Tim shapes surfboards under his Pure Life Surfboards label in Hawaii. He’s a fan of the bonzer style fin configuration/bottom contour. Here’s a board he’s shaped that he calls the Kona Green Machine. It’s a looker!:

Tim crafted the fins himself. A backlit shot that also shows off radical bonzer style concaves exiting the tail:

We’re not sure if Tim want’s his contact info blasted onto the internets for spam bots to harvest so you can drop us a line if you’d like to get in touch with him about custom shapes or fins. He also posts on Craig’s List Hawaii quite frequently so that’s another option for getting in touch.

RT, the great story teller behind the Warbles Blog, embarked on a neat project with Jeff Beck to make a custom 10″ narrow based flex fin. Get the full scoop here.

Also keep your eyes open on that page for a great post about a visit to Fibre Glass Fin Co.

The UDT fin is named for the Navy Underwater Demolition Teams. Historically, they and a number of military special operations units have used these fins to execute their waterborne/underwater missions.

These fins have an insane amount of power. Two major factors contribute to this. The first is simply the amount of surface area the blade of the fin has. The second consideration is the stiffness of the fin. To keep such a long blade relatively firm requires some serious structural support. Checkout the heavy duty siding the fin has:

As far as wave riding is concerned, the power of the UDT fin is really important for getting into bigger, faster moving waves:

This power also helps you make sections:

A good, powerful fin is helpful in other critical situations as well. Dive!:

The UDT fin is made out of Malaysian rubber, which is known as the best rubber in the world. The fins have a smokey smell to them which is a result of the wood fires used to remove any impurities from the material before it’s processed. This is a comforting surf equipment smell that fits into the same category as clean neoprene and freshly cured resin.

The UDT fin runs just a tiny bit wide/large in its sizing. If you have any questions about sizing, don’t hesitate to drop us a line.

The Lokbox-Mobile was on hand:
 

August in So. Cal. and the heat was in full effect. The sun was piercing and the air was more humid than usual for this part of the world. Not looking too good surf-wise in the photo below but there were some fun waves to be had earlier in the day (you can see a couple rippers in action on the 70 Percent blog):
 

Shawd and his family own and operate Rainbow Fin Co. up in the Santa Barbara area. They run a tight ship and are very good to their customers (clean performance fish shape by Ian Zamora):

Shawd shows off the new MR 80 quad-fin design by Rainbow Fin Co. We’re seriously stoked on these vibes. The easiest way to describe it is as a cross between the more upright canard quad style fin and a fuller traditional quad set up like the LB4-LB1 combo. You can especially see this blend in the rear fin. Full but more upright:

We can set you up with the MR 80 quad-fins:

This “slantback” template is his favorite keel fin design and is inspired by something that his fin making colleague/mentor Larry Gephardt came up with. According to Daniel: “You don’t want too much base on your keel otherwise the board can be too rigid. If you want to surf with that *gestures in a large rising and falling swooping motion* then this is the best fin”.

We’ve compared this fin with some other keels we have on hand and we can see the slant keeps a similar amount of surface area for drivey-ness but with the looseness that comes with a shorter base. So drivey but loose, just like a good fish ought to do.

Wood fins are nice because they float:

The layers of ply are like contours on a map. In this case they show off the lovely foiling that Daniel does:

We currently have Daniel’s slantback fins available:

I had a layover on some travels recently and was struck by how insane the finage on this 747 aircraft was. That tail fin is like 10 feet thick at the base! According to Wikipedia, the 747 cruises at Mach .85. That’s a lot of fin to push through the air at that speed. Of course at 30k+ feet in the air there’s not as much to hold you back. Still pretty crazy though. More info on the 747 here.

Bonus points for guessing which airport this is. There are a few pretty good clues in the background for those who know the area!

The Taylor Knox tri-fin set from Lokbox/Rainbow Fin Co. comes in both a 4.4″ and a 4.6″ fin (all three fins in a set are the same height). We haven’t actually tried these out yet but the name alone conjures up images of powerful, raw-some cutbacks!:

Fin Size & Construction	4.4″ Fiberglass4.4″ Procore4.6″ Fiberglass4.6″ Procore
Color	ClearSmoke