Six Eleven Number 7- Cedar HWS build

[wrcsixeight]

I’ll get some rocker/foil shots soon.

I did manage to get a nice smooth continuous curve outline and keep it symmetrical, but the Doug fir racing stripes made shaping the rails, especially in the nose, much more difficult as it is twice as dense as the cedar and kept wanting to remain a high spot as the cedar sanded so much easier. With the wood grain running in so many different directions, the low angle block plane would risk tearing out that which could not be sanded out.

If I had to do it over, I would use a much lighter colored cedar for the racing stripes rather than a different type of wood. Could have saved an ounce or 3 too. But I will not be making another.

The bottom curves are fairly pronounced. A double concave blending into a ~1/4" deep single under the front foot blending into a double between the fins and flat off the round pin behind last wing. I managed to keep it twist free, well, really I was able to shape the 1/32" nose twist out.

[wrcsixeight]

Today was the maiden voyage, in some chest high to slightly overhead glassy conditions and I pretty much loved it. I have a prety good longboard hangover, but still managed to get into waves I thought were doubtful.

i drove to the ocean with it as a thruster, With 3 GYU-x carbon fcs fins in it. When I saw the swell was not very powerful I decided to go with it as a quad.

I put the gyu-x center fin in my forehand quad box in the middle with a 4 degree insert.

I moved the GYU-x rail fin to the rear box, also 4 degrees cant in the middle of the probox, and installed a carbon tom carroll FCS fin in the front box with a 6 degree insert, a bit further back in the box.

So I had two flat sided fins on my backhand and a 5050 foiled trailer quad on my forehand.

The fins hummed half way through bottom turns on my forehand, and after letting off a bottom turn on my backhand. The board resonated like a high pitched guitar. Quite loud, When the humming started the crisp feel dulled a bit.

Overall it paddled great, was extremely predictable, I did not struggle with foot placement, and surfed OK for not having surfed a sub 9 foot board but perhaps a dozen times this year. One forehand cutback at speed revealed my right leg is not quite as strong as liked as it buckled under me.

One left( backhand) I got too high in the lip and almost lost the wave. I was surprised at just how fast it turned up the face. I got back on my belly and took two more paddles, as the wave was obviously going to reel for many dozen more yards, and indeed I managed to get 4 solid turns in and was fully rubber kneed with a shit eating grin on my face paddling back out.

Very very happy with how it rode, just need to fine tune the fins. I;d rather have a more drawn out bottom turn on my backhand. When I got out I put the 50/50 FCS TC fin in the backhand quad box, so basically GYUX on the forehand rail and TC template on the backhand. I’d prefer a TC up front on my forehand but that fin is underwater in Maui.

The TC template is what i used when I made my first wood fins. I still have these fins but the tabs are fatigued with too much flex at the base. Since I have proboxes I think I am going to insert some carbon rods into the fin in the space between the tabs to stiffen them up for use in this board.

[Monkstar1]

Wow, what an awesome job. Thanks for documenting the build. I have one question and I apologize in advance, but what did the red wire under the stringer do? You mentioned water will inevitably leak in so you added a red wire under the stringer in the nose. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why.

[wrcsixeight]

Thanks for the interest.

The red wire was just to show there was enough room, between the stringers and the hull panel, for water, with the board placed on its nose, to travel across the stringers to reach the nose vent/drain hole. It was kind of a reminder that I had to not let epoxy fill that area, as it would be very difficult to get a tool in there to open up the drainage holes.

I wound up using some cocktail straws sections to prevent closure when I layed small patches of cloth on the interior side of the cedar pieces i used to fill inbetween the stringers. I was later able to remove the cocktail straws when it was unlikely that i would have drips occluding the passages.

Gonna go ride it again right now.

[wrcsixeight]

Always fearful of the deck panel trying to flatten or separate from the nose rocker I ran middle and outer stringers off the end of the nose. Instead of using thickened epoxy to firm a fillet I prewetted carbon fiber roving in a cardboard corner, squeezed out the excess resin and used it as the fillet.

All the stringers are held to the hull panel in this overkill method.

With the stringers runnong off the end of the board, I though it would be neat to use a different type of wood to demark where they exit. I could really have done a much better job on this part. it is a bit hard having to build the rails mostly square while trying to imagine how they will look when shaped.

[MrMik]

Congratulations!
What an awesome job.

[wrcsixeight]

Another fun surf on it today, But used the 0 degree inserts in the quad boxes, and changed the toe rail fin to 4 degrees cant, from 6. This felt very weird. I was having issues, especially on my forehand/rights. I blew one really good opportunity on one of the bigger ones. MOving the fins up and back, and it was still very weird in the trough transitioning into and through a bottom turn.

One of those 0 degree quad fins was 50/50 foiled and was on toe side, and eventually got relocated to center probox, and the other quad fin got stuffed in my wetsuit. I keep a fin key on my Ear plug tether and did this in the lineup.

Then I started having a blast. It Felt so positive, familiar. And Fast. But I want a new toe fin. I do not like the GYU-x, never did, do not know why I still have them, They are too small for me. I pushed it fully to the back then fully to the front and left it there.

I am refoiling/ reinforcing some wood fins I made 13 and 16 years ago, and raising my eyebrows at my fin making/foiling abilities back then, and my choice of 80/20 amd 70/30 foils for them.

I am very happy with how it rides, especially as a thruster, and I need to work on my leg strength as my right knee is having issues with the G’s I’ve been trying to pull.

Now to dial in the fins’ their location and the cants.
Feels great to be excited to ride a sub 9 foot board again. Nice to have good swell for it too.

[Huck]

Haha you said occluding on a surfboard forum, that was cool. Board looks awesome. And light enough you won’t be diaphoresing getting it to the water.

[wrcsixeight]

I basically only ride this board when it is average of chest high or better on the smaller sets, so I do not have a ton of sessions on it, but I do very much like it, especially on my backhand.  It does not feel like it weighs 15.5 lbs, and when I do ride it, I often am told I am ripping although I do not agree. 

It is a lot of board, and when I get some steep open face and can really set the rail and fin and goto town I wish for the knees and quads of my younger self.  Getting my back foot over the rail fins is a huge part of getting this board to respond properly, and I think I need to put a traction pad there just as an indicator, rather than for traction.  I’ve never been a traction pad fan.

That sweet spot is very sweet, but not nearly as broad and forgiving as my other HWS’s or any previous PU/PE boards in this general size range and shape.  This board also pretty much needs the constant input, no standing  with a narrower stance and trimming through mushy sections as it just bogs down. 

 

I have found the best fin options for what Fins I own, and my favorite heel side rail fin continues to be the FCS carbon fiber TC Redline with the 6 degree insert, more rearward than center but not all the way back.

 

The center fin is a very high aspect fairly thick extremely stiff lacewood fin with less than half the surface area of a traditional thruster fin.  I like it all the way back in the probox and have ridden it some of the rare sizeable days this winter with no desire for a larger center fin.  My toeside rail fin is a very stiff plywood fin I made long ago and more recently reglassed and refoiled.  It was based on the TCredline template but grew a little bit with the halo added.  It is more of an 80/20 foil with a 5/16" maximum thickness at the base.

 

I do not really like this fin but it is the best one I have yet used in this board.  The TCRedline on my heelside feels much crisper and more responsive. I lost the TCredline toe side rail fin long ago, and I have given  up on this board, as a Quad, for now at least.  I am also sticking with 6 degree inserts, for now.

 

I did once ride it as a 5 fin with the rear 3 fairly small fins  and it felt very planted, but a bit confused and like it was too much fin.  Almost tracky.  No doub I could have figured it out with a few more sessions with it as a 5, but really I need to dial this thing in with 3 fins before expolring other setups with the 5 available proboxes. 

  I am about to foil another fin just for my toe side rail, and am pretty much leaning in the direction of a high aspect ratio fin with less tip area like the one RDM posted in this thread:

 

https://www.swaylocks.com/forums/fin-efficiency

 

The template on the far right is the one I have cut out of a WRcedar sandwich panel I made last year using te 5th plank matched to 4 that comprise the hull panel, and could start foiling right now.  The meat of this sandwich is 3 or 4 layers of woven roving, as I did not have enough regular cloth to do a regular panel.  The center is 5/32 thick.  I expect it will  be extremely stiff which is fine as I currently weigh in at 213Lbs and dislike squishy  feeling fins which is how flexy fins on a shortboard always felt to me.

 

The Flat sided fins make little to no sense from a design standpoint, only ease of fabrication, but I find 80/20 or 90/10 or 70/30 foils to be smooth, but they seem to lack crispness and forward projection, and have a slight delay in response that I wish to eliminate.  It woud certainly ease the foiling process to make a flat sided fin.

 

I am aiming for the surface area and depth of a Twin fin, and the template on the right fin is 6 1/8 deep, and sometimes looks way too big and other times looks just right.  In the 90’s I  always liked twinnies with a smaller trailer fin, and my previous HWS, the 6’8" always worked best with thruster side fins and a smaller center fin a bit farther forward than the standard 3.5 inches. But i never tried it with actual twinny sized twin fins.

 

The thing is Thick right now, prefoiling, close to 3/4 inch.   I’d like to have the fin ready by the time Soon to be Hurricane Fabio’s swell reaches here in 4 days, but am still unsure if I should pursue the template on the right or redraw something smaller.  I’ve no issue with aysymmetrical fin sizes, my heelside fin will remain the TC redline as It just feels solid and dependable.

 

The panel and what I have left of it, I can make two more rail size fins and one trailer, but I doubt I can foil and glass all of themall in time,  and want to committ to completing just one fin in the next 4 days.  If I do not like it, I know my existing toeside rail fin performs acceptably, but Mr Mik’s 3d printed fins in my traditional longboard have basically leaning well away from any  traditional looking fins with a heavily raked tip, and I am more interested, as far as shortboard fins go, in mimicking the pectoral fins of sharks like the grey reef and silky, as opposed to the dorsal fin of a dolphin.

 

The black fin on the far left, there for size reference only, is a Rusty template from the early incarnations of FCS plastic fins from 1997 or so.   It is fairly large in terms of a thruster fin.

 

 

 

 

[wrcsixeight]

Before I busted out my foiling tools, I decided to place the template I chose into my intended board, not my previous one, and it simply looks abnormally huge from all angles and worse in the photo below.

 

Yet if I line up the FCS rusty fin  leading edge with my drawn template there is very little difference in total surface area.

 

Late drops under the hook at low speed have me wanting at least the same surface area on a rail fin, if not more, yet it simply looks like too much fin because of the depth and the untraditional shape.

 

Recent fin experineces in my traditional single fin LB have that line between looking right, and working right, very much blurred.

 

Wish making  fins was not so labor intensive and time and material consuming.  Seems so hard to nail it on the first go and not allow one to convince onself it works well, simply because of that effort expended.

[jrandy]

Nice writeup WRC.

I took the rouge’s gallery and ‘finFoiled’ the first one and 4th one.

The Rusty template (ws_1) is 15.6 sqin @ 4.5" tall

Bright White (ws_2) is  17.2 sqin @ 5.63" tall

I can totally indentify with the foiling conundrums, as testified by my big box of 1/2 done fins.

Please keep us posted.

[wrcsixeight]

Thank you JRandy.

 

I was totally stuck in analysis paralysis, then remembered that i can make 2 more full size fins from this panel, anbd have 2 feet lof the 2x4 left over from the hull panel planks to make another hull matching panel, said F it, and out came the foiling tools.

 

The fin I cut from the panel  a few days ago, was the white template on the far right that was over 6 inches deep.  I measured 5 7/8" from the base drew a line then drew a new fin tip at that line and took a beltsander to the line.

 

Since the roving was sandwiched in between two cedar  panels and neither side of that panel was really thick enough on its own if I were to completely sand one of the sides off to the roving center, I said F it again and decided to simply taper the thickness to the tip, then start foiling it, pretending the roving center was not there and not caring whether it would form the halo or not as it would if it were a center fin

 

The SOB is still 1/2 inch thick at its thickest along the base and is incredibly stiff.  I’ll aim for 7/16 or so, perhaps 3/8".

 

Rather than make the base of this fin fit super tightly and with maximum strength into the Probox insert, I am considering using the probox itself with NO insert, as a mold,and letting some epoxy with milled fibers form the mold around the base of the fin with a 6 degree cant and with trailing edge lining up with wing. No insert and not have any adjustment of cant or fore and aft.

 

The center roving when foiled as if it were not there, looks weird.

 

I’ve got to walk away from it for a bit.  Fresh eye it later.

[wrcsixeight]

Decided to go ahead and get the base to fit within Probox insert.  Might do the insertless mold if I want to change toe in, but This particular fin, I want the cant and fore and aft adjustment

 

Once the base fits nicely in to the insert, The insert itself Aids in the foiling of the rest of the fin.

 

Still a ways to go, and the SOB is still thick.

 

Totally flat inside.

 

It is Stiffer than the carbon TCredline with no glass on it, only in it.

[wrcsixeight]

I stripped the wax from the deck of this board the other day, and found that my right knee, which has slammed the deck of each and every board  on my pop up for the last 35 years, had caused a slight soft spot to form on the deck in two spots.  I added a lot of internal structure in an attempt to prevent this, but apparently not enough.

I used the poor man’s vaccuum bag trick to cover the soft  spot and a portion of the surrounding deck with two layers of 10oz cloth.  At least I am guessing it is 10oz.   All my cloth scraps were all too small and my Neighbor had some Bondo branded fiberglass bought at Home depot which I used.

The poor Man’s vaccuum bag trick is basically wetting out the cloth fully, covering it with ziplock freezer bag plastic, and pushing out as much resin as possible towards the edges for a maximum fiber to resin ratio and pullng the cloth as tightly as possible as well.   I’ve had good results using this method before on both rails and flat areas and this time was no different.

 

The One Sharky shaped twin fin sized cedar  fin in posts above was made for my toe side rail, and the last time I surfed this board it was mostly my heel side rail that was engaged.  However, I got one or two waves that peeled slow enough to allow a top turn, and the new cedar sharky shaped fin felt quite good when my toe side rail was engaged, So I decided to make another for my heel side rail to replace the TC redline fin.

 

I had also cut down one of Mr Miks’ Gullwhale turbucle fins, whose based I broke riding my longboard, to shortboard size. Its base was reduced to fit tightly in a center probox, and the tab reinforced with some homemade carbon rods.  This fin on a large  speedy racey down the line day did nothing weird nor unexpected, and did not feel draggy.  It only looks weird.

MrMik sent me several  GW fins he broke when stress testing his designs, so I made two more to fit my rail Proboxes  and one smaller center fin,  and am very eager to try them, as His turbucled Gullwhale fin in my 9’7" traditional longboard, is simply magical.  

 

iIhave cut out two more rail fins shaped more like a shark’s pectoral fins rather than a dolphin dorsal fin a bit smaller than the other sharky style fins.  I have only thickness tapered those so far, they remain unfoiled, and I might make them less deep as there is not really enough difference from the twin sharky fins.

 

i had forgotten that some 10 years ago I made these Bonzerish canted  tab fins out of Lacewood for my 6’8" HWS, for use with a single fin, but I did not much like their feel.  I think they look pretty neat installed this board  as quad fins though.  I have no intentions of trying them anytime soon though.

[wrcsixeight]

The unusually upright cedar twin fins were feeling very good underfoot, with a yellow MRMik 0.45 Gullwhale center fin cut down to fit the probox fin system.

 

Very quick, precise, almost twitchy, I was really starting to feel this board and fin combo, liking it more and more each wave during the Sergio swell, both frontside and backside.

 

Some guy on a HPLB dropped in on me without even looking, I should have yelled, but I should not have had to, but I intended to simply pass him and push him off, if required.  But he turned before I could respond and I ran atop his board and jumped. I lost one of the cedar fins, and the other one is broken, but perhaps reparable.

 

The impact also broke the probox, but no other damage to board.

 

I have more proboxes, I could route it out and install anew.  I am going to try rebuilding it first casting epoxy threads, with some techniques I developed reinforcing Mr Mik’s 3d printed  fin bases/ screw tabs.  I will likely also make a jig for precisely  drilling new grub screw holes and tapping them for 10-24 threads. To perhaps spread the load among more grub screws.

 

I have two more sharky cedar rail fins cut out and tapered, but not yet foiled. They are slightly less deep as the ones I lost and broke in the impact, but I might build the height up with more of a roving halo.

I can say I have no intention to go back to a lower aspect ratio/ more traditional fin with a raked tip.  I am not even sure when that extra directional stability is required on a rail fin.  I figure it is the job of the center fin.  These thickly foiled higher aspect ratio fins as rail fins, had all the grip, and less drag and less resistance to directional changes, and were superior to every other fin setup I tried in this board by a good margin, though it did take some getting used to.

 

I also tried several sessions with 3 of Mr Mik’s turbucled gullwhale fins cut down to reglar fin depth.  The rail fins are 50/50 foils.  It was a love/hate relationship.  Loved them one session as they were quick and responsive and predictable once at speed, and another session in different conditions they were bizarre and drifty, and felt too small and imprecise especially at slower speeds.  They also had a tendency to hook my leash and ruin the potential ride. They felt best at speed, and not pushed too hard though I did have a few turns where I did push hard and was impressed with the feel and the speed maintained and yet on another similar wave would blow the tail out trying the same style of turn.

 

I rode the 0.5 GW fins behind the sharky like cedar fins  as a quad, and it felt pretty good one day with much more projection through and after a bottom turn than expected, yet the next day with same setup, I struggled as it felt like too much fin and too stiff. I turned it into a thruster on the beach and paddled back out and it clicked and I was on my 3rd session with this particular combo when the impact happened.

Very bummed I lost the sharky cedar fins, not only did I have a LOT of labor into them, but also as the impact very much shortened a session which had lots of potential. Also bummed that I do not have any replacements waiting to go, as they felt the best of any fins/ fin combo I have yet used in this board.  I hope to have the board, and new cedar sharky twin size fins ready by mid week, and will make smaller  center fins out of MrMik’s GW  fins that he intentionally broke stress testing, that just arrived today along with a bunch more GW fins with latest build method. 

 

[jrandy]

Bummer about the drop-in and fin damage. I hope the repairs go well and looking forward to the next ride report.

[wrcsixeight]

Thanks JRandy. 

I forgot to mention I was using the white 8 degree probox inserts. I had been hoping they would crisp up the turning of the 50/50 foiled 0.5GW fins and left them in place when I installed  the sharky cedar twins.

 

The one fin that broke but I still have, has the thick woven roving core, and a roving halo, but I only used one layer of 1.43 oz cloth on the exterior, which turned out to be nowhere near enough. The 3 or 4 layers of woven roving core was so stiff that glassing over a foil with more cloth would reduce water pressure inspired flex to perhaps nil, but I will definitely use more exterior glass on the next pair, as experiments on MrMik’s larger single fins are leading me to lean towards less flex being better for my weight/intentions/style.

 

The holes I drilled into the broken  probox are all at acute angles to the grubscrew, and the larger holes have smaller holes drilled at angles within those, for maximum grip/ mechanical tooth. I also run a sharp razor blade edge into the surface to make some deep valleys into the probox material for even more mechanical tooth.  the repair might prove to be too weak, but it should not just Pop off due to lack of adhesion.

Getting resin deep in these  tiny drilled holes is made much easier with the tiny pipe cleaner type brushes made for teeth, Den tek brushes sold at any drug store.  The hair drier trick is also useful to pop stubborn bubbles and insure resin gets as deep as required.

I was planning on using System3 clear coat resin, which is extremely slow to set, and very thin viscosity, along with some milled FG fibers and then roving bridging the waxed grub screw.  This particular epoxy resin has proven to stick to waxed glass much stronger than other epoxies, and I think its adhesion is superior to any other epoxy I have, or have used, so it should be the best choice I have to rebuild the broken grub screw area.

I have successfully cast epoxy threads before, on 3 or 4mm metric screws with a 0.5 pitch, so doing 10-24 threads should be much easier, although I will have to precisely drill/dremel out the very bottom of the hole  then tap it.

 

With cast epoxy threads, there is absolutely no wobble between screw and the casting/mold, when reinserting the screw. No room for error and very easy to cross thread and ruin the cast threads.  The angle one attempts to insert the screw needs to be overwhelmingly precise, which proved to be the downfall of the tiny fine thread metric cast epoxy threads.

 

The super high aspect ratio twinny rail fins are lively crisp and quick, and did not catch and hold onto my leash like the turbucled rail fins would.  Those who can make their own fins should try something outside the traditional 'dol’fin shape with the aestheticaly pleasing exaggerated raked tip.  The upwash and the rake of a lower aspect might be beneficial for propulsion on a fishtail, but without muscles pushing the raked fin tip to take advantage of that upwash, I am currently  seeing the raked tip as unneeded drag providing extra resistance to directional changes, and see few places where this would actually be beneficial in most waves I encounter.

 

One day I will drag my camera behind the shortboard  too.  On the longboard,  the single  fins the visible tip vortex is more pronounced the more rake the fin has and the more rake the fin has the slower it is, and the longer the turning radius is.  Mr Mik’s deaweeder fin in my round pintail longboard, after so much riding his upright GW fin, made it feel like the tail was less round/ more of a pintail, and more stretched out.  More self centering, but I was struggling on turns, expecting the board to come around quicker.

 

 

[wrcsixeight]

Some 6 months later…

 

After losing 1, and breaking the other, of the first sharky cedar fin set, I was in a bit of a haste to finish the second set, and did not spend nearly enough time on the foil and was not really happy with their planshape or foil when they were finished. 

My attempt to bridge the broken probox where the grub screw was ripped out when I lost the one fin running over the ‘I didn’t see you’  drop in artist, was a failure.  The epoxy I used attempting to rebuild the area around the grubscrew, some older clear coat system3, well I had just enough left in some small bottles for the small volume required for this task,  but perhaps something happened in the year+ since I had last opened the containers. Anyway the carefully weighed and mixed epoxy, after two days obviously was not going to harden as it should, and out came the router and probox jigs, and I installed a New Probox. 

Shortly after this was completed some 5 months ago, I Wound up taking a road trip with my 81 year old Dad across country, 2600 miles door to door, but drove ~4600 instead zigzaging out west, sight seeing for a week,  and surfed only once on the East Coast over the winter.  I was not really chasing it when there, there was certainly more opportunity to chase weather systems/conditions to get some quality glide time, but I was not on it.  Awaiting groundswells and conditions a week out,  south of Conception, is so much easier.

 

 I rode the new sharky cedar fins In Patrick AFB in Florida on waist to chest high offshore short period not very impressive windswell midway in that 4 month journey. The HWS and new sharky cedar Fins felt very quick and very loose in what was mostly gutless dribble,  but I was out of the water 2+ months at that point, overindulging in foodstuffs and beer and should likely have been on my Log, in retrospect.

 

Drove back across country about a month ago and have been scraping off rust, lots of it.  I am Probably the heaviest and in the worst paddling shape of my life, but am off the beer and eating much wiser too.  

 

I have gotten several sessions on my singlefin  Log HWS,  and this 6’11"#7 HWS with the newest sharky cedar rail fins, and am starting to get some flow and fitness back, and the last two days rode the new sharky cedar rail fins with both the 8 degree and then 6 degree inserts then back to 8, all with the 0.45 sized  MrMik Gwhale  turbucle fin in center Probox.

 

First the 6 degree inserts, it kept feeling like the board wanted to be turned flat, and when I allowed it to be flat turned on a lesser turn, would swing/pivot way too fast and draw these weird lines that irritated me greatly.  The 8 degree inserts feel way way better when on rail, but The whole board is just too loose with this fin set up.  Every hard turn and the board is turning in a way shorter arc than I had planned on,  seemingly without losing any speed, and the second half of the turn is spent trying to maintain my footing/awkward recovery, rather than initiating the top turn where I had intended.    I moved the 0.45GW fin back, moved the rail fins up and back and up again in teh 8 degree inserts, and pretty much just had to accept the fact I cannot turn this board  as hard as I want to, and can, with these specific fins, and not have my legs collapse under me as the arc is too short and the G force too much, it just feels unnatural and likely looks worse.  I Very much wonder what some uber fit rubber kneed ripper could do with such low drag fins that also have so little resistance to redirection once they figured out the new lines that could be taken.  

These super high aspect ratio fins seem to present little to no resistance to changing direction, and it is not so easy to get used to when really pushing hard.  If one is not really pushing hard, then their low drag speedy and crisp nature is quite enjoyable.  

If one were to make a vehicle driving comparison regarding turning these fins compared to more traditionally raked dol-fins, it would be like a sports car that was 3 full turns of the wheel  lock to lock, then driving the same vehicle the next day and only  2 full turns turned the wheels the same amount.  It would be hard to do 10 laps on the 3 turn lock to lock dolfin then change the steering gear, and then do the next 10 laps with 2 full turns lock to lock superHAR fin.  The straight aways the sports car would feel like it had noticeably more torque though, and then find weaker brakes for that upcoming hairpin.  Thrilling, but lap times would likely suffer until one got very used to it.

The first set of slightly larger sharky cedar fins(RIP) felt way better, their tips were slightly behind the trailing edge of the base, but the newer smaller ones are not.  I did not have enough fin panel remaining to work with, and the halo added after the fact, did not make up for it as I was hoping, once I foiled the halo.

The yellow turbucle center fin, well these things in the longboard can achieve much higher AOA before they stall and when they do it is gradual and predictable and seemingly much less drag in full stall, so these sharky high Aspect ratio cedar fins and this 0.45GW center  fin is simply too loose, too pivotal, the board pivots on teh inside fin, the Turbucle fin has no issues slightly stalled in such a position and the board swings up the face so much faster than expected/desired when I push a hard bottom turn. I love a hard bottom turn, often get compliments on them when I ride my log or this 6’11".  My Log I widen my stance and have mostly gotten used to a shorter duration higher yield  bottom with MrMik’s Gwhale turbucle fin but I can still overrotate and find myself with not enough time to get  the 25Lb board on the opposite rail.

I do not feel like I am surfing well on my 6’11" with this fin set up, when I am pushing hard, as I am drawing out longer lines in my mind. The board’s turning radius with these fins, has shortened that line way too much .  I kept feeling That it is throwing off my timing, and I simply do not currently have enough leg power to handle the g forces that these fins can allow in that shortened turning radius, and practically no fin resistance to that turning.  the resistace is sinking the rail only, it feels like.   I can’t yet take advantage of the difference, and do not know if I want to learn to adjust to this new feel, I mean I ain’t no spring chicken. I just want to go fast turn hard.  First part is there, second part I’ve been going over the handlebars. 

 

So this extreme high aspect ratio rail fin experiment has been enlightening, and I think one must bounce off the extremes to find some  happy middle ground, but I also  find myself reluctant to reintroduce a traditionally raked factor to fins on this board, as the low drag quick accellerating nature of such a high aspect ratio is a bit addicting. Especially on my 9’7" single fin, but that of course is an entirely different style of surfing and that board’s top speed with so much surface area, tail rocker, and soft rails is inherently limited, even with a much lower drag fin. 

 

  I’ve made a new fin panel for the next sets of rail fins. I Liked the looks and flex and relative ease of prepping then laying up  3 layers of woven roving when making a panel, even if it is not quite fully saturated as desired, so three layers were recently  laminated to waxed glass with 5/16" of WRCedar planks left over from the board build weighted atop.  I can easily make 4 thick fins with a lower aspect ratio or 6 high aspect ratio flat sided fins from this panel, but so far have not busted out the new cardboard for making new potential templates for what comes next.

 

Part of me wants to replicate the First set of fins that I broke/lost, as they seemed to impart more directional stability, and somewhat prevent the extreme overrotation that occurs with  these second set of  fins.

Part of me wants to build a lower aspect ratio center fin with these low drag super HAR rail fins. I like the very  low drag high responsiveness of these rail fins, there is absolutely no signs that they are drifty or not enough fin, I just miss the self centering and stabilization and longer turning radius, that drag and resistance imparted with the raked tips and a lower aspect ratio helping rail and fin to work together in a more familiar manner. 

Wondering if I can gain the control I want keeping these rail fins and changing up the center fin, and not have the board feel too draggy, in comparison to the 0.45GW fin.  I got those pesky Quad boxes too, to confuse the matter further too.

Wish making fin panels and foiling fins and dialing them to fit properly, was less time consuming, or I was flush with cash, and there were more untraditional looking fins I could experiment with, and be emotionally removed from the effort of  designing and making them. and thus be less inclined to want like them by default.

 

 

 

[McDing]

Everything you’ve done here is very creative and work well done.  Including the repairs.  But,  I am especially impressed with your ability to refine the details of the shaping that you have put into this board.  Refined bottom contours and rail.  Pleasing to the eye outline as well.  Refining a shape in wood is not as easy as people think.   Nicely done.  Lowel

[johnmellor]

Love the board, the fins?  Not so much.  I like the execution but the design of the fins might be partially to blame for the handling issues you describe.

You’ve explored the outer limits on those and it might be time to settle in on something more tired and true/conventional.  On the damaged box thing - I would just use some thin plastic shim material and jam the fins in place.  Skip the screws.  

A basic set of sidebites and something like a 7"- 8" conventionally raked/foiled center fin might be your best bet as far as further experimentation(?)  In the photo it looks to me as if the forward fins are too large and vertical and the rear fin too small.  I am aware of the tuburcle theory but haven’t tried one.  I’ll pass judgement on that aspect of it.