Hola a todos!,
I have a scrap piece of policarbonate at home, not big enough for a fin foil. I was wondering if someone has tried before to build an US finbox from plastic or any other material. I “built” it in Autocad and seems quite easy, but I wonder what kind of glue will make a good bond between polycarbonate surfaces. I guess some kind of cyanocrylate (loctite, etc…) over sanded surfaces will do the job.
The plans:
I seem to remember that acetone will weld polycarbonates together.
Don’t forget to put the ends on, cause yer fin will fall out!!!
There is a special glue just for polycarbonate that will bound the two surfaces as if they were one. I have a tube out in my garage. I’ll dig it out tomorrow and post its name.
Hixxi, Can’t imagine acetone was so hard to melt polycarbonate surface. I’d try with a scrap.
Retroman, the name of this glue would be very interesting.
I think custom building of fin boxes would be a very interesting thread, since we wouldn’t be forced to use standard specs (length, thickness, number…) fins.
Neira, very ingenious idea! Keep us posted, that could save some dinero on the long run. Cuidate hermano.
Yes, It could be a cool thread/experiment about trying to make everything on your board yourself. Imagine if you will homemade blank(eps),fin, and fin box! Wood?
Actually, three fin boxes can be made in one peice by vaccuform over what is essencilly a fin base. Just a straight slot that fits a simple base. A bit of angle in the front to hold that end and then there are then a number of ways to hold the fin into the slot in the back. I used a rubber gasket with a washer and screw that would expand with tightening. The above schematic would make for a very simple box indeed. Neat idea.
Whoa! What a flash back seeing this picture.
Years ago when Bahne boxes first came out and I was building boards in South Africa we wanted to try putting boxes in our boards, we couldn’t get Bahne boxes, and believe it or not this is exactly how we made them. I remember slicing up sheets of polycarbonate and then glueing it all together.
They actually worked unreal, they were just a little time consuming to make.
Before we tried this approach we used to make boxes by routing a slot in the board, then cutting a bunch of layers of glass which we would wet out. We then had a piece of waxed wood that was the shape of the slot, we would use this piece of wood to push the wet cloth into the hole. once it setup we would pull out the piece of wood and then grind it down flat. To put the fin in the box we would cut a few strips of newspaper and then push the fin in with the paper. Then when the paper got wet it would expand and really lock the fin in the box.
Man, we sure have come a long way! But we had no way of getting boxes so we made do with the materials we had at hand, seems like I remember it being a lot of fun!
–Robin
Hola,
Very dark weather here in Spanish north-west coast, so I guess this weekend I’ll have a lot of spare time to work on my EPS longboard (see MCTAVISH “son of fireball” thread) and on the US-box experiment.
These are the dimmensions of the piece of polycarbonate I’ll need. I think a 10mm slot will fit every standard US-box fin in the market, since they should run into a short variation between 9mm and 10mm.
if you use acrylic instead of polycarbonate, you can use methylene chloride to lightly dissolve and weld the sheeting together. I think you’re going to be SOL with polycarbonate…that stuff is pretty solvent resistant; probably looking at having to sand and epoxy together…though this isn’t really a big deal either.
I just got a shipment of boxes what’s your address
…ambrose…
they are white
Thanks Ambrose, but I don’t need finboxes. I’m building only one longboard for me and I already have a Chinook finbox I bought last summer at Tarifa.
I was just wondering if it’s possible and easy to build finboxes. I have a terrible illness:doityourselfache.
in espanol? asemblalmentitis?
…ambrosio…in la factoria de me cabessa
mmmmmmmmm dad-o
fin sheet as plywood clean rendition and well interlocked
kudos cranium award
…ambrose…
hola,
Had some spare time last weekend and decided to build a wood prototipe with 4mm wood. Cut with razor blade, sanded edges, glued with hot poly resin and reinforced with short nails (only top), which will be cut and sanded later.
My camera doesn’t allow to focus, sorry.
