Marketing companies spend money trying to claim history that is not theirs and shops then sell you on the script because they are making money on both ends. But the consumer gets screwed and pays double for crap. I don't make this stuff up. Here is a press release by FCS 9 years ago on a Surf forum. Notice when you read the Bold Line down to the introduction about FCS FUSION they "STATE" in their opening statement we are not coping ProBox. But really after reading their post you would think they had a clue why the figure eight shape. They couldn't get that even right. This is one example of Bull!
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9 years ago #1
fcseast's picture
fcseast
Hello Swaylocks and Happy New Year to all!! I guess it is time we clear the air on what we (FCS) are up to and hopefully put an end to some of the speculation that's been on here recently regarding the new fin system we are releasing soon. Thanks to Solosurfer for breaking the news here on Swaylocks of our new Fusion System. Fusion is one of two new fin system products we will be launching soon.
Let me be very clear in saying that we will not be replacing our existing traditional FCS plug system with our new Fusion System. Fusion is simply another alternative we will be offering along side our traditional FCS plug system and Fusion was primarily designed for ease of use in EPS / Epoxy boards. I will give the full run down and reasoning behind Fusion later on in this post, but first I’d like to tell you about our new material upgrade plug, the X-2 Plug, that we will be launching this month (Jan.) here in the US.
Introducing the new X-2 Plugs:
About two years ago, we had a material upgrade and launched a new design for our plugs. We went from constructing our plugs out of PVC to Polycarbonate, which we found to help strengthen our chemical and mechanical bond (with the new design) while also making the plugs slightly lighter. Over the past two years, our Polycarbonate P-2 Plugs have proven to be successful, but all along, our industrial design team has been conducting further testing and research into resins and composites that would further increase the shock absorption and tensile strength of the plugs. After extensive r&d in conjunction with Dupont Chemicals, a special composite blend was developed and our plugs have once again evolved. These new material plugs will be called the X-2 Plugs. With this new material, we have increased the strength of the plugs on average by 35-40%. The chemical bond of the new material to polyester resin is equal to our existing P-2 Plugs, which is great. The bottom line on the new X-2 Plug is that they will help with shock absorption during fin impacts and also help with the overall strength of the traditional FCS fin system.
Now for our Fusion System, but first a little history that led us to this point. Although EPS and Epoxy construction of surfboards has been around for many years, we all know that it’s acceleration into mainstream board building didn’t really take off until Mr. Clark closed his doors two years ago here in the US. When the EPS/ Epoxy “revolution” went into full force early in 2006 due to the PU foam shortage and heightened interest in alternative board construction, we started to hear complaints from many of our customers that they were having problems installing FCS into EPS with epoxy resin. The problem being the pooling of the epoxy resin and the resulting exothermic reaction literally “eating” the EPS foam around the H-Pattern and post of the FCS install, creating a potentially serious void and weakness in the install. This void and weakness can cause the plug to pull out of the board relatively easily. We immediately started testing every epoxy resin we could get our hands on and different install methods, but with limited success. Some resins performed slightly better than others and some techniques worked better than others, but we found no one way to completely take out the risk of the exotherm and potential failure of the system. Even our die hard customers started losing confidence in using FCS in EPS/Epoxy, which obviously led our competitors with pre-glass systems to swoop up the business due to relatively no problems with their systems installed in EPS/Epoxy boards. After banging our heads against the wall for months, we came up with a temporary solution for EPS/ Epoxy FCS installs. This temporary solution consisted of routing out holes in the board pre-glass and installing high density foam inserts, then glassing the board. Then you would come back and do a normal FCS install (minus the H-pattern step touching the deck) post glass. This solution proved to be extremely strong, but relatively time consuming compared to a normal FCS install, and wasn’t widely accepted by our customers. After more months of banging our heads against the wall and loss of more business due to the growing EPS / Epoxy board market, we finally reached the point where we decided it was time to go back to the drawing board and come up with a solid solution. The solution we settled on (Fusion) is a pre-glass solution for EPS/ Epoxy. Let me be clear, we absolutely still believe our traditional FCS plug system (the X-2 Plug) is the lightest, highest performing and the strongest fin system available anywhere. Our new Fusion System was simply designed to work well in EPS/ Epoxy boards and also to be a better pre-glass system than what is available in the market currently. Here are the features / facts about Fusion.
Introducing the new FCS Fusion System:
The Fusion system is precision molded in a rigid polymer, resulting in minimal flex in the actual system. Fusion uses a flange system that distributes the forces exerted on the system during surfing.
The majority of this load is put on to the tab portion of the fins, therefore the flange is wider at these points, hence the figure eight shape (contrary to what Probox might think, we didn’t copy Probox’s shape, there is a very good reason for Fusion’s shape). The figure eight shape also helps prevent straight line shearing of the fiberglass over the top of the system, which we feel is a potential problem / weakness of some longer boxes on the market. One of the main things that bothered us about existing pre-glass box systems on the market was that essentially the box was seated in the weakest part of the surfboard, the foam, and relying too heavily on the glass covering the system for it’s strength. We came up with a good solution to this problem by providing a pre-cut high density foam insert that Fusion sits snugly in. The high density insert creates a density gradient between the system and the weak foam, so instead of the system sitting in soft foam, it is anchored into hard foam, also creating a solid platform that is dense and rigid which results in minimal flex in the actual system. Through testing, we’ve found this high density insert dramatically increases the strength of the system. By using this high density insert, the system takes a simple one step route, which is very quick and easy. Fusion is almost 2” shorter than a Future box. The shorter Fusion system allows for more natural tail flex and also lessens the weight of the system. With Fusion, the shapers dots are not covered up (routed away) like other longer boxes on the market. Having the shaper’s dots present gives the board owner confidence that the fin system was installed accurately and where it was meant to be. The tab slots in the Fusion system are slightly elongated which allows slight fore and aft movement (1/8”) of the fins, which is great for fine tuning the performance of the board. Fusion is available in three different cant angles (built into the system): 0, 5, and 9 degrees. 0 degrees for centers or straight upright quad trailers. 5 degrees for v-bottom boards or longboard side bites, or shapers that like their fins set around the 5-6 degree mark. 9 degrees is for concave bottoms to net a 6-8 degree cant depending on the depth of the concave. The regular FCS dummy jig can still be used when sinking the system pre-glass for fine tuning the cant angle. No offense to other fin systems, but we feel that cant adjustability by the end user may just be giving one too many options. After all, just getting people to change their fins is tough enough. Slight fore and aft adjustability is a valid benefit we felt important enough to add to Fusion but maybe even pushing it for the beginning / average surfer, add cant adjustability and most are simply thrown for a loop. Also, many shapers have expressed to us over the years that they like to set the cant angle to match their board design for maximum performance for the end user and would rather not have that option available to the end user. Through extensive testing so far we’ve found Fusion to work extremely well. Tests both in and out of the water have proven it to be super strong with excellent performance characteristics.
We were very excited to launch both the new X-2 Plugs and Fusion System at Surf Expo in Orlando this past weekend and we received an overwhelmingly positive response to both. We will have a US west coast launch at the ASR tradeshow in San Diego, with a later launch for the rest of the world early in 2008.
I’d be happy to answer any questions about these two new products, so feel free to post or contact me through pm.
Lastly, we greatly appreciate all of our customers and the consumers who have supported us over the years and hope that these new products help you have that much more confidence in FCS. For those of you who haven’t checked out what we’ve been up to lately, have a look at
www.surffcs.com . We hope you will be pleasantly surprised.
Good surfing to all!!
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9 years ago (REPLY TO #3) #4
solosurfer's picture
solosurfer (not verified)
Re: [fcseast] FCS introduces new X-2 Plugs and Fusion System
Great write up R....
Best of luck with your new system. Can't wait to see one in person.
I hear you still hit the lip pretty good for an old guy with kids...Ha Ha.
Missed the show due to business was looking forward to saying hello and seeing photos of the new addition.
Thanks for the in depth info.
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9 years ago (REPLY TO #4) #5
pandanus's picture
pandanus
Last seen: 12 months 11 hours ago
Joined: 03/18/2004
Re: [solosurfer] FCS introduces new X-2 Plugs and Fusion System
Gee whizz If this isn't a ripoff of probox what is . I think we should all pool some cash and sponsor some legal action.
When i first started out the fcs rep wouln't let me buy the system for repairs let alone installs. Then a few years ago I get a pm saying please use our system.
I would rather scrub the shithouse on the titanic than install fcs.
They install easier if they're dipped in hot butter.
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9 years ago (REPLY TO #5) #6
gill's picture
gill
Last seen: 1 year 10 months ago
Joined: 04/23/2004
Re: [pandanus] FCS introduces new X-2 Plugs and Fusion System
I totally agree with you Pandanus. As a backyard shaper doing a 10 to 15 boards a year I emailed FCS and was told that they would not sell to me without being a registered business. So they can stick their plugs where the sun don't shine, I'll stick with glass on's and Fin Solution plugs. Anyway, their new ones look like Lokbox rip offs to me.
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9 years ago (REPLY TO #6) #7
pandanus's picture
pandanus
Last seen: 12 months 11 hours ago
Joined: 03/18/2004
Re: [Gill] FCS introduces new X-2 Plugs and Fusion System
I'm a registered bussiness , the bastards.
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9 years ago (REPLY TO #7) #8
haavard's picture
haavard
Last seen: 3 weeks 2 days ago
Joined: 03/21/2004
Re: [Gill] FCS introduces new X-2 Plugs and Fusion System
Looks like a combination of technologies to me. Combine the futures/lokbox tech with under the glass strength with the deep probox with lengthwise adjustability. After all, there are only so many ways to attach a box to a surfboard (that makes sense). So they used the better parts of the most common. Cannot really blame them for that. On the other hand, if futures, lokbox and probox holds patents maybe they should sue them together... As for the shorter box of fcs offering more flex, that's minor. The box will lock up the area between the tabs pretty good (unless the box is very flexible), thus the older plugs will offer much better flex characteristics. Also the shorter box lends itself to damaging the board at the ends of the fin base when the fins are knocked out, unlike futures f.ex. where the entire length of the fin base sits inside the box (for most of the fins, not counting the fish keels).
One thing though, although the material on the new round plug has been improved, maybe it would be a good idea to add a little bit of material at the weak point of the plugs? Double the thickness at the ends of the slots and they would be four times stronger or something like that. You could still use the same hole saw as it would add less than a mm to the size of the plug.
The fcs will not sell to the public is such bullshit, especially when the FCS plugs in professionally made board are so poorly installed that they keep falling out from minor impacts (when the fins should come out instead).
