cool nothing better that have a good feeling on a board you think and make. i am with you with the vee bottom love. on my last one, thicker and flatter than ever for paddle power because of crowd at my winter mellow spot, i do a light vee nose to tail with edge rail nose to tail to keep thinner rails and realase and i like the feel in those bigger mellow bumpy waves, take off early, feel free with more speed on flat, easier to cut back and i can still tighter my bottom as much as i need, no more pro turns like i done sometimes when i was younger, but i rarely fall nowadays, experienced Lol.
Congrats! Superb finish and a nice looking board, which does ride, as you intended it to be.
“Feel safe and confident” That exactly the same, I want from my next board, which will have a vee bottom too. Why hassle with concaves and flat bottoms if you (here better “I”) if you are unable to ride it like a pro?
A little bit slower, more controllable, which actually helps you to get into the waves easier, a design that helps, especially since we are no young guns anymore…
Great work. Love the whole thing.
All the best
Yes. I have a 6" and a 4" center fins and will make some fins in the 5"-5.5" size range.
Will combine those with different sidefins.
Need more approriate waves to test those setups. Hoping for some decent waves in france in spring.
For me it depends on the conditions.
The last two days of the holiday had nice glassy swell, sets coming in chest high on thursday, shoulder to headhigh on friday.
Long runners, no chop.
Took my 6.4 asym minilog (single concave) and my 6.3 MR/octafish inspired twin (single to double, deepish bonzer kind) out.
Loved the speed and the lively feeling of those boards in these small funny waves.
Horses for courses…
Pictures from thursday.
Looks like a great design as a step up. And good on ya for hotwiring your own blank. Pain in the ass isn’t it? Rocker looks to have turned out nice.
Glass it 6 bottom, 6/4 deck to put a bit of weight on it for momentum and stability in bigger waves as this will be ridden in.
Nice collection of hand shapes by the way!
I really don´t mind hotwiring my own blanks.
Of course, it´s not the fastet way. (making masonite rocker templates takes as long as the cutting itself)
But as I´m only building boards for myself, time simply doesn´t matter.
Sometimes I hotwire “quick and dirty” with a bigger/existing template that fits roughly. And then carve the desired rocker with the planer.
But that´s more mess and more noise. And our stairway from the basement to the rest of the house is open/without doors and I often work early in the morning or late in the evening. So keeping the mess and the noise to a minimum makes the wife happy. 
It´s been one year since I shaped the 7.5 board. And it became the board I use most of the time. I just love it in everything from shoulder high and above.
I even took it out in some belly high crumblers and had a lot of fun. I trims really nice, when I take a step forward.
It surfs different to the other boards I have, it draws different lines, offers me a different approach where I can take of and the bottomturns give me a sensation that my other boards don´t.
Long story short: I absolutely fell in love with this board.
The last couple of days I shaped a new iteration of that first board.
The main reason is I got the impression I´m learning with every board. Mayby I just trick myself. But I fell like my understanding grows a bit every time and my eyes now notice things I haven´t been able to notice a couple of boards ago. I´m far from getting good, but I think the lines are getting a little bit smoother and a little more consistent with every board.
So I just wanted to built a refined version.
The 7.5 has been Nr. 25, the new one is Nr. 37.
What I changed:
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I´ve slightly scaled it up from 7.5 x 20.5/8 to now 7.8 x 20.7/8, kept the thickness the same
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Thinned out the foil in the front a bit.
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Accellerated the tail rocker slightly
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Finsetup is now 4+1
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rails and foil are a bit refined, keeping the volume but hiding it a little bit more pleasant
I rode the 8.3*21.5 from my last post as a quad a couple of times and really liked the fin setup. So I went for the 4+1 setup on the new board.
What I didn´t like on the 8.3 was that it felt like a bit to much overall and a bit to wide in the nose for my taste (in winter beach breaks).
The 8.3 was simply a lot of board for me. I didn´t feel I need substantially more than the 7.5 for the size of waves I ride.
The 7.5 felt right regarding the nose planshape, but I think I might not need all the volume I´ve put in the foil. So kept the planshape, but I skipped the beak nose and wend for a thinner foil in the nose this time.
It took a bit of time to get used to how to turn the 7.5 in tighter arcs. (longest board I rode till then)
Usually I was able take off quite early and very often that meant maneuvering through the main crowd after my first bottom turn.
I hope with the more progressive tailrocker the 7.8 will handle as well or even slightly better.
Anyhow, that´s what the new shape looks like.
I hope I find a bit of time to start glassing next week.
I cut my blanks from EPS blocks. Those are only apr. 7’ long, hence the glue line in the tail.
Apologies for the chaotic battlefield when installing the finplugs. Trying to align the singlefin box and the quads all in one go resulted in a workspace that looks a bit messy.
Thanks for all the tips and advice you are offering here, in other topics and even in personal messages and emails.
It is a big help and a big inspiration. I often go back through the messages, read them again and try to incorporate what I´ve been told into the next shape.
Addendum:
I´ve been to Cornwall again in spring and and autumn with that board.
Spring had really nice clean and powerful swell, Autumn delivered some nice stormy sessions. Good fun.
I don´t have actions shots, just a couple of random pictures my wife took with the mobile phone.
Sadly no pictures from the bigger days.
The last picture is not taken by me and the surfer is not me. But I´ve surfed that wave on that day and it was really good fun. We had a couple of days with waves like that an our holiday.
That’s great, I always feel like a ride report and a beach shot are the icing on the cake for a build thread. The board looks clean and functional. What fin configurations are you riding, just curious if you are trying all the posibilities. I know I rarely do, but I should. I tend to find something I like, and stop there. I like the feel of quads also. Great thread, hope to see more pics of the newest iteration.
I like shaping/surfing those type of boards.
The pulled in nose puts more curve in the middle.
I’ve got a couple 8’x 20-5/8" boards one has flat bottom contours and the other has V.
I’m playing around with adding a bit more rocker in the middle, cause I’m pretty light
And I’ve discovered that I like them best foiled with the thickness ahead of center
I still have to glass them. So it’s too early to say how they work
I’d call that board a success by any measure. Congrats.
Thank you for the comments.
The 7.5 board had a 2+1 setup. I tried a couple of single fins around 8"-8.75" and quite a lot of combinations of different center fins 5"-7" with different side fins. In the end I had a clear winner for me, that was a stiff 7" single (similar to a true ames bonzer fin) and sidefines from a small sized thruster set.
On the second board (the 8.3) I liked the quads.
But the feeling is different from the 2+1. There are days I want the quad felling and other days I want the 7" center + sidefines. So this will be the two setups I use.
On my weight/size: I’m 6’4 and 195 lbs. Those boards don’t feel very big for me.
Here’s an 8’0" X 20-1/2" that I’m glassing right now
My asym that I’m going to try as a single fin and proceed to try other clusters on.
This will be the prototype for my other 2 boards of the same planshape. I gave this one some channels as I have liked SFs with channels in the past.
I need to figure out if the asymmetrical thing works for me… Never tried it before… It might make a better surfer out of me - or not.
I call these designs fun/guns. Having more width than a true gun gives them versatility.
I have a twinzer 7’8" X 20-1/2" that has a 13" squash tail and the fins create excellent drive to keep the board planing on the mushiest waves.
The twinzer fins create too much speed when it gets over head high.
My mission statement is to create a quiver of 2 boards that are identical in every way except for the bottom contours
Hoping that switching boards less will improve my surfing.
That 8’0" uses the same template on the heel side as my 7’8" with the wide point behind center, and on the toe side the template is a gun with the WP ahead of center.
(Something about the way the sun hits it distorts the shape on the heel side in the pic)
Both of the boards in the pics have some V in the back half with hard tucked rails in the back half and softer up front.
Twinzer fins like V.
I want to change that 7’8" to a C5 type cluster to improve versatility. With a C5 it’s possible to remove the small leading fins and change it to a tri-fin cluster.
Thanks for your post - 20-1/2" wide fun/guns - Good concept!
Great stuff Rajon. I’m really interested to hear what you think about the asym setup on those boards.
I build a lot of asymmetric boards and I really love them. They feel so natural to me. But I use it only on smaller/wider shapes. They really help with my bad backside surfing and for me it just feels better compared to a similar symmetric shape.
But with the longer boards and the pintails on those funguns I didn’t feel the need for an asymmetric shape for me. I like how these longer boards with narrow tails feel backside and frontside. But I always wondered how those funguns would feel as an asymmetric. I love what Tim Stafford does with his narbs. And there this asymmetric gun Matt Parker made for Michael Townsend which I really like.
Some of my asymmetrics, ranging from 5’4 to 6’4.
Most of them are B5 Bonzers or Twin+Quad.
MiWie - Nice!
Looks like quality work, from the clean shape to the gloss job.
I’ll be sure to let you know how the 8’0" performs. It might be a while before I can make a full evaluation.
My thinking is: Trying it as a single fin and seeing where the fin position is happiest in relation to the tail, going in either direction, should give me some clues as to where the fins should be located when I switch to a multi fin.
I’ve guessed at 1-1/2" difference, and put some boxes there before glassing, because that’s how much longer the tail is on the long side.
I don’t have much to go on as far as fin placement though.
The only thing I have is that i like how the 7’8" surfs backside as a twinzer, when it’s small.
It’s just got too much drive with those fins when it gets big-ish, and I end up out on the shoulder before I can make my next move.
I’ve never tried a quad. It seems like asyms prefer half of a quad cluster on one side.
If your fungun is symmetrical the C5 is a very versatile fin cluster.
For most of last summer, I surfed mushy waves and had fun doing basic maneuvers where the only thing most other guys were doing was cruising on longboards.
A C5 cluster consists of some 4-3/4" fins up front - With a 4" or 4-1/4" fin in the back when using it as a tri cluster - Or- When using it with the little C5 leading fins, replace the trailing fin with a 3" fin.
Also placement of the entire cluster is about 1/2" back from where you typically put it.
But if you want to experiment with an ordinary tri cluster, that works too. For best results, replace the trailing fin with something smaller.
With the little front fin there it helps create speed when you turn… So well, that it almost feels like you could surf on flat water by pumping it.
There may be a variation of that that will work with a quad cluster.
Or if you have a twin fin you can give it a try on that, also.
I just thought I’d bring that up in case you haven’t been informed on that. But your pics show a pair of fins with the trailing edge overlapping the leading edge, so you probably know already.
A couple of those little things are all you need
It makes it so you can generate enough speed, by turning, to keep a narrower board planing in tiny surf.
Works with V bottom, because that quickens rail to rail transition.
If you try it you’ll see what I mean… I’ll give you more detailed info if you want to
Keep up the good work - It’s good to see there’s some talent here!
Those asyms are really nice.
