My story and fins

The first surfboard I owned I made and, I made the fin for it too. In 7th grade wood shop. It was made of mahogany wood and had a Maltese cross cut out in it. Since it was 1963/64 it was a 'D' fin. Like all the other surfboards of the day.

I don't remember how I foiled that first fin. I don't remember laminating it on my surfboard either. With all the experience I have making surfboards now and knowing the fining process it's hard to imagine how I pulled off getting that first fin on that first surfboard, I didn't have anyone to show me how. Somehow I managed.

All the other surfboards I made while a teenager with me little surfboard business had glass on fins too. I wish I could remember where I got the fins for those early surfboards. Did I make them, buy them?

It wasn't until 1967 when I went to work for Morey-Pope the I got exposed to the removable fin.  Morey had one of the first removable fin systems back then with several fin shapes. The system gave you the opportunity to change your fin and see how your surfboard responded with a different shape fin.

The Morey fins were made of polypropylene. It was possible to reshape some of those polypropylene fins too. So I'd experiment with fin shapes of my own by reshaping a few of the fin shapes that were available at the time.

When we started making our boards shorter the old long board fins were replaced with new fin shapes that worked for the shorter boards. All my early short board fins we made by laying up fiberglass panels. Then cut and foiled a fin from the panel then glass the fin on the board. It was a big process and a fare amount of work.

I'd forgotten how much work goes into making a surfboard fin by hand. It all came back to me this past week when I glued up some wood, cut out and hand foiled the fin for my new Model 50 surfboard. It's a 'D' fin like the one I made for my first surfboard. 

D.R.