all you fin making wiz’s out there! made some basic fcs based fins slightly smaller and thicker than g5’s. how will this affect drive and performance been thicker and smaller they were for use on my egg and longboard! also what is the best to coat then with a acrilic laquer or some hotcoat? thanks
all you fin making wiz’s out there! made some basic fcs based fins > slightly smaller and thicker than g5’s. how will this affect drive and > performance been thicker and smaller they were for use on my egg and > longboard!>>> also what is the best to coat then with a acrilic laquer or some hotcoat?>>> thanks Shorter fuller foils work well in smaller weaker surf applications. Think of an fin foil as though it were an air plane wing. Short full foils would be comparable to a crop duster type wing intended to fly low and slow efficiently. A fine deep raked fin would be comparable to the long fine entry wings of a super sonic jet. They are good for control at high speeds, but, tight and inefficient at lower speeds.
Yesterday I bought a can of silicon rubber and ready for fin moulding. I’ll post the result later.>>> all you fin making wiz’s out there! made some basic fcs based fins > slightly smaller and thicker than g5’s. how will this affect drive and > performance been thicker and smaller they were for use on my egg and > longboard!>>> also what is the best to coat then with a acrilic laquer or some hotcoat?>>> thanks
Yesterday I bought a can of silicon rubber and ready for fin moulding. > I’ll post the result later. Hi Crabie, I’ve made a couple silicon rubber molds and have tested about 5 fins. I’m no expert, but it seems to me that the only way I have been able to make FCS like tabs is with laminated sheet. All of my molded fins break at the tabs. I lay up about 4 or 5 layers of 4 oz glass into the mold. Yesterday I lost a really nice light blue transparent side fin just while stalling for a small tube. It broke at the tabs like the old FCS fins. I have a new center fin that I am almost ready to try out and I hope it works better. I used laminating resin. I am going to try to use sanding resin with more layers of glass in the mold. It’s kind of hard to get the glass nicely packed into the tabs when molding. I have had great success laminating my own sheets to about 3/8" and machining fins from this. They are indestructable. I like to add artwork to the center lamination and tint all the layers around it. Scott
How do you make a mold for fins. I would love to try it.
Hi Scott, Yup the tab is the weakest part. If u just put resin alone, the outcome will be a little bit crispy. I m not a expert but I like to share my comment. Mixing reinforcement filler into epoxy resin, epoxy resin is much stronger than polyester resin in mold making. Pour the mixture into the mold and just fill the half. Put some fabric strands on top and go on pouring the mixture untill it fill up the female plug. My way is making a glass on fin mold, therefore, I cut the tabs off and wrap the fin with glass fabric. If you re looking for glass on transparent fins, that’s the good choice. Regards, Crabie
Hi Chris, Check up the link, it may help u. Regards, Crabie http://www.mouldmaking.freeserve.co.uk/basics.html