So how many years have you been making your own fins?
Clearly everyone has their own perspective.
Observation: The fins I make these days are light years better than the ones I made a few years back. I guess I’m just a slow learner.
“…if you’re gonna buy a “production” fin that really isn’t that good to begin with you might as well make your own.”
I wonder why so few people make fins for themselves. Go figure.
Maybe it is easy… hmmmm… I guess I’ll just make them for myself, or… maybe not cause lot’s of surfers I know see things much differently.
It’s been my experience that most surfer don’t have a clue where to start or even know what they’re looking at.
One thing is for sure ~ I still have lots to learn about fin performance.
Funny how many aspire to shape boards and how few to sculpt fins. Maybe someone knows why-- thought: maybe it’s cause they’re kind of small and seemingly insignificant. You can buy 'em real cheap.
No Worries, Rich
P.S. How hard is it to match the board and fin/fins in order to get the most out of the stick?
If all the thrusters you’ve surfed have flat sided rail fins you’ve learned that if you don’t keep the board in constant rail to rail transition you’re stalling. Flat sided fins are made to explode when loaded. The flat side acts like a paddle. When it isn’t loaded it interferes with trim, so if you want to drop back in the pocket just move you center of effort back and keep the board aimed down line, the wave will catch right up to you. I watch good surfers do it all the time.
During the past few years rail fin foils have begun to evolve more rapidly. They have become more “wing-like” for lack of a better word, in the foil configuration. As a result the range of effective performance for rail fins has increased. There are many variations on the theme. It’s kind of confusing to the lay person. Some new rail fin foils actually create more drag than flat sided fins and at the same time create more lift when loaded. These high drag foils work for some surfers in small waves by make performance a very twitchy affair in bigger surf.
As I see it the idea with fins is to get more out of less. By this I mean affect the board in a positive way with the smallest fin/fins possible and have them give as little drag as possible. The idea is the the board decelerates less when the fins aren’t loaded resulting in an overall higher mean trim speed and still have enough fin drive to propel tbe board while holding in the wave face so it will project out into the wave face as the ride demands more speed and holding power. It’s just great to have the uninterrupted speed to make a full 270 degree cutback or go all the way to three o’clock instead of just up at twelve. The way this is accomplished is with fin placement, cant, toe-in, fin outline (template), size, thickness, flex and finally foiling pattern. It’s all pretty easy (-;
Damn, I wish Joey Thomas was here to tell about eye opening a good fin set-up is.
Thanks to everybody for their responses. I was under the impression that Rainbow had a good name, but now my mind is officially changed.
Rich,
I very much appreciate your input. Making fins is not easy. There is a reason I don’t do it…besides the lack of skill and experience. For a solid glass fin, rumor has it that you grind a lot of glass off (what is in a layup? 30 layers?). I get enough in me from working on boards (scratch, scratch, scratch). I’ve entertained the idea of doing wood fins, but need to figure out a good way to anchor them to a glass core so I can use them in my existing fin box. Some day.
As for the importance of fins, of this I am convinced. I’ve been limited to riding my big board due to a bad back, necessitating knee paddling a lot of the time I’m in the water. I am not able to take advantage of my board quiver, but I am trying to amass a nice fin quiver. I’ll switch fins depending on my mood, and on conditions. One of the fins I never use is one with straight sides. Such a drag, that one. That is why I was concerned about the Wingnut Sweep fin, and you and others all convinced me it is bad, and that it is not likely that I can get a good one from them.
Other fin options? Sound like Fiber Glas Fins gets a thumbs up. What about Greenough fins? Others? I thought True Ames still was making fins here in SB. Wrong? Who is still making them local, by hand, with skill. And while I wish price wasn’t an issue, as a grad. student, I am limited in what I can afford. Do you do custom fins for people? What do they run (a range is fine).
Soulstice,
I too am a fan of getting fins used. I’ll need to watch ebay more often…does that put us at odds? Oh, and do you want some used lox?
EPac,
Thanks for the tip, and I thought TrueAmes was still making fins here in SB, too. Hmmmmmmmmmm. I went with Rainbow, because I really thought the template was intriguing. Fin turned out to be less intriguing, but has sparked some lively discussion here on the forum.
plenty of fins on eBay for everyone. go nuts! with the exception of purchasing a spitfire fin sometime soon, i’m going to give a go at foiling a few of my own. i have some nice scrap wood that’s just begging to be made into fins. and you can hang onto your used lox…i have leftovers from this morning.
Hmmm. True Ames made in Asia huh? That’s disappointing. I have a Greenough design and the Geppy keels from True Ames. All are wonderfully foiled. No flat spots. I’m bummed if the Geppies are made over seas. I like my stuff homemade or made by surfers. I checked a friends Kane Garden fish. The keels had flat spots. I was wondering if they are making these overseas, too. Come on. Flat spots on double foiled keels. I can make em that bad. Rechecked a KG today. Flat spots on the keels. WTF. If you like foiling surfboards you will probably enjoy foiling fins. I do. Not that my board and fin foils stand up to the pro’s. I have a Halcyon. It’s a beauty. Made for a single fin. Boards gone. Not my fin! It’s easier for me to part with one of my boards than my fins at times. Mike
Rainbow Fin Company is a family owned business that handfoils their fins. They have made many fins for my system without screwing up a single foil. On top of that, Shawd has point blank told me that if I were not satisfied with my foil, he would re-do it for me. That being said, they do foil fins to spec, and it is entirely possible that is the spec for that fin. Then again, it coulda slipped through the cracks, you would have to ask Rainbow about that. I would take a potential quality control issue up with the manufacturer before starting a thread like this in which the manufacturing quality has been
insulted as being poor in quality control
the foiling insulted as being masked by a good gloss
the manufacturer accused of making these fins in Asia
Rainbow Fin Company is one of the few companies that still makes its living foiling ALL its glass fins in the USA. There is quite a different perspective on making fins when you do it as a hobby or part-time job than when you have to finish fins in order to put food on the table. AND every glass fin MUST be well glossed. AND every customer must be happy. And every custom order must be shipped within a few weeks. But Rainbow does stand behind their work. They do work close to Santa Cruz. And they have been running a “foiled in America” fin company for nearly 40 years.
Thruster rail fins became single foiled when they were installed as glass ons. The glass shops discovered the boards WENT BETTER with only a single foil. So they stopped foiling the inside and left it flat. The first mass produced fin system fins from FCS were like this also. Foiling really took off when removable fin systems became common.
With respect to altering the foil on a thruster rail fin to improve performance, there are gains to be had.
We find these gains to be an order of magnitude smaller than the gains to be had by using my fin system.
To anyone who wants to make a glass fin, the info is all in the archives. It will take roughly a dozen before you get a nice one if you read a lot and work hard at it. Then you can start experimenting with foil, template, and materials. And in the process you will learn a whole lot about what works for you in a fin, and how all the fin variables come into play. After several dozen I can foil a basic thruster set in about a half hour to my satisfaction (20% max camber, my template, my glass stack).
I can send Shawd at Rainbow a paper template for a fin and he can tell me exactly how it will ride before I’ve even made one. That’s the kind of knowledge one acquires from a lifetime of serving the surfing industry via making fins. They are good people with a good set of products and they deserve better than the vagaries thrown their way in this thread.
Thruster rail fins became single foiled when they were installed as glass ons. The glass shops discovered the boards WENT BETTER with only a single foil. So they stopped foiling the inside and left it flat.
If you don’t mind, could you explain what you mean by this?
By, “WENT BETTER” do you mean surfed better, or were easier to glass on?
Thruster rail fins became single foiled when they were installed as glass ons. The glass shops discovered the boards WENT BETTER with only a single foil. So they stopped foiling the inside and left it flat.
If you don’t mind, could you explain what you mean by this?
By, “WENT BETTER” do you mean surfed better, or were easier to glass on?
So how many years have you been making your own fins?
Not many. Not many years and not many fins. You sorta took that out or context. My point is just about any one can make a fin. The difficulty is shaping it right. The “right” is a result of two ingredients. 1) The knowledge accumulated through years of experience. 2) Possesing mastercraftsman abilities…which are also aquired through years of experience. To be honest, I have the 2nd ingredient, but if you dont have the 1st its like driving to a destination in an exotic car but not knowing where youre going. Same goes for a board. Really not that difficult…you just remove foam till the thing is the shape you want it to be. The difficulty is knowing what that shape should be. Hence Swaylocks.
For the record. I have been very careful not to mention any fin companies in my comments above. What I’m addressing is fin performance not who makes what. I’m not here to attack any manufacturers, just pose questions and access how things might be done better. There is no doubt Rainbow is capable of producing high quality foils. Their fin panels are perfection and finish work is the same. I’m not here to critique their product. That’s their job at the quality control stage. Shawd is a good man and I wish him well. He and his dad Glen have been at the heart of the local surf community for a very long time.
I don’t know where the fin pictured in the first post in the thread was made or of what manufacture it is. I do know that if I go into a surf shop and pick up all the longboard center fins that are for sale on the shelf that most all of them will have flat sides on them. Go figure. From what I’ve seen over the last 40 years this hasn’t changed much. It’s not about companies it’s just the way it is, however fin foils do continue to improve these days.
Could it be that there’s a difference between and custom made fin and stock fin? I don’t know but it is possible.
I know that many of the bigger fin manufacturers do have their product made overseas. An accurate list of who does what where and what the quality picture looks like is for the manufacturer to know and you to find out. The chances of doing it is slim and none.
What’s missing here is an explanation of the reason why the flat on that single fin is so terrible.
If the flat on the low pressure side causes a separation, exactly how bad is it, and wouldn’t the high pressure side be simultaneously getting a higher flow rate over it and a better Newtonian from the flatter lift plane?
I saw Kane Garden’s keels critiqued back there and didn’t Larry Gephardt make those?
Wouldn’t the flex on a flat-sided single like that one have more effect (versus a round-sided [stiffer] foil) than the separation, especially at longboarding speeds? The bleed-off of drive from the flex would be more than the drag from the separation, wouldn’t it? Or would the flex mitigate the drag from the separation?
It’s not about good and bad it’s about what happens and whether or not you feel it serves the performance picture. If you surf two fins of exactly the same shape, size, thickness and flex made from the same panel which are cut on the same bias from the panel, Tte one that has no flat spots on in will have more positive engagement with the water and will create less turbulence in the laminar flow pattern. If you expect to be able to tell the difference between the two fins you’ll need to have them on a board that short enough to show the performance effects of the two. The bigger the board the less overall effect a fin has on it as a board with greater mas dampens the fin’s effect more than one with less mass. Bottom line is, if you don’t go ride it you’ll never know.
If this fin is symmetrically foiled, and I believe that’s what we’re discussing, it will have an equally conformed flat spot on both sides or none at all. The fin either looses or gains engagement on both sides of the fin equally.
What do you want you fin to do?
It seems to me that you get more from the fin without flat places in its foil.
I may be wrong but it think a symmetrically foiled single fin never has much of a high and low pressure side because the fluid around it is never made to flow much faster on inside of the foil when the board is in trim. After all the fin is centrally located on the board and granted there is a difference when turning, but I believe this difference is only significant at slow board speeds then at higher board speeds. When the board isn’t really doing much to generate speed the fin acts more in a pivotal nature than a driving one. On single fined boards the board does relatively more of the work to generate speed than on boards the have rail fins. As fins move closer to the rail, and become more asymmetrical the high - low pressure curve steepens because the fin makes the water move faster on the over-cambered side than the flat or under-cambered side as the case may be.
I’m going to leave it to those who can translate NACA foil theory better than I to discuss the theoretical side of this in greater detail if someone feels that is indicated.
Finally, the way I see things leaving flat sides on fins is a quick way out of the foiling process. Fish, birds and cetations don’t have flat spots on them so I’m not making any flat fins.
In the end everyone will have their own opinion. It seems that’s why Swaylocks was created. Thanx Mike. Enough said.
An awesome foil is a rare thing indeed, but having made a handful of fins over the last few years (a dozen? probably, most of em ended up useless, agreed…) I dare say I can now make a fin the works and is fun to use, not as good as awesome fin but fun and functional nonetheless. For those who would consider it, get your dust mask, your angle grinder and give it a shot, it’s funky yo ride a board you made with fins you made… anyone ever make their own leash and wetsuit? Wow, a fully home-grown set up…
As for the flat bits, on keels I’ve seen lots of flat spots by various manufacturers, I couldn’t avoid them completely on the ones I’ve made either, such a long base is a b&tch to foil… they still work well though, waaaaayy better than a imperfect foil which has a dip in it!!
As for the inside foil, I’ve recentlystarted adding a slight foil to the leading edge of my keels but have wondered about fully foiling, shallow foil, on the inside… Is it worth the hassle? gonna make some fin blanks this weekend so would be a good one to try…
On the industry side… Some materials require machine foil I thought? G-10 epoxy?
On the industry side.. Some materials require machine foil I thought? G-10 epoxy?
No. G10 is just a high modulus epoxy with standard glass. It foils the same, just a little slower. Same for carbon fiber with a high modulus epoxy. Don’t use standard surfboard resins if you want to take advantage of the carbon and epoxy combo.
Keep at the foiling…a lot of enlightment comes from making and riding fins on short enough boards.
A single foiled fin is remarkably good when the flat side is the high pressure side, and not so bad when the flat side is the low pressure side.
A concave is better on the high pressure side, but much worse on the lower pressure side.
They’ve measured some leopard shark pec fins, when the shark is rising the bottom is concave and high pressure…when the shark is descending the bottom is FLAT and low pressure. Look it up…
A large issue in comparing nature’s foils with those on our boards is that nature’s foils TYPICALLY alter their rake, toe-in, cant, AND foil to suit the situation. On surfboards so far only the toe-in can be made to vary, so considerations in making “the best” fin for the situation are a little different.
That foil is typical of all of our fins. The fins that Wingnut,Johnny Rice,Mikey Detemple,Gerry Lopez,Rusty,CI, or myself surf on come off the same stock shelf your fin came off of. I only take fins off the shelf for myself. I only make high quality handmade fins. Some time we make mistakes but we always stand behind are product. We have less than a .01% return of product.If you want a fin without a flat spot I make a Wingnut Sweep in the fat foil (3/4’’ thick) for $99.00 retail. I have tested and have had tested fins with and without flat spots and have found no difference in performance. We travel at such slow speeds surfing and are turning consantly that even a “perfect” fin would not make a difference. We have made thousands of sailboard fins so we know how to make a "perfect’’ foil. But they sold for $90-$100. Windsurfers were willing to pay for the extra foiling time and added materials. The standard sailboard fin was 45 layers of 7.5 oz glass. The standard surf fin is 30 layers. Resin these days is $20 per gallon. What people don’t realize is these fins come from a solid panel and not a mold. Here is a breakdown on the costs of your $65.00 fin.
materials and labor $14.00
Rainbow $14.70
Wingnut $1.00
Rep $3.30
Retail Shop $32.00
We work really hard for that $14.70 and I haven’t paid medical, (which I pay for all my full time employees=$200-$400 each) workmans comp,electricity, rent and the list goes on.
Then I have to compete with Bahne and True Ames that get 90%+ of their production from China.We are currently getting 15% (mostly the honeycomb stlye fins)from China.
I will gladly take your fin back if you are not satisfied. I understand that you were only asking a question about the foil.
Here is my # 831-728-2998
Shawd Dewitt
P.S. Hey Rich,
I am always looking for a good foiler.Why don’t you call me.
Trouble with the foiling scene is that I’m a plumber. I know I can’t make plumber’s wages foiling (-; can I? LOL. I can’t find time right now to do stuff for myself, and the few that are waiting for custom work, let along come down and work for you mate. Sorry. Thanx for the invite though.
Next time I’m down San Andreas road I’ll drop by and check you out. No waves, might as well or maybe just go fishin’. Keep grindin’ mate.
Not suprising to me to see Larry as the first guy to respond to Shawd. Larry knows all too well the cost and work that goes into a handmade fin. I think it requires an asessment of what the market wants, what it’s willing to pay, and how to get as close to achieving that as is affordably possible. I’m sure not too many people knew how many layers it takes to make that fin, or how much a roll of 7.5 ounce glass runs. In the old days you could afford to do a thicker panel, and grind off all that excess without a care in the world. Nowadays you have alot more overhead to consider with workmans comp, waste etc… but it’s good to know that if you really want a full foil with no flat whatsoever…you can get it. The added cost is nominal IMO if a certain foil is what your after. Standing behind your product is commendable as well. Nice post Shawd!
Thank you very much for replying! I kind of hoped that someone from Rainbow would chime in. This is exactly what I love about the Swaylocks community.
My first introduction to anything other than your typical longboard fin was one of your fins, a Wingnut Cutaway, and I loved it. I still do! I saw the rake on the wingnut sweep, and thought it might catch less kelp than the cutaway which my girlfriend is using, as it has some nice rake. When it came, I noticed the flat sides and was concerned that it might hurt performance. However, I didn’t want to take it out and find out through trial and error, so I posted here. Glad to know that it is to spec, and that the spec is known to not decrease performance. I’m keeping the fin, and if there are problems, I will come to you first next time!
Thanks also for the price breakdown. I gladly paid the $65, and don’t begrudge you for a second the price. Glad that wingnut gets a buck every time someone buys a fin with his name on it!