Purpose: The purpose of footwells are to lock the rider's feet into the tray of the ski so that the rider and the ski become one during tricks. The rider can use the footwells to control the flight/height of the rear of the ski during jumps and may use the footwells to secure his body during inverted or off-axis tricks. Footwells give the additional benefit of widening the rider's stance. Note that footwells may be illegal for racing class, not that we care...

Recommended for: Highly recommended for all standup riders interested in freestyle or wave jumping.

Difficulty: Moderate. Requires decent tools and a little fiberglass experience. Can be done by a first-timer with patience and with the guidance provided in this article.

Time: These steps may sound like a lot, but it can really all be done in less than two hours once you get the hang of it (depending on options)

Remove old turf:

1. Use acetone and the carpenter's tool to remove the bulk of the old turf.
2. Use a nylon flapper wheel to remove the remaining turf cling-ons.
3. Be sure to remove ALL old residue down to bare gelcoat or fiberglass

Cut out for footwells:

1. All this cutting should be done outdoors where the dust will not fly back into your garage or through any open windows.
2. Wear eye, hand, and respiratory protection.
3. Many footwells come with templates so that you may mark off where to cut on your gunwales. Typically, you want to cut out as far back in the gunwales as possible. If you don't have templates, it's not too hard to eyeball the area that will be recessed in the gunwale. Mark off a cutting line with a sharpie. The area you mark off will look like half an egg laying on its side.
4. Cut out with a fiberglass cut-off wheel or whatever. You might go through a couple if you're not careful but that's fine. Drill bits and rotary drywall bits work but SUCK for this part.
5. Use a wire cup brush to clear out a lot of the foam. Having a buddy hold up a good shop-vac will help a lot with the dust.
6. Check the fit of your footwell. Grind out your hole and remove foam as needed. There's a chance that the front of the right footwell will hit the exhaust pipe. That's fine, either angle or notch it to fit and glass over the notch later if necessary.
7. Okay so by now your footwell should fit pretty good. It should sit mostly flush.
8. Now is a good time to install a one-way valve and/or reinforce the rear if desired. I'll link to those write-ups when available.

Install footwells:

1. Line up the footwells and mark off the edges for where you'll need to apply resin/filer mix.
2. Scuff up all areas exposed within the marked-off area. It doesn't take much to grind down the gelcoat to bare fiberglass.
3. Scuff up the back of the footwells where they will come in contact with the gunwales.
4. Vacuum up all dust and clean all surfaces with acetone.
5. Mix up some resin/hardener and add filler until you get a nice peanut butter consistency. Apply the filler mix to the hull and smush the footwell into place.
6. Drill a hole and install your first rivet. I usually start in the rear about 3/4" from the bottom.
7. Continue installing rivets one at a time where required. You could use anywhere between seven and twenty rivets depending on what it takes to get a nice flush install. If try and drill/install more than one at a time, your holes may not line up as you go around the footwell.
8. Vacuum up any drilled-out fiberglass.
9. Clean up filler mix by using a plastic spreader to taper the edges of the footwell, providing a smooth transition from the footwell to the hull.

Backfill the footwells with foam:

1. It is generally recommended to backfill the footwells using three pour holes: two up the rear of the gunwale and one about 2" in front of the rearmost point on the top of the gunwale. Use your best judgment based on how much foam you removed and where you removed it from. I almost never use three holes unless I've removed an excessive amount of foam for reinforcement or for a one-way valve.
2. Make at least two funnels using the top halves of 20oz water/soda bottles.
3. Make at least two expansion chambers using 20oz wate/soda bottles and slice a relief cut in the very bottom of each.
4. Cut out your pour holes with a 1 1/4" hole cutting bit. This should be the perfect size so that your funnels will slide in and the flange of the bottle/funnel will rest on the hull. Clear out and vacuum up any old foam so that you may access the cavity within the gunwale.
5. Mask off at least 18" around all pour holes in case the foam gets away from you. That stuff does not come off whatever it touches.
6. Put on gloves and eye protection.
7. Time to pour the foam. I generally mix up 8oz +/- of foam at a time depending on how much total volume I have to backfill. This stuff expands fast and up to 10x its volume so make sure you got your sh!t straight before you mix. Mix 1:1 of each part and stir it fast until it becomes uniform in color.
8. Pour the foam into the bottom hole first. Remove the funnel and place your expansion chamber over the hole and cover the relief cut in the bottom with your thumb. This forces the foam to expand inside the hull as much as possible with (hopefully) minimal overflow into your expansion chamber.
9. Repeat step 8 as necessary for each pour hole. At the very end, the expanding foam may put a lot of pressure on your expansion chamber. Play with the relief cut as needed to keep the whole thing from exploding in your face and all over your ski.
10. Clean up, fill, and glass over the pour holes.

Glass in the footwells:

1. Glassing in the footwells is not required but it is recommended to protect your investment.
2. Grind down the edges of your footwells to make a perfectly smooth transition between the hull and the footwell. You will also grind down the heads of the rivets just as much as is needed.
3. Clean up the mess and clean the surfaces with acetone.
4. Glass over the edges with approximately 2" strips of cloth.
5. Glass over the foam holes if you haven't already.
6. Sand it all down smooth again and clean up.
7. Time to turf!

Flavors:

Watercraft Factory: WCF puts out an awesome footwell for the all-around rider. It is somewhat unique in his "rear bucket" instead of a tapered rear. This allows the rider to utilize a surf stance a shove his rear foot in the rear of the foothold. Unfortunately I don't have any pics of them before they were installed but I'll update when I do. They're the ones on that orange ski ^^^

Wamiltons Cyclones: I hear these are similar to WCF.

Blowsion Kickers: I ran these for two and a half seasons and then switched to WCF. The kickers were too small to run with thick 25mm padding and I also felt like I slipped out pretty easy. There are some pics on Blowsion's site and here are the ones I modded to help lock me in better installed and uninstalled.

Rickter Style: This is the most common type of footwell. When people knock-off a footwell, this is generally the one they knock off. The originals were designed by Wamiltons, I think, but there are many cheapies available on ebay and other sites.... They are a very good footwell with plenty of room for padding for the freestyle rider. Their tapered rear provides a comfortable fit but is not ideal for freeriders interested in surf stance.

Waterdawg REV footholds: Some folks swear by these because they are inexpensive and huge. I don't like them because they are huge and installation is more time-consuming (at least for your first attempt or two). They also require the extra step of notching out around the exhaust pipe and almost never line up perfectly.