i just finished putting the hot coat on my board and now I am on my way of putting in the fin box. I shaped a 5’7 (going to be single fin) fish and was wondering if anyone knew a good placement for a 10" fin box on my board? Also, I was making sure if I can sand down the fin box to fit flush with my board…and in doing so, whats the easiest way?
Did you consider the 7.5" box? Might not be bad idea for a short board like your making.
start the box 4-6’’ up from the tailblock, depending on how far back you like to put your fin. grind it down flush with a corse grit grinding wheel followed by some 80/100 grit on a sanding pad.
This won’t address your position comment directly but may be useful. I don’t know what fin box you’re using, I have put in the Bahne/Fins Unlimited “slot” style and the O’Fishl boxes. I get the router busy on top the lamination rather than on the hot coat. Gotta be careful the router base doesn’t leave smudges on the lam. O’Fishl seems to indicate in their product literature that to install their box you are supposed to rout directly into the shaped blank. The end result should be UNDER some glass, either the bottom lam (preferred) or patches installed when the box is put in. I have had customers tear out two Ofishl boxes that didn’t have glass over them. Now, these persons were beginners and may have ripped the boxes out anyway, but now all the OFishl installs I do have two patch layers of six ounce over them. Also, the end result doesn’t want to stick up above the surrounding glass job, so the sooner it is installed the better.
What about futures?.. Apparently the camber is built in, so you need to determine toe, distance from the tail and positioning of the forward fins on a cluster (relative to each other and the trailer)… Real question is are they mounted in order to be flush with the finished product? It seems that way, but I’ve yet to mess with them.