Coming from a surfing background Ive always tweaked with my surf gear, shaving fins, adding different fin box positions, trying wild fin combos, modifying rail profiles. I find I get alot of insight into the subtle nature of the gear by doing this.
Has anyone experimented with modifying front wings? changing the profile of the leading edges, tapering tips, thinning out the top thickness of the wing, adding tip dams, adding more carbon to the trailing edge of the foil etc? I know people chop tails and sometimes wing tips. I figure Ill prob outgrow my cab stuff at some point and instead of selling it off for pennies was thinking what would be cool ways to experiment with it. Could I sand down the rear underside of the wing to add some camber? Anyone do these sorts of irreversible experiments to older gear? Good/bad experiences?
There’s not a lot carbon before you hit foam, so it’s like reshaping a surfboard. Changing the template isn’t too hard, but changing the foil will be a horror show. If I were to try it, I’d leave the fuse area and non lifting side alone. Tape an outline on the lifting foil side and grind cut the area I wanted to thin out. Then peel it off, fill and shape. Then glass over the area and any template changes. Then gel coat it so it’s not quite so hideous. If you don’t already have board shaping materials, you’re looking at $300 min in materials not including power tools, respirator,etc. Give it a try and document your progress!
I was always under the impression there were several layers of carbon just by the mass of the foil. Was thinking along the lines of thinning out the leading edge for more speed less drag. Or ever so slightly cupping the bottom of the wing more for more lift. Possibly even adding some resin to the nose to sharpen up the leading edge. Those sorts of tweaks. But definitely not anytime soon I guess. Im still using these wings and def enjoying them. My mind just starts imagining all the possible minor tweaks that could be made to a foil to affect different ride properties. Maybe in a year or two I will decide to really hack into them tho.
That’s sort of how we got modern foils. Alex Aguera was reshaping stuff with hot glue and epoxy to thicken up and sanding down to reshape.
I wouldn’t change anything about the leading edge or the bottom. Too much change in the foil. What you can do is chop the edges off, better in roll, less drag due to narrower wingspan. Or chop the trailing edge to make the foil more high aspect.
Or just mess with your tails and leave your front foil alone. Huge changes.
Always wet sand. 80grit goes through a layer of carbon in a few strokes. The outer weave layer (and any clear coats over it) is mostly cosmetic and adds very little to structural strength. Removing even just 0.5mm top and bottom could make a real difference. I would not try change the foil section.
Don’t chicken out now
Agree with this. TE chop will also have lower risk of hitting core material. I recently cut 5 to 10mm off a stab TE. I was going to sand down the rear third of the profile to make TE sharp again, but tested it first with the blunt TE. Shocked to find it worked perfectly, was significantly faster and looser and only had slight noise. Made me consider doing hhe same on front wings…
The thing with these v1 cab 800, 1000, and 1200 is they all have the same wing span but just shorter trailing edges from each other. But yeah maybe make the 1000 closer to 900 and the 800 cloaer to 750 eventually by removing more trailing edge . That would be cool
what would tapering the width of the trailing edge to be more like a cloud nine wing do? make it turn better?
I learned a lot from this thread, but I will say that foil section design is extremely complex, and the one thing I did learn is that by making the leading edge sharper you will cause pressure spikes that will ruin the performance. Remember the angle changes. Mess with the foil section at your own risk as you’ll likely make it worse (unless you have a theory, and are making changes at the trailing edge)
What you can do is change the planform with relatively low risk. Chop the tips.
Also changing angles is very productive, baseplate shim, tail shim, front wing shim if you can.
Haha that sounds fun! I was thinking of experimenting ventilation dams something similar to fone 7 seas foil but turbicles sounds more intriguing. Do you mean like those older takuma foils? 650 could be
Also tapering the trailing edges so the tips are much narrower, take more material as you move towards the tips.
When you look at photos of whales turbicles they dont look very symetrical. I wonder how easy it would be to add them without needing to be too precise. And could you make turbicles by sanding away at the foil or would it be an addative process of layering on cf and then smoothing it out? I suppose there isnt enough material to simply sand away to male turbicles.
That sounds easy enough for ventilation dams. And harmless enough that if they dont work I can take them off easily. Now I just need to work on my turns to get the tips out
That would be cool 
