"Mastercam is smooth. It
has just about everything I need, and it talks so well with other programs I
use routinely, like Illustrator, Excel, and SolidWorks. Mastercam is also vast.
I am constantly learning how to do new things in it. It never stops."
~ Curtis Hesselgrave,
Designer and Owner of Curtis Fins, Carlsbad, CA
Curtis Hesselgrave's
designs and manufactures fins that are used by participants in the Lüderitz
Speed Challenge, an event that demonstrates just how fast a sail powered vessel
can travel. Over the years, Curtis has supplied fins for 3 world record setters (not
all at Lüderitz). That is more than any other designer.
His company, C&M
Engineering, owns and manufactures the Curtis Fins line of fins that are used
on surfboards, sailboards, stand up paddleboards, and kiteboards (both original
and replacement products). He has been designing fins for more than three
decades. He participates in speed sailing for the love of the sport and also to
prove a point: "Fin designs make a big difference in both the speed and
performance of a surf- or sail-powered board."
For the longest time,
Curtis made hand models of his designs by cutting blanks of composite material
with an automotive grinder. Today, he may haul out his grinder once in a while,
but mostly it is gathering dust on the shelf. Instead, he creates his designs
electronically with a CAD/CAM system that he has been relying on with increasing
frequency since the mid ‘90s.
Curtis uses Mastercam X4
Mill and Design software because it provides a single computer environment from
which he can create fin designs and then move immediately in to make toolpaths
for his Haas CNC TM2 toolroom mill. The mill can be used to cut fins nested in
long blanks of fiberglass or composite material or to cut tooling components if
the fins are to be molded.
What he values most is the
fact that Mastercam allows him to go as deep into the program as he needs to
fine-tune his designs to get the very best shape for the fin’s surface area.
This is the key to achieving exceptional speed and performance—something
professional and amateur surfers notice as soon as they try out a board
equipped with Curtis Fins.
Curtis uses a unique
combination of software products to create his designs, including Adobe
Illustrator, Microsoft Excel spreadsheets for storing fin design data points,
and SolidWorks for quickly knocking off fin bases. Files from these programs
are all easily imported into Mastercam.
In recent years, Curtis has set up a very specialized electronic environment in
Mastercam for creating his designs and CNC programs. All the unique tools he
uses routinely are assembled in toolbars right next to the fin model he is
working on. He can get to anything he needs with just one mouse click. An
extensive library of fin shapes allows him to associate operations from designs
that were created previously. "What used to take me hours," he said,
“I can now do in about 30 minutes."
It’s a good thing too
because there are dozens of Curtis Fins models, and each model has many
different sizes. "Each fin size is unique," he said. "None of
them can be scaled up or down from a previous size. So my unique tool set
allows me to quickly clean up profiles I get from my customers and create the
toolpaths I need to manufacture them.
"This capability has
become increasingly important to me because board sports enthusiasts are really
catching on to the importance of fin design. So our company has adopted a new
distribution model that will make our fins available for a wider range of board
types and to a more diverse customer base. Our volume is going to expand
significantly and we would not be able to keep pace without our unique
Mastercam capabilities.”
Note: In October 2010, Rob Douglas of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, USA, eclipsed the world 50 meter speed sailing record by traveling at
an average speed of 55.65 knots(subject to official ratification by the
ISAF/World Sailing Speed Record Council). His kiteboard, equipped with
custom-made aluminum Curtis Fins. (See the YouTube video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iox_-1TAjE.)
