RealSurf Surfers' Forum

I'm not sure if I'm just out of touch, but went to the local surf shops to check out some new boards today. Prices around $700-$900 and fins are extra! When did this happen ? You wouldn't buy a new car without wheels! Sure the dude in the shop had a number of reasons to justify it, but looks like another scam to me? Is this the norm now ?

It's a quandary for manufacturers - it was indeed unheard of not so long ago, to sell a board without fins.

The problem is this - the mainstream brand fins which come inclusive in the sets of plugs for manufacturers are poxy plastic rubbery shite.

So loads of experienced surfers who come in for a board literally tell me "Don't bother sending me the rubber fins, they're not worth their weight in dogturds."

Consequently I have a box full of plastic dog-turds. I since changed to an Australian made plug brand which gives the option of buying plugs without fins.

I imagine many shops have a cupboard full of those plastic fins. They're really good for added incentive to buy for an entry-level board...like "wow, free fins!"

But if you're the type who would immediately step up to mags, you'll leave those bog-standard pressed steel rims there in the show-room.

Likewise, if shops automatically supplied the better variety of fins with an off-the-rack board, two things would happen -

1) - It would be factored into the price. (The difference between the molded dogturds and the fancy multi-coloured hard-on fins is significant even at wholesale, with dogturd sets mustering a whole $15 or less.)

2)- You would complain that they're wrong for your board! With so many variations on fin templates and construction available, the shops want it to be up to you to choose, rather than give you an expensive mis-matched set inclusive in a board price.


So somewhere, someone has a Philipino garbage-tip-sized pile of plastic fins...you probably only have to ask.

JD

what he said.


once you try hand foiled fins you'll never go back.

although it does open a huge can of worms.

I recently got rid of a set of those cum coloured dog turd fins, gave em to a bloke who was using those flexible black palstic dogturds that come with tufflites. he loves em.

How'd your new toy pirate fin come out, spork? Can you turn out steve's favourite lure too, and are they in a good plastic, utility wise.

Just a plug at this stage daz, but yeah very good. Lure? Yes, no problem, just need the dims. ABS plastic, stronger and not as brittle too. Pics soon.

There's a nanometre scale miniature statue of liberty pic in a physics mag, so accuracy must be not a problem.

Yeah, down to 100 microns with our printer and its a low end model.

daryl wrote:There's a nanometre scale miniature statue of liberty pic in a physics mag, so accuracy must be not a problem.

How'd they measure the full scale one?

Ah, don't mind me. Figured out you meant that you can print to nm scale, not that it was an accurate replica to the nm scale.

...." show us your fins , show us your fins" , the crowd yelled .....

but just not the "plasticy dog turd ones" , okay ?!

Looks interesting

Looks conflicted.

Looks like the fin a bloke in Manly (presumably the inventor) used to have on display in his front yard.

They used em on windsurfers, used to call em Kangycocks.

bobby owens used the boomerang back fin in hawaii in the 1980s . windsurfers, maybe earlier

'hockey stick fins' , i wanted to make , after seeing curren rip on a set of three in the video [yep video] 5'5 x 19 1/4"

Bobby was awesome. Still is.

I used to paddle out at Sunset and watch him turn in the centre of the peak and do these no-paddle takeoffs - like he would push his board down the face under the lip and just stand up as the board fell into midair. He had the situation that wired.

He and Harold Ige experimented for at least a couple of seasons in the mid-80s with the boomerang fins, didn't try to sell anyone else on them ( that wasn't the spirit of the times) but Bob always seemed to have it handled.