We were blown away by the quality of entries we received during the second month of our We Make It Sic! competition powered by Bosch and Dremel. And although each and every submission was impressive and unique in their own right, after much consideration by the judges, Liam Bulgen’s Re-purposed Fin Systems have been selected as the second monthly winner.
One of Liam’s re-purposed fins, ingeniously crafted using stripped parts from a computer motherboard. Find out more about Liam’s fins here.
While Liam’s creativity and effort deservedly wins him the second leg’s monthly prize, that doesn’t mean to say that any of the other excellent existing entries, such as Daryl Stroebel’s Hand-Shaped Mini-Simmons or Dylan Coombe’s Hand-Shaped Retro Board, aren’t in the running for the grand prize.
Following in a similar line to Liam’s idea of home-made fins is October entrant, Andre Langedyk, who after much trial and error (and hours of online tutorial videos) has managed to produce his own range of beautifully hand-crafted and painted fins.
One of Andre’s favourite home-made fins to date – the “Ripper.”
We got Andre to give us some background on the process involved in creating these fins:
“Being a long boarder, I’ve noticed that there are quite a few creative boards out there with stunning artwork, but there’s a limited amount of creative fins, all shapes and sizes but nothing different. Having no idea how a fin is made, thanks to YouTube and various other internet sources, I managed to create my own fin. Being a shortcut type of guy, I’ve shaped my own fin by using an old broken fin, filled it up with fiberglass and resin until I got the shape I wanted. My introduction to fiberglass was quite itchy!”
A patriotic single-fin.
“Realising that there might be weak points in the build-up areas in the fin I created, causing it to be too weak to surf and endure the pressure on the fin, I made a two-piece mould from fiberglass. After numerous attempts and failures, I managed to get it right. This was a new challenge on its own.”
“It was quite educational learning about PVA, release wax, gelcoat, fiberglass and resin types. After successfully achieving the aforementioned, I could never get a perfect clear fin as the bubbles get trapped when the two pieces are put together. So to create a fin with colour and to hide the minute air bubble, I used colour pigment in the gelcoat. This came out nice but it also limited to the initial idea of creating something different, which brought me to the below end result as illustrated. Education number two, how to airbrush! Once again, thanks to the internet!”
The front and back designs of Andre’s ‘clockwork’ fins.
“I airbrushed an acrylic base coat on the fin and then created the artwork on it using airbrush and acrylic paint and stencils. Once I was happy with the end result, I clear coated the fin with fiberglass resin. After a few coats of clear resin, the fin is then sanded with 6 different grades of sandpaper and then polished with burnishing compound.”
“Although I make a few plain fins and some others, I’ve only included the below fins as they were the most challenging and the best result with my limited knowledge in the art of fin making. All the fins below have been done in the last six months and being used.”
The other side of the “Ripped” model.
Back to this month’s winner, Liam’s hard work earns him a Dremel trio kit to assist with future projects. There’s still plenty of time left with a grand prize of R30 000 worth of tools to be won in the three categories: Functionality, Innovation and Craftsmanship. So get creative because we wanna see you Make it Sic! Looking for some inspiration? There are plenty of excellent entries to check out and draw from right here.
The Dremel trio kit that Liam walks away with.
THE FINEPRINT:
• Any creation that is somehow surfing related is eligible.
• However, if your products are already a registered business venture you can’t enter it.
• The entries can be any material; plastic, metal, wood, glass, etc.
• Multiple entries are allowed.
• Entries must be submitted to comps@zigzag.co.za
• Contestants can submit as many photos or videos as they like.
• Only persons residing in South Africa may enter.
• Prize winners are limited to winning 1 prize category each.