I have a biased opinion on FCS Plugs since I have been using them since I started making boards and they are the most commonly accepted boards and most all high performance surfers like the variety of fins that FCS offers. I’ve installed several hundred FCS Plugs and they weren’t the easiest but in my opinion they were easier to install than futures, I had one customer that would insist on futures and i bought the whole install set and swore I would never install them again. Just hated the shims and glassing around the long flanged box, was unimpressed. However, I have met several board builders that use Futures and are happy with them… but all of the board builders I have worked with used FCS 75-95% of the time. The new Fusion system I believe has the best of both worlds, between FCS and Futures. It’s one pass with the router, not two, the plugs have angles built into them so you dont have to mess with shims under the router jig, you can use 9, 5 or 0 degree plugs to achieve your desired angle based off your concave or vee. They are definetly the quickest to install, I believe, they hold their place when you are setting them with your angle tool, minimal waste of epoxy and poly resin and they are ultra light. As far as glassing, it took some finesse but I have it down to a science where it is not at all a hassle to get air out, I pour a little extra resin over the plug, use my index, middle and ring finger and rub them in a figure 8 over the plug until all the air is out, usually takes two or three figure 8’s, not a big deal at all, especially compared to the deep voids that other boxes sometimes leave. As far as the sand out, took some finesse and work as well, but I found if you set the fusion boxes a little deeper so that the tabs just barely sand off you can get it perfectly flat without sanding too much glass off. They sand off in seconds compare to a longer flange and you have less of a break in your cloth. If you are doing epoxy I always sand the board completely between lams and hot coats, so I suggest sanding the plugs down before the bottom hot coat, re-stickering the tabs and then hot coating. If you are doing poly, I hotcoat my bottom lap when hotcoating the top of the board, then sand the lap flat then hotcoat the bottom, so just get some hotcoat resin on the plugs and sand them flat before hot coating the bottom as well.
Hope this helps, and once again its just my opinion, and as of now all of my boards are Fusion, I’m a one man band in production my average 4-5 epoxy shortboards a week and the Fusion system definetly minimizes my hours per board.
You can check out some of my boards at www.solidsurfco.com.
Thanks,
Dan O’Hara
Solid Surf
Shaper