Ha! A board shaped in 1980 is 30+ years old. Well, sh*t. Anyway, the kids loved riding it last summer - rode it into the sand one too many times and snapped one of the plastic fins. They mount thru the deck, with what appears to be standard plate & bolt like a longboard box.
I generally subscribe to the “don’t build your own fins” philosophy. But I’m also a sucker for DIY - so:
First: Can I buy replacement fins for this configuration somewhere online?
For making my own, I would use a plywood.core. Should I try to replicate the mounting system in pylwood? Glass plywood fins into the existing fin boxes? Other ideas?
I had a Sunset board with those fins in it, shaped by Rusty...before he was Rusty..They were the worst design ever. You are extremely lucky it lasted that long, Plastic POS.... I think I went through 4 sets of those fins in about 6 months.
I don't think you will ever find them because they were obsolete before they even went into mass production.
Maybe make some out of solid fiberglass. Make a glass panel and cut them out to fit, or route out the boxes and put in some probox, FCS or whatever. Those will be your only options if you want to keep riding it.
or keep looking for some? maybe they will show up in another 30 years?
So, I guess a second question - if I f* it up, I’m not destroying a piece of history here, right? We got this board for $10 at a yard sale… The grom and I are learning ding and board repair the hard way - this is a bigger project than we’ve taken on before. We want to learn something but not if we’re doing something like putting gullwing doors on the General Lee
I'm surprised no one else noticed.... It is interesting (to me anyway) that the board has those resin ridges in the bottom of the tail. I never tried them but remember reading an article a long time ago that featured them. I think they are applied by laying out skinny strips of masking tape throughout a larger masked off area, then glossed. Before the gloss sets up completely, the tape gets pulled which leaves the ridges.
Huck the grooved bottom was an idea that Peter Pinline of moonlight glassing came up with back in the 1970s. It is a simple process of laying out 1/4 tape and then appling the gloss coat. then pulling the tape. Think of it as mini channels
WT if you are in the Sand Diego area You may want to take it to Surfy Surfy in Leucadia. I could not read what was on the stringer. Is it the name of the shaper? If so who is it?
Thanks Jim! I’ll start with them. Failing that I’ll probably go with Huck’s idea of building new fins onto the tabs of the old ones…
The grooves are fairly pronounced - can’t say as they have any particular effect in the water, but I’m on the East Coast - Folly Beach SC - so this board doesn’t generally get out in waves of consequence.
And the stringer says “Microgroove 1980”, then I can’t read the shaper’s name - looks like ??CSBREG
Caster and Peter were good friends. I recall Peter doing the micro grove thing back in the 1970s might have worked with Bill Caster on doing them, As I am sure you know Bill Caster was doing a lot of channel bottoms and planing surfaces As They use to say " Casters go Faster. "
So, I got some replies from a guy who said he could “help me out” then comms went dark… I guess I’m back to dremeling out the old fin boxes and trying to not f up the replacement. Just in case anybody else gets a “sure I can help you” from T, he’s not going to…
Honestly. If I liked that board as much as you seem to and wanted a project for me and my kid; I would use an exacto knife and a stanley knife and cut those plugs out. Re install a Pro-box or Futures set of boxes. Those two systems would most likly cover the “foot print” of the existing system cosmetically. Pro-box should cover it easily and accepts FCS. You’d have to come up with a patch for the deck as well, since it appears this is a thru the deck system. I think it’s worth it to call Fins unlimited and see if they have fins for this system somewhere in the attic. As reccomended by a previous post. I’ve done alot of ding repair over the years. It’s always best to look for the easiest, best fix first.
Contact FU, and get several pair of the fins. That way you can cover any future breakage. Keep it original, if at all possible. If the fins are not available, make some out of fiberglass. It will not be that hard to do.
Agreed, and that’s what I thought I did. Sent a few emails, got a few responses, but no follow thru on their end. In hindsight, I can see that it’s a waste of time for them to respond to a request for obsolete equipment. I’m going to give it another go, because sending an email costs me zero, and I prefer to keep it original. But it’s looking like I’ll be learning something new,and McDing, I appreciate your advice.
Nothing further from me on this until I’m covered in resin and fiberglass shards and begging for help.
It has also been my experience that Surf Industry types(suppliers etc) are the worst at returning emails and calls. The four or five primary fin manufacturers being the worst of the worst.
