller coaster lines if the wave allows it. The drawbacks are that it is easy to pearl, needs more flip in the nose. And backside it just feels terrible. I can live with the latter, and I am considering putting a more flipped nose on it to address the former.
The experience has made me a total convert to this planshape w/ twin keels. The boards new dimension are 7’8" x 18 1/2" x 23 1/4" x 21 3/4" x 3 1/8". The tail block is 19 1/2". Keels are set 2 1/4" from the tail and 2" from rail with no cant or toe-in. Rails are pinched 50/50 thoughout, slight belly in the nose to flat out the back 2/3rds of the board.
This isn’t going to be for everyone, but as I have no interest in ripping, I am very, very satisfied with this board which came in to being by accident. Sorry for the long-winded post, but I figure if there are any humans on the planet who can appreciate this turn of events it’s you guys. Lastly, when I glassed on the keels, I did so in a hurry as I was surfing the next day, I used only one layer of 6oz cloth, no roving, straight onto sanded hotcoat. That is why there is only one keel in the photo, going to re-set them properly now. Cheers, and thanks for the inspiration to do this sort of thing Swaylocks!
I would say, if you want to have the V feel ,go V and if you want single concave feel, go single con…
Sounds stupid but there’s no one better than the other, the only feel i can describe is the V sits a little more in the water and the single con seems to fly more off the tail…
In your size 7+, i’d go multi contour bottom cause it’s quite long and i like to have differents feel according to where you stand on the board.
I really like the way Skip Frye shapes the bottom contour, so colorfull!
No huck, still got 2 to glass before i think of even starting. Cool story huskell!!.
Yeah, marmorino is right too, if you think V will work better for you, do that, and vice versa with the single concave. All up to you mate!
Nice Boards here! just done this one , 6’4" x 22"x 2 5/8" single concave bottom with 5 fin setup :
Nice board! Ride report?
Hi Huck, this ones for a guy whos transitioning from a Mini mal down to this and he just picked the board up yesterday so hopefully get a ride report at some time in the future.
Hey everyone,
I wasnt sure where to post this, and I know people get annoyed when newbies create new threads, so im putting it here. deal with it.
Love this thread!! I want to make a mini simmons as my next project, but i am unsure of the dimensions i want to make it. Im 5’3’’ 125 lbs, i normally ride a longboard and i just started shortboarding (what a transition…). Something i want to keep in my board is good paddling ability, im pretty small and have a tough time duck diving, I find having a board that paddles well helps offset this.
Also does anyone have an opinion on how they like a mini simmons with a quad fin set up vs a twin fin set up? (im sure its been discussed before, ill try and find it)
thanks,
jd
Just stumbled across this video of Corky Carroll riding a simmons-type board down in Mexico (although his is thicker than most, and has a concave noserider nose) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nf1Iu9UBuFU
sweet!! looking forward to getting cracking on something simmons-y very soon
[img_assist|nid=1069841|title=New Toy|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=640|height=480]
My new toy. I haven’t owned a quad since 1997. A mini inspiration.
6’6’’ x 23 x 3 shaped by our friend Scott Kenedy- it was a gift!
