Hello to all future users, A successfull job without the instal kit–made home-made jig and combined with steady hand. A little nerve-racking at first. Anyways, just wondering how to avoid having the football patches show through after the board is finished. I put the patches on the blank, after the fin boxes were set in…then lammed over it. It doesn’t show through too bad, but once compared to professional jobs, they seem to know something I don’t. Perhaps they don’t even use the patches. Or, is it better to put patches on after first lam layer. One more think, looking for tips to avoid air bubbles arounfd patches and futures fin boxes. Enough for now… Thanks
okay Canuk, as you know there are many ways to skin a cat. Here’s my spin: glue the boxes into the blank using lam resin; we use ‘evaporated’ resin that has lost some of its’ styrene so it is a bit thicker. Pour until about 2/3 full, jam the box in and if needed, align (we have a set of “dummy” fins to measure the cant angle and to insure the center fin is vert). Some may argue that alignment is not necessary. Wipe away excess, once gelled, pull the dummy boxes and tape over the fin slot and grub screw hole. Just tape the raised lip only. Use good tape (3M red/yellow). Lay out your cloth. Footballs first then the bottom layer. Total must be a minimum of 12 oz. For most shortboards that’s one football just bigger than the box (plus 1/4") followed by another football that’s shaped like a football about 1" wider on either side of the box capped by the bottom layer of the board. Lam the board, pay attention to “nurse” the fin areas to maintain saturation; no bubbles. Don’t use your spreader up on the lip of the box; this is too high. Glass the deck. Do your hotcoats. Sink a deck plug (don’t hit the rear finbox, or you will be very sad). Sand the board. Be sure to sand the fin area FLAT. You should have sanded through the raise lips of the boxes. What you end up with is a minimal amount of “weave” showing. IDEALLY, three lines of cloth ringing around the fin slots about 1/8" from the edge of the holes. If you have weave showing beyond that, then you didn’t do it well enough. Look at it, determine the changes you will need to get the correct results. With that said, you can do away with the lines of weave showing completely but that’s a different story… Good Luck.
when you say sand the boxes flat. do you mean flat as the board itself. like if you ran your hands across the board you wouldnt feel the future box?
Just as Jeff says, you are supposed to grind off part of the tiny lip around the fin slot and the raised area around the grub screw. Study the box before installing, the large flange should ideally rest LEVEL with the foam blank. About 12oz of cloth will cover this surface and the last bit of the mentioned lip will be ground off revealing the open fin slot and grub screw hole… …All this stuff relies on grinding the fin area flush with NO parts sticking up above the normal surface of the board.
Install FCS and you will avoid these problems.