BIll? Sounds like a post for you…
Laurence,
If I;m reading you right you might be having an issue with your gun design......not the fin set up. I have different set ups, for clean big waves... you can surf just about anything with some sucess. But for the big nasty lumpy stuff with rip tides and cross current...wind, etc, etc, etc. I like to put nose vee in the front 1/4 of the shape. I know, I know were talking about single fins etc. But putting vee in the nose lets the board act like a boat and stabilize the paddle and take off. Then Flat with slightly rolled bottom at the edges to a panel vee out the tail. Fast, stable, reliable...build it in a single, double tri, quad, five fin, or the 8 fin octiboard....doesnt matter. What does matter is getting down the face of the wave...everything else is easy.
thanks for the discussion everyone. i'm hoping to start my first gun soon so this is timely.
resinhead, will that bottom design work well in clean big surf as well? i'm up in the SF bay area and we get both when the waves are big. sometimes clean, sometimes bumpy
in other words if i could only have one gun....
by the way. i took a look at Tim's 8' something gun that you shaped him. that thing was GREAT! just looking at it got my adrenaline up. so clean and so functional...
i really liked the 5 fin gun you posted on the WMD thread. as mentioned here before, Quads seem like viable option for guns. so do singles.
having never owned a gun and only having felt up a few, i'm really in the dark though.
i'm thinking that the priorities for a legit gun are 1) paddle 2) stability and control when riding.
alot of it has to do with rocker, bottom design and foil.
but for a classic 9'6" brewer/parish style beaknose foiled(thick chest/thin tail) super pintail, singles seem to work best
don't expect to turn too much with those though
as they are designed to make the drop (at an angle) bottom turn and a run out to the safety of the shoulder.
I believe the mantra as explained to me by all my shapers is the flatter the rocker, the more vee in the bottom, the narrower the tail and the longer and straighter the rail outline the smaller the fin needed.
This that's because you're using more of your rail in the turn than anything else versus using the tail and fin.
those type board provide alot of comfort and security
but I don't think they surf as well as the more modern designs
Listen to Brewer's comments in his interview on Shapemakers and you'll see how things have changed since the single fin days as far as gun design. There's alot more stuff and thinking going on regarding bottoms, rockers and rails these days.
I'm surprised no one here is talking about quads on guns instead of thrusters it seems like that's where its going these days..
I thought thrusters on big wave guns is passe
oh yea when I say big wave guns, I'm think 9'6" and above waimea/mavericks/todos rhino chasers not those 7'6" high performance northshore guns. You don;t see too many guys riding 15'-20' waimea on a 7'6" except those acid-brained psychos from the old days.
http://www.shapemakers2000.com/
i couldn't find Brewer anywhere on this website???
do you have a link Oneula? or is it a dvd/vhs?
ha!
okay, i found this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuhFBcm_Djo.
also learned that they have it on Netflix. i'm gonna check it out.
Back when I used to surf the north shore all my big wave boards had one fin and a narrow tail. Didn’t matter if it was a pin, swallow or diamond it was thin and narrow with hard sharp edges. For the type of surfing we did, which was less vertical than today, it worked just fine. I think I would prefer a nice single fin pintail gun.
I’m also liking a quad setup more than a thruster for wider tailed boards.
Thanks for the compliments on the "Ate Something" Chris. Yes the nose vee will work on clean days...heck they all work on clean days. I'm only talking about 1/4 inch.
I used to have access to a Pipe Cleaner that my friend Dave Contrell surfed a lot. It was specialized for Pipe, and Big Pipe only. It had a full vee running from nose to tail. Freak show,
ha! that's right "Ate Something".
on Tim, Ray, and Mark's suggestion, i'm going to shoot you a PM when i get ready to shape a gun.
i've heard before that some sort off belly is your friend on a gun.
you know Dave Cantrell? ha, my auntie grew up with him! i think they actually went to prom together or something.
yup its a movie they made about 5 years ago.
The Shape Makers a movie by Paul Kraus
Brewer is the first person interviewed along with Hamilton and Chung on Kauai.
He talks alot bout how his bottoms and fins all work togethor along with their specifically calculated positioning.
got to remember he is a trained engineer as is Tom Morey
bottomline message I guess is that the designs are definitely better today
PM me if you're interested in it
…I m still waiting for an open debate or something to why a thruster works better in big guns
because in my opinion doesn t…
-also, always in single fins discussions come a mistake about shape designs
men, you can put a single fin in modern performance contemporary shape
I put pictures in couple of threads about
and surfed years in these designs
so Im not talking about 70 s single fins vs modern thrusters guns
but I dont see any of you with a clear idea about to use the concept “thruster” in a big gun
and explain step by step why a design that was/is intended to use with the back foot very near the very tail performs (in most opinions) better than all the others
I don t see any
Some of this footage is on single fins (check the green-decked board at Pipe). Bill Barnfiled would know for sure…
Brewer fin, pinch the rails in the last 1/3, touch of vee.
Hi reverb,
I agree with you, to an extent. Thrusters are great for surfing top to bottom, rail to rail, pumping through sections, right. When it is big, I don’t surf that way at all. More drawn out wide carves seem to be norm. A single fin seems perfect for that style of surfing, especially with modern rockers. Quads are loose in big surf yet pretty steady but you have to keep turning. A tri-fin cluster on a 10-10.5 tail behind a big board gets really stiff and tracks. This is a bad situation if it is bumpy (here it usually is ) because you can’t lay down a hard rail turn, you want to finesse it a little and single fins accomodate that subtlety. It seems like most respondents have mentioned the Brewer gun fin shape as a good shape of fin for big waves boards; who makes that style today?
''... who makes that style today?''
EDIT: That would be FINS UNLIMITED.
Hi Bill,
Do you make fins?
Somehow I screwed up my post. The fin you want is produced by FINS UNLIMITED. 7 5/8ths inches deep.
Deleted duplicate post.
Thanks Bill, that makes more sense. I’ll check it out.
All the best, Laurence
Fins Unlimited - 760 753 8847. They have newly foiled (by Curtis Hasselgrave) Brewer gun fins in three setups:
• Single
• Thruster
• 2 + 1
Single-fins work great in all conditions in my opinion. They draw nice flowing lines. Less drag - which is good on guns. They don’t make square and snappy turns off the lip like thrusters do, but how many surfers need that on big-ass Nor Cal waves. I’m riding mostly singles these days. In all sizes and all conditions. That’s what worked in my hayday, and they still work now… time has changed, physics have not.
In an effort to keep up with the modern world, I’ve got a quiver of Brewer guns with thrusters. They work great. No issues, and they give me comfort in less than comfortable environments. I also have a 9’4" Brewer quad gun that I haven’t surfed yet. I’m a little nervous to… only because my experience with quads is limited (I’ve got several but I don’t ride them that often).
I’ve never been out on a single-fin and wished I had more fins under me. I’ve been on boards I’ve wished were longer… or had more tail rocker… or better rails… or more or less volume… or a better template… or many other things. Never more fins.
Kendall: Correct me here, Wasn't the Yellow Gun Shaped by BREWER for BRUCE IRONS a Thruster he won the Eddie on?
Surfding