I’m in the middle of a project to make some fins: four for Stingray, one for me, and one for my brother. I’m making progress now, I should have finished these months ago. Making six fins at once turned out to be a little more time consuming than I had originally thought. I have learned a lot along the way, and have some ideas to improve the flow next time. At this point I have six cleanly shaped fin blanks that are ready to be foiled. Below are a few picutures of my progress so far…
The first image below shows the fin blanks as they are being laminated together. There is a thin layer of G10 sandwiched between to sheets of wood. I put a sheet of fiberglass in between each layer to inhibit big air bubbles from getting trapped in the resin (RR Epoxy BTW). After taking this picture I put a sheet of plastic over the sticky fins, then a sheet of plywood, and a bunch of heavy things on top of that (paint cans, resin bottles, power tool cases, etc).
The fin below is one that I am making for myself. The wood is quarter sawn oak that was glued-up in a book matched pattern. I added resin to the outsid surface because I planned on using Super 77 spray glue to attach it to the guide template. From past fin projects I learned that was easier to pull the fin and template apart if the surfaces had been finished.
I got the wood for these fins from the bargain box at Rockler. I’m not sure what kind of wood is on the fin below, but I like the grain.
Here’s a fin made from poplar.
This is my router setup. The fin blank is glued to a plywood tempate (on top).
The test fit…
