The board was a shot in the dark, in a way, never having made anything like this. But I had a blank sitting around, which was too small for my normally large board designs, and wanted to use it for something! I set it up as a quad, but it wasn’t working. I would call it loose but with no drive. Admittedly, I didn’t try very hard to find a good fin combination, I gave up a little early, and never got back to it. Then, while going through my boards to see what needed repairing, it occurred to me to throw a fin box in and try it as a single.
Will I like it? Who knows, But hopefully I can try it out soon and see. I have a couple fins I’d like to try it with. Could probably try it as a twin with the two back plugs, too, who knows?
Anyway, its basically a scaled down version of an old favorite single fin longboard, so its kinda logical I should have set it up as a single to begin with. Only difference tho is the wider tail on this one, so I guess thats why I wasn’t thinking single.
This is something that I have been debating on doing for a while now. I have a rather hefty 9’6" longboard, if I remember correctly it’s 9’6" x 24" x 4". It’s a cheap Chinese pop out sold by north shore board surf shop. Great beginner and small wave board mainly due to its volume. My only complaint about it is because it was a cheap board it has cheap knock off futures thruster finboxes. I am constantly talking myself out of routing the center box out and putting in a 10.5" long box.
Is it really that easy? I tend to over think things and talk myself out of probably easy tasks. Also I’ve been surfing it most of the summer. It works ok as a thruster and worse as a single.
It’s always felt like the tail wants to slide around unlike other longboards I’ve ridden.
Here are the things I’m having trouble with. Cutting into a perfectly good board. What if the board’s foam is junk because it’s a cheap board. I’ve also been told that routing through a fin box will destroy the router bit.
Hopefully some of the experts can chime in and answer my questions.
Huck great looking board and I hope the single fin works out!
If it is set up as a Thruster, you should be able to do as Huck did and rout out for the Single box just in front of you current center Thruster box. If that box is 3—3 1/2” forward of the tail, add the length of the box and you should be 7 or 7 1/2” to the rear of a single box. A little far forward, but if you use a raked fin it should work out. To rout out a fin box, use very shallow cuts, a jig and a cheap bit. I prefer cutting around the box and wiggling the box with a wide blade slotted screw driver. Much easier.
I’ll have to measure where the current box is next time I have it out. I think I’m going to steal and use your idea of routing around the box and pulling it out with a screw driver. I could do that with a dremel and hopefully not jack up a good router bit. I was also thinking about routing out and running 0.25-0.375" mini wood stringers on the sides of the new box 3-5" passed the ends of the box to help stabilize it. Just in case the foam underneath isn’t the best. Just like post #12 of this thread: https://www.swaylocks.com/forums/fin-box-repair?page=1
Best method is a “Spiral Cut” bit on a trim router or one of those drywall cut out routers. But I have taken them out by cutting around them by hand with a Stanley knife. Yeah a couple of woodies on the sides of the box will strengthen it and hide any “oops” from removing the box. I put my woodies in with a 1/4” router bit and 5-gallon paint sticks. (ie Roto-Zip)
(assuming the boxes allow it) did you ever try swapping those quad fins around so the larger ones were in the rear boxes and the smaller ones in the front boxes (i.e. likely less loose, but with more drive)?
That shape reminds me of the “V8 Vee Bottoms” posted by Deadshaper (see post #7 in https://www.swaylocks.com/forums/fountain-youth-surfboards) in the “Fountain of Youth” thread you started a while back. Both of them were single fins.
A couple of posts later he was talking about how those boards were known as the “Spin-out Queens” when they were first around ('sounds a fair bit like the problems you’re having); a very wide-based, ultra-deep (10" to 13") fin was an instant solution to that problem at the time, but that he had recently been refining the design/figuring out how to get them to work (sounded like Greenough’s Crescent Tail may have been part of Deadshaper’s solution).
If it happens the single-fin you’ve recently installed doesn’t provide the fix you’re looking for, perhaps a PM to Deadshaper (and maybe a 6-pack) for a diagnosis of your problems with the board and some advice from him to rectify it might be a good idea? Mind you, his boards had pronounced vee through the tail while yours looks relatively flat through that area by comparison so you may end up with a design rather different from a “V8 Vee Bottom” to get the behaviours you’re chasing with it. But so what; how the cat gets skinned is less important than the fact it gets skinned in the first place.
Hope the single-fin turns out well for you though; what’s more it should make for a very interesting board to play with different fin combo’s in; it’s a single/twin/thruster/quad/5-fin/double-in-line-single/single-plus-twin/thruster/quad/5-fin.
And that’s before you’ve even started playing around with different types and sizes of fins in any/all of those possible combinations.
Addendum; If you add the longboard box in front of and existing FCS or Futures box and it seems a little far forward, you can always add a Knubster or trailer fin behind it. As a single fin with a trailer, that would definitely work.
I do the reverse for adding more drive, go from a single to adding side fins. With the width if the tail, you may not have more drive, but maybe more fun.
Try getting 2 big keel fins and put them in the front boxes. If that seems too loose, you can add a tiny trailing fin in the back center box. I’ve been having a lot of fun experimenting with twin fins and have had a lot of fun riding boards with big keel fins. The only negative I’ve had is that there have been a few times I feel like I might tear the fins out, there’s so much power with those keels. I’ve gone back and forth between using it with 2 keels or as a quad on this board. It is 5’10" x 22" x 2.5" I use a quad layout based on Jeff Alexander’s Gemini, with no toe, no cant, on the rear fins and they’re further in from the rail. It works for me. I’ve also been using the FCS Stretch quad fins. The front fins have a slight concave foil on the flat side and I really like fins with that kind of foil. Another thing you might try is adjusting your stance. I’ve had to adjust where I place my back foot on several boards like that to get them to “wake up”. My back foot is usually futher up on the board, so I need to remind myself to stay back on certain boards. That’s one reason I rode really short boards this summer, I wanted to force myself to ride the sweet spot. Got down to 5’ 6", but mostly stayed at 5’ 10"
If you want to continue with the single, try using one of the extra large Keel fins from Futures that fits into the long single box. A guy I know likes them, an I’m thinking about trying them for a longer wide tailed twin I want to make.
One thing I forgot is that you’re a goofy and seem to ride backside a lot. I’ve been riding frontside 95% of the time for the last 35 years. I might take off backside, but I’m a switchfoot, so I often switch after the first turn. I don’t have a lot of good data for backside riding, my input was based on riding frontside. There’s a difference in how a board feels. Generally, I always felt I could get harder turns riding backside. I have had a lot times when I turned too hard off the bottom on a single fin, the tail released, and I spun out.
What I like about riding backside is that you can make much harder tops turns, really gouge out the lip. I think it’s harder to make a similar turn going frontside. Sometime long ago I remember someone saying he preferred always riding frontside (switching) because he liked looking at the woman he was making love to. I was influenced by watching Jock switching stance so effortlessly, and riding my skateboard.
A blast from my past, about 1978. I made a ramp in my dad’s backyard. Back then we didn’t have the wide trucks.
When you say “Jock” are you referring to Jock Sutherland? 'Wasn’t aware he was a switchfooter, but then again I’m not Hawaiian so I never had much chance to see him on a day-to-day basis out in the water, and come to think of it I guess I’ve probably only seen a few short clips of him surfing (mind you what I have seen was all huge Waimea type stuff on 60’s logs; very impressive). And from the little bit I’d read about him, seems like an interesting guy.
Yep, the 80’s was certainly the golden era for ramp-riding boards. I hung onto mine for as long as I could into the 90’s for riding the local ramp; until a friend of mine snapped it trying to rail-slide a curb. Damn that was a good board - early-to-mid 80’s U.S. Pro 90 with Santa Cruz Bullets on it. Probably be worth a bit today.
Thankfully they’ve come back in fashion again, so nothing stopping you from picking one up
Yeah, Jock Sutherland. I think he was the second Mr. Pipeline, Gerry took the name when Jock left for the military. If you ever have a chance to see Pacific Vibrations, you’ll see Jock at his peak. Switching stance at Honolua Bay. There’s also video of him online somewhere surfing contests when he was younger.
I have a Santa Cruz skateboard ACS 500 trucks and red stoker wheels from the 70s. It had the cadillac wheels before I put stokers on. I also have an old Duke Kahanamoku board with the clay wheels my brother in law owned. I never got used to the newer wider boards with the tracker trucks. Haven’t ridden my skateboard for a very, very long time.
You might be able to just use a shorter single fin box and leave everything else in place. Fiberglass Hawaii has 4 or 5 lengths. I’ve been using the long boxes, but I bought several of the shorter boxes to play around with Duos and twins.
Just make sure whatever fin you use fits with a little bit of fore aft adjustment. My single fin placement is usually a bit forward of a thruster rear fin, so I use the long box and place it further back in case I want to use it as a thruster.
No prob. There is actually a back story to this saga, I let myself be talked into trading this board before I had the fins figured out, and later wished I hadn’t. So now I’ve got it back, and I wanted to give myself the extra option, after studying pics of similar boards.
It’s a stubby type shape, similar to a mini-mal but with a wider tail. But it’s also got hull-ish elements to the design, belly and pinched rails. It’s kinda outside the box in a lot of ways, and I’m hoping I’m not too old and stiff to give it a decent shot at figuring the fin setup (I really don’t ride boards this short, but no one else is gonna do it, regardless of what they say, I have come to realize).
can you describe the finer details of the shape to us a bit more? -> from what I (think) I can see in the pics, it looks like there’s a little belly through the nose which deepens as it runs down through the middle of the board (or at least I think it would, because I also think I can see a large concave you’ve carved into the middle of where the deepest parts of the belly would be, starting maybe a quarter to a third of the way down from the nose and ending at the start of the single fin box) to the start of the quads, and maybe flattening out to through the tail.
Was the intent being to ride this board from the middle (for trimming), stepping back to turn? From some of the pics I’ve seen so far of you surfing you seem to ride (and turn) more from the middle of the board (your back foot looks like it’s probably a foot or more from the tail in the pics)?
And what kind of fins and fin arrangements had you already tried in the board?
If it is the case you ride and turn more in the middle of the board, my instincts are that having that single fin positioned as far forward in the box as you can get it will get you closer to the feel/performance you’re looking to get out of the board than anything you’ve tried this far.
But I’d be just as interested to hear if I’m wrong.
Wishing you (and everyone else) a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, and that Santa brings us all a bunch of uncontested set waves while we’re out on our Christmas holidays.
Yep, the 80’s was certainly the golden era for ramp-riding boards. I hung onto mine for as long as I could into the 90’s for riding the local ramp; until a friend of mine snapped it trying to rail-slide a curb. Damn that was a good board - early-to-mid 80’s U.S. Pro 90 with Santa Cruz Bullets on it. Probably be worth a bit today.