Waveset Hatchet fin Altered and works!!

We all know Waveset fins to be plastic and bendy. I have found the black fins to be stiffer, as I believe they have more fiberglass injected into the mold then the translucent fins?? I picked up this fin awhile back. No offense to to the Late Legend Dewey Weber, but I am not a fan of the hatchet fins. Asthetically they just dont do it for me. So after debating collector value vs converting some of the boards I have that require waveset fins into better riders, I performed the following franken/alterations…the first pic. is the altered fin. The second is the original. Any thoughts??

I have a couple of “thoughts”.

As far as I know WAVESET fins were not made with any fiberglass, at all. The translucent ones are polypropelene and the black ones are ABS.

Also, you took a fin that was worth a fair bit of $ and devalued it by the mod you did. If I had a couple of boards that used WAVESET fins and only one hatchet fin for them I’d buy a repro from Oneworld and sell the ‘hatchet’ on ebay.

Agree with SammyA. Juan’s (One World) replicas would be much better for riders for both function and strength. Not to mention cosmetically superior.

Correction: The translucent WAVESET fins were lexan, not polypro.

I figured the original waveset hatchet was worth about $250. Similar price to a new fiberglass fin from One World Juan. I have had two Hobie thru-bolt fins from Juan.

One the threads were too short and the bolt bottomed out leaving the head stabbing me in the foot. The other fin was I guess too thin because after surfing one day, I noticed a dime sized piece of the fin broke off exposing the bolt threads. Hence my desire to take a waveset brand fin and alter it… My old boards seem to work a lot more positively off the tail so I am happy!!

Quote:

I have a couple of “thoughts”.

As far as I know WAVESET fins were not made with any fiberglass, at all. The translucent ones are polypropelene and the black ones are ABS.

Also, you took a fin that was worth a fair bit of $ and devalued it by the mod you did. If I had a couple of boards that used WAVESET fins and only one hatchet fin for them I’d buy a repro from Oneworld and sell the ‘hatchet’ on ebay.

It’s your fin. Screw the collectors and make it rideable. Looks a hell of a lot better than the hatchetm(I hate those fins).

Rob,

The black fins are stiffer than the clear polycarbonate fins. Waveset claimed they were made of Waveglas, which might mean they were glass filled. If you want a more lively fin, you could “pot” any standard fiberglass fin into the Waveset box. I have done this with the old Hansen box. The Waveset box would be a little trickier, but still doable.

…you and all in some cases (failure) can see the threads, because the standard 5/32 is a very stupid idea

far better an 1/8 threads (or best in mm, so if that happens in whatever part of the world, you can purchase an stainless screw…) sadly all screw plates are the other measurement

and the tab leaves a very thin wall