How to Make a Custom Freestyle Fin for Your Windsurf Board.

Cutting down your fin is often considered a kind of “right of passage” along the road to the Nirvana of windsurfing freestyle. Today we’re going to look at how to do it as we convert an old (and fairly well worn out) wave fin into a short custom freestyle fin.


Why is a short fin useful? The super short fins used by freestylers allow them to slide thru the spinney rotational moves like Spock 540s without catching and tripping the board. The downside is that they give less lift and may make the board less easy to carve for the more “old school” tricks like carving 360s.



Since getting my Tabou freestyle board I’ve started trying to do Vulcans. At the moment I’m at the point that I can get the pop and start to get some rotation but then either land across the wind and  trip or go flying “out the back door” .Alternatively I sometimes land and the board somehow slews back to the original direction ( so it just looks like a dodgy downwind pop ! ). I hope that by using a smaller fin I should be able to carry on sliding, continue that rotation and be able to start working on the hand change. Perhaps I should continue with my existing 21cm fin because it’s not excessively large. But hey, I’ve got on old fin that hasn’t been used in years and I fancy experimenting.



How short ? Most production dedicated freestyle fins seem to be 18cm but I’ve seen people using fins cut off shorter. I could just cut off the boards existing fin to 18cm but I don’t want to risk messing up a perfectly good fin for this experiment and potentially have to fork out 80€ on a brand new fin if I don’t like the results. So I’m going to cut down an old 19cm wave fin. The idea is to remove the trailing back section and round it off to an elliptical tip. I’ve marked out my design in pencil on the fin and once I’ve removed the trailing section of fin (to improve tracking when sliding backwards)  I reckon I’ll probably end up with a 16cm fin ! This is slightly shorter than I would have liked but it’ll be an interesting experiment.  I’m really thinking that If I can still get up wind with such a small fin and carve and pop ok then even if I end up buying a production freestyle fin from someone like Tarifa Fin Company then at least I’ll be doing so in the confidence that the fin will be big enough (something that worries me a bit at this stage – even tho I am using my existing 21.5cm fin with sails up to 6.5m whereas most freeride boards come with a 35cm fin for use with this size of sail, the step down to 18 or less still seems pretty drastic)



Why an elliptical tip ? A lot of freestylers seem to just cut their fins off strait and leave it that way. In fact that’s what the previous owner did when he cut down the fin which came with the board from 23cm to 21.5cm. But all the professional designs I’ve seen have rounded or elliptical tips ( check out MFC , K4 or Tarifa Fin Company fins and you’ll see what I mean ) . I think that this is to reduce turbulence especially when the board is carving and drag. Apart from rounding the tip off I’m also going to thin the tip off for the same reasons and to hopefully reduce unwanted “spinout”. I think that one good thing about cutting down already short fin is that the chord thickness is fairly narrow whereas if you cut down a longer slalom fin you have the advantage of a more vertical foil (early planning) but the fin ends up very thick and stiff. I’ve also noticed that both K4 and Tarifa fin company freestyle fins are swept back anyway compared with the MFC freestyle pro (which is pretty much the industry standard). So hopefully this will work out ok.

                           A "Proper" Freestyle fin from the Tarifa Fin Company 


So enough of the theorising and procrastination. Let’s get down to work !



Step 1 – Mark out the fin and cut it down.



Two straight hacksaw cuts get rid of the bulk of the material. A couple more cuts and we have the basic shape.

 Step 2 – Round off the outline and thin down the tip of the fin

First we round off the outline with sandpaper backed with a plywood block, and then we mark the centreline of the foil with a pencil line to help keep everything symmetrical as we thin down the tip. We then use coarse then fine grade sandpaper to give the fin the desired profile. NB. I have actually done a fair bit more sanding since this photo was taken but unfortunately forgot to take another photograph of the finished fin.

Step 3 – Seal the fin

Since this is an old fibreglass fin I decided to seal the bare fibreglass with superglue. A G10 fin wouldn’t need this final stage. The bared material is painted with several coats of superglue. We then leave it to cure fully overnight before sanding the surface smooth with 240 grit sandpaper.

Step 4 - Go Windsurfing !

Hey presto a new custom freestyle fin! Looks like it’s going to be windy this weekend so I’ll be able to check it out and report back.

                  Another "Proper" Freestyle fin this ones from K4 Fins in the UK 

How to Re-Grout Bathroom Tiles

This month we’re back in the bathroom to re-grout the shower cubicle. When we moved into this flat it had already been modernised a few years previously and the bathroom is in pretty good order. The only thing which lets it down is that the grouting between the mosaic tiles in shower cubicle was in a pretty bad way. Large sections of the grouting were missing and what remained was pretty well yellowed. Fixing this up is a quick and easy job which will give the bathroom a new lease of life.




Step One – Surface Preperation

The first step is to remove the loose / ageing grout. To do this we first spray the grouting liberally with a lime scale removing cleaning product (In this case Cilit Bang) and leave it to sit for about 15 minutes  (about 3 times the time recommended for the normal use of this product)



Now we scrub the grouting vigorously with a large scrubbing brush and rinse down thoroughly with clean water. This removes any loose grout and cleans up what remains. At this point it becomes clear that the mosaic tiling of the bathroom ids actually large tiles with grooves moulded in them which are then filled with grout to give the appearance of a mosaic. This is obviously a lot easier to install than a real mosaic and looks really good once the grout is in place.



Next we let the wetted surfaces dry thoroughly overnight.

Step Two – Apply Grout

Now we are going to apply the new grout. This needs to be mixed thoroughly with water in a suitable recipient following the maker’s instructions. Typically 3 parts grout (or white cement) to one part water. You will probably need somewhere between 1 and 2 kg to re-grout a shower booth.



We apply the grout generously to the tiles making sure we more than fill all the grooves with grout. You should only apply grout to about 1 square metre at a time. Then we remove the excess with the rubber float. Note: The float should always be moved in a diagonal direction in order to leave the channels between the mosaic tiles filled by grout. Repeat this process until the entire shower booth has been grouted.



Next we take a dampened sponge or cloth and gently wipe along the lines of grout to give a nice u shape profile between the tiles. We now leave everything to fully dry for about 8 hours,



As the grout dries it will leave a slight haze on the tiles. This haze can be removed by buffing the tiles with a rough, clean rag once it is dry (minimum eight hours – according to manufacturer’s instructions). Don’t worry if there is areas where excess grout has remained stuck to the tiles, this is a pretty common occurrence – especially if it’s your first attempt at grouting and can be easily remedied.



Step 3 – Remove any excess grout and polish the tiles



How to remove any excess grout from porcelain tiles



The next day we can proceed to remove any excess grout which was inadvertently left stuck to the tiles (don’t worry there always seems to be some that you overlook and it’s easy to fix).



I’ve heard of people using mild acids or vinegar solutions to do this. Personally I’ve had great success using a scotchbrite green plastic scourers backed by an off cut of plywood to clean the grout off using the same lime scale cleaner that I used at the start of this process. Just apply a little of the cleaner to the tiles than scrub gently in a circular motion till the excess grout is removed and rinse thoroughly with water. Hey presto a total of about 4 hours work (spread over 3 days) and the shower room looks like new !

Fixing up a cheap electric guitar so it plays like a more expensive one !

A friend of mine called me up last week to ask if I’d take a look at a guitar for him. Apparently his girlfriend had bought him a cheap Stratocaster copy online for his birthday but the guitar was totally unplayable. He was pretty stressed because he didn’t want to tell his girlfriend that she’d wasted her money!!

To be honest I was surprised how bad the guitar was! I understand that it was very cheap, but it was truly unplayable. I was especially surprised since it is a Yamaha guitar, albeit their most budget model. I’ve played several Yamaha guitars over the years and they’ve always been good instruments. In fact I have an old Yamaha Pacifica as a reserve electric guitar. Actually this guitar was so bad that I suspect that is probably a factory second or a knock –off copy or such being sold online by an unscrupulous dealer.

Whatever, in the end it only took a couple of hours work to get it playing pretty well (in fact once I’d finished with it I had it pretty much set up to the same specs that Fender set their guitars up to when they leave their factory !) Anyway, here’s how we fixed her up.

First of all I tuned the guitar to pitch and tried to play her. Terrible, even with the strings set pretty high from the fret-board it buzzed and rattled and at some frets totally fretted out.

My first step was to try and straighten the neck using the truss-rod. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the truss-rod worked and that I could get the neck almost totaly straight under string tension. In fact you never really want a totally straight neck on a guitar, a slight relief is necessary to allow for the curve of the vibrating string. Most importantly, the neck wasn't twisted ( a twisted neck can often be fixed , but its a lot more work).

So now with the neck acceptably straight I proceeded to check the frets to see if they were level. A quick check with my Stew Mac fret gauge showed that the frets had never been levelled or dressed in the factory. (Note: This is hardly a surprise with such a cheap guitar; even fairly expensive guitars need to be taken to a Luthier to have the frets dressed if they are to play at their best.) It also showed up the reason why the guitar was unplayable: Frets 2 and 19 where ridiculously high, to the extent that I thought that maybe they weren’t correctly seated, they where. Actually I suspect that the other frets had been inserted with too much pressure and for some reason these 2 frets had stayed high.

This photo shows how we check the frets for level, we test 3 frets at a time - if the middle fret is high then the guage rocks, if not it stays firm. Please note that this photo is taken on a different guitar and with the strings removed.

Step 1 – Level the frets.



Since this guitar ( as is the case with most Stratocaster copies) has a screw on neck. The first thing to do is remove the neck (actually the first step is to remove the strings then the neck). Next we remove the plastic nut and re-straighten the neck sighting down the fingerboard with a straight edge. (Note: we want the neck as straight as possible at this stage). Guitar fret-boards are normally made of a hardwood like maple, rosewood or ebony. In this case I noticed that the fret-board was made of a softer wood dyed black to look like ebony. This is probably why the frets were so bad.

Once the neck is removed and straight I tape off the fingerboard with masking tape to protect it while I level the frets. Many luthiers use a metal file mounted on a wooden handle like the one in the photo below to do this. I find I get better results more quickly using a metal spirit level with sandpaper stuck to it. This has the advantage that it is almost as long as the guitar neck so it helps prevent you from sanding more in one place.

First I concentrate on numbers 2 and 19 (always working in the direction of the strings line and checking for level and profile) to quickly bring the two high frets down. Once the 2 rogue frets are about the right height I ink up all the frets with a marker pen and then work very carefully to maintain the correct profile. If you work carefully you should just need to keep sanding until the ink has just started to be removed from the lowest fret . At this point all the frets should be at the same height. We check with the straight edge, until we are totally happy that the frets are levelled.



Step 2 – Re profile the frets



Guitar frets are a half moon section. But the levelling process will have caused them to be flattened off. Flat frets rattle and play out of tune. So the next step is to round the frets off using a special small file with a rounded face (see photo). Whilst doing this you should keep checking that you maintain the correct fret-board radius using the plastic radius gauges (mine came off e-bay). Once the frets have been rounded off you should polish them up using different grades of emery cloth, wire wool and finally metal polish.





Step 3 – Neck back on



Once we’re happy with the fret job, we remove the masking tape, replace the nut and bolt the neck back on to the guitar. At this step I check the neck angle using the straight edge and find that it’s not as it should be. This is easy to fix on this type of guitar using card shims in the neck joint.



Step 4 – Final setup



Next we string the guitar up with a new set of strings ( I prefer ernie ball 10 guage) and bring them up to pitch. She’s already starting to play better, no buzzing or choking strings. But the action is still high, so we adjust the neck relief with the truss rod and the individual saddle heights using Allen keys.



Step 5 – Play and enjoy



Considering how cheap this guitar was, I was very pleased with how it played once we’d fixed it up. If the guitar were mine I’d probably have made a new nut for it too which would have seen yet more improvement.