Yeah all you are doing is changing front foot height in relation to the back foot. Basically adjusting deck rocker.
So I’m riding a V1 kalama board with code foil. I’m already push the mast all the way forward. When I’m riding, I putting a lot of back foot pressure. Where I my back foot is getting pretty tired from it. I have another board where the track is parallels with the deck don’t have the same use. Wondering if shimming it with thick side in the back ( more lift) will help with it or the track box is just too far back. I have 3d printer so I guess I can print a few different one to try
It’s more than just foot height. It changes how the foil ENGAGES on take in COMBINATION with the rocker. So it can make a board take off way better or worse.
Again, you need to try all the different shim combinations before you really know if you can make the board work better, with the rocker you’re stuck with, and the foil you ride.
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Let’s say you have a neutral 0° AOA foil .. .and the board is too 0°
Thick part of the shim back, and you’ll point your foil closer to the nose, increasing low end and front foot pressure.
Thick part forward, you’ll reduce the early take off and your foil will be further away from nose of the board, increasing control at top speed.
Tail shiming, fuse length, mast positioning, all those will also play a role in carving, pitching, balance of the feet pressures etc… But shimming the mast will mostly be for earlier take off vs high speed control.
All this is what I’ve experienced. I use only 0.5 and 1°
Some mast already have this rake and shims corrects it or super amplify, say Takuma or old AFS mast have 1° rake and shimming 1° will either correct or amplifly to 2°.
AFS new masts are 0° but the race one 97cm is 2° rake included, so for racing this gives you an idea that a lot of AOA is needed for high speeds control
Hope this helps
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Huh? I read this 3 times. I’m trying to visualise this but having the thick end of the wedge at the front of the foil would make the foil further away from the nose or pointed down into the water rather than up towards the surface of the water???
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Oh god .. yeah.. I’m gonna edit and correct it… Sorry
Thick part back is foil and nose of board closer and looking at each other
Thick part forward is gonna separate foil from nose of the board.
Sorry for the confusion
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I will agree with you that baseplate shimming has two distinct effects whether the board is in the water or you are actually foiling. But I have never considered tuning any part of my setup to make it take off better if it doesn’t also make it ride better while foiling. I spend 95% of my time foiling and 5% in takeoff so why focus on the 5%?
The board I’m riding now has a significant amount of bottom rocker which allows me to change the aoa of the foil (while the board is in the water) by simply changing my fore\aft balance on the board. This makes baseplate shimming sort of pointless as I can achieve the same effect with a very small change in balance. I.e. move forward a little and it’s like shimming the front of the mast down, move back a little and it’s like shimming the back of the mast down. A board with very flat rocker won’t have as distinct an effect on aoa because it won’t change pitch angle as much. I expect most people who find baseplate shimming necessary or advantageous are riding boards with very flat rocker lines.
But again, once you’re up and foiling, the shim is simply adjusting front foot height in relation to the back foot.
In my case, I bought the shim pack to raise my front foot. What surprised me, was the effect it was also having on take off. So I got my foot raised, then dialed shims in 0.25 increments to further refine take off. It was fun and it taught me a lot.
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with my fone foil and my old armstrong foil on non brand board , what i noticed is no shim can sometime kind of work with winging but you will get some weird effect like , like foot change is messed up , ride is super unstable hard to keep at speed , board can become instable in taxi too, very hard to take off , sometime you have the adverse effect even with shim forward past a certain point .
Those small flaw can become huge in surf foil as there is no wing to compensate or to hold on too.
like fsm said even a .25 or .15 can make a huge difference, i did some test on dockstarting with a friend and he was shocked how little a stab shim can make a huge difference in the way the foil acting.
base plate shimming is definitively crap and it better to go on a foil that do that what you want, some brand playing between each foil each generation of foil sometime :
- some are more neutral fone sk8 for exemple
- some are front footed fone phatom
- some are back footed fone seven seas v1
After years of playing with base plate shim ( not really playing but more like frying my brain) , personnaly i think you are better with the brand board , the whole combo board and foil on a setup that not perf than a cool foil on a wonky setup, you will progress way faster if you dont have to tune anything and if your gear is not acting up, you can definitly even loose lift power pump power in wing or prone, pearling at take off in prone it’s a loss on all counts .
Some mixed stuff can match but dont be the one that buy the wrong board for the foil exept if you have cash to burn, time to spend .
Im looking at three thing now :
- does the brand have board and foil surf foil / wing foil for my weight ?
- is the techno / durability / price good ?
- is the resell value good ?
if all check out i buy.
ps : if you are willing to play with shiming it’s mandatory to get yourself a 3d printer with some petg filament and a good knowledge of fine tuning a printer , 3d software with autocad fusion 360 and a free slicer, a template of your usbox + top plate thickness to cut the screw at the right lenght for your shimming on the thick part.
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