We make fins in the stock colours. We also make them in colours people dream up themselves. Here's what turned up last month.
The terracotta longboard
A customer reached out with a Pantone reference. PMS 7526 C — a dusty terracotta, somewhere between rust and clay, with a warmth to it that reads differently at different times of day. He described it as "the colour of the cliffs where I surf." His board is white. He wanted the contrast.
We matched it close. The resin process means exact Pantone reproduction isn't possible — there's always a slight translation — but we got to within a shade. He sent a photo when it arrived. The fin on the board looks like it belongs there. The cliff colour on a white log. We understood it immediately.
Longboard | Resin | US Box, 9.5" depth. One fin.
The split
A shaper in Europe ordered a twin fin set where each fin was a different colour. Left fin: ocean blue. Right fin: purple. He wanted them for a display board — a wall piece, not for surfing. We don't usually think about our fins ending up on walls but why not. They look good.
He paid the standard single-colour price for each fin and ordered them as separate units rather than a set. Simple enough. The fins are now hanging in a shaping bay somewhere in Portugal.
If you're curious what the individual colours look like against each other — our Twin Fins | Resin | Futures page has swatches for each colour.
The non-colour
Someone asked for "natural fibreglass." Not white. Not cream. The actual colour of resin on fibreglass cloth with no pigment added — that slightly warm, translucent off-white that lets the cloth weave show through.
We already do this. It's in the range as White — not bright white, not pearl, but the natural look. We confirmed the colour and turned it around in the standard timeframe.
He said he'd been looking for fins that matched the glass job on his board for years. The board was shaped in the late eighties. Natural finish throughout. He didn't want to put a coloured fin on it. We get it.
The fade
This was the technical one. A customer asked for a colour fade running base to tip on a single fin. Salmon at the base transitioning into a pale apricot at the trailing edge. The resin process makes this difficult — layups don't blend the way ink does, and a clean gradient on a fibreglass fin requires the colour to be controlled at each pour stage.
We worked through it with our supplier across two test pulls before the customer's fin was made. The result wasn't a perfectly smooth gradient — there's a visible band where the salmon transitions, which we flagged in advance — but it was distinctly faded and the customer signed off on the test photo. It's now somewhere in California. We took photos before it shipped because we'll never reproduce that one exactly.
How custom colour orders work
Send us what you're after. A colour name, a Pantone code, a photo of the thing you're trying to match, a vague description — anything helps us start. We'll tell you what's achievable and what the minimum order quantity looks like. Custom colours require a minimum run, so single fins are occasionally possible but sets of the same colour are more practical.
Each request has its own complexity. Some are straightforward matches; others, like the fade above, require multiple test pulls and tighter quality control. We price each based on what's involved, and we tell you upfront if a colour is achievable or just close-to-achievable. There's no upside to surprising you with a result that doesn't match what you imagined.
Lead time is longer than stock. Expect four to six weeks from colour confirmation to delivery.
The Try Something Weird page has more on our custom colour process. Or email us directly with what you have in mind.
The strangest order becomes the most memorable fin. That's usually how it goes.