If i am making glass on fins should I use fin rope or not
IMHO yes – in the archives you’ll find the technique that works beautifully. For fin rope just cut pieces of 6 oz. cloth about 3/4" wide and tease the short strands out and you’ll have nice soft roving that will wet out nicely. Football shaped pieces of cloth over the roving will make it fair out nicely and facilitate the sanding process.
Mahalo, Rich
Just curious, how many pieces of cloth do you use and how far up the fin and out onto the board do you put them? I used three, progressively larger pieces, the final one went at least half way up the fin and as far out on the board, but I’m thinking maybe that was overkill.
llilibel: Use 2 or 3 layers of cloth, all of them all the way up the fin or the foil won’t be right. Stagger (stair step) them on the bottom so they will feather out to the bottom of the board.
For rope, I use a piece of woven roving, and just pull off strands for rope. I group together the number of strands for the thickness of rope I want, cut them to length (about 6" for shortboards) and use masking tape on the ends to hold them together while laminating the cloth. Then razor blade the ends off after gelling quite a bit, or leave them and grind 'em off when doing the fin.
I think the woven roving is 20 oz cloth? Maybe heavier. It’s pretty thick in the ‘cloth’ form.