Surfing Waves

Hey,

I recently bought this surf board from a garage sale, but I can't seem to find the suitable fins for it? The usual fins in the shops are usually the straight ones which you tighten up with the screw, but this board seems to only fit a T shaped fin so the screw holds the fin?

Any ideas?

Cheers

How heavy are you? Fins often corralate with user weight.

Those are fcs (now also referred to as fcs 1) plugs, will use two tab fcs modeled fins.

Is that that your first board? Tail shape and dims look like a semi gun step up designed for overhead+ waves ridden by good surfers who rock it down the line and go barrel hunting. Dependent on your age and weight and where you surf, that board might not work that great for you at this stage of your development.

But yard sales are yard sales....get some fins, watch a few videos on surf instruction basics and get wet. Just do it under the watch of a lifeguard, preferably with a friend.

I've only seen that fin system on one board before. I think it came from a shaper in Brazil. Our shop tried everything to make fins work, but no go. The board wasn't worth the price of installing 6 new plugs. What we ended up doing is super glued some cheap black plastic fins into the plugs.
Another thing you could do is tap a hole that faces inwards to the fin tabs ( in the center right across the "t" hole that is there. Take the grub screw to some machinist to find the right tap size.

Hahahaha....I don't have my glasses on and didn't open the photo....those are weird plugs so disregard what I said!

Thanks for the replies! I guess I'll just superglue some cheap fins to the board and that'll do for the weekend. And then maybe invest in a better board.

I went surfing last weekend and lost 2 fins in my first wave lol - but still ended up surfing for an hour, so the fins aren't that important haha

There maybe one more way you can make the fins removable. If I remember correctly, there were metal pins sticking out sideways, and the grub screw would tighten down on those pins. Maybe you could find drywall / wood screws that fit in that channel and screw them sideways into the tabs on plastic FCS fins.

Could you explain how you lost 2 fins on your first wave ? What type of board was it ? Maybe you shouldn't be buying boards until you can figure out the problem.

If you've got access to some drills and a tap you could easily make that work with normal FCS fins. Start with a small drill at a 45 degree angle. You'll have to put the drill deep in the chuck so it doesn't bend when you start the hole as you'll have to press firmly to stop it from slipping. Increase the size upto the tapping drill size for those grub screws. Tap your holes and you're away.

Alternatively, just take the board to an engineering shop. They'd only charge you a few dollars for an easy job like that.

I might just give it a go with a drill and see how I go. Again, I got the board from the neighbor for a little cash, so if it's not working with the drill, I can still use super glue and that should do the job for now. Again, it's just a board for when friends/family come up so they can play around a bit