After drooling over GregGriffin's g10 fins,I decided to order a sheet to make some fins for myself. No wonder his fins are so sweet - a blind monkey could foil this stuff sharp enough to fillet a fish! Seriously you should try some for your next board - it seems kind of pricey but you can get a 12"x24" 1/4" sheet for about $60 and that will net 3 sets of fins so for the price of one set of fiberglass fins from the surf shop - you can have three that you made yourself! Just google g10 frp4 fiberglass sheets. After doing some wooden fins and some fiberglass fins from panels I layed up myself from 6oz, this g10 was really a treat to foil!
Here's a couple tips I used for these:
Get the grit blade for your jigsaw to cut this stuff out - i got one from greenlight for like 5 bucks!
After cutting out the fin template, tape up the flat sides of the fins and spray over the tape with adhesive then stick the fins together and foil. The tape will show a centerline to work towards and it will make unsticking the fins easier and you will not have to sand the flat side to get any adhesive off - just peel off the tape. This method helps to keep your fins symetrical.
those are some crazy fins! they must be for racing kiteboards? Do you have to putt extra reinforcements to keep those boxes from pulling out with such a long fin? are they 1/4" all the way through or do you have thicker stock and grind down for the base tab?
I'd wager that it isn't good for you! I love the way the stuff foils, you can see each individual layer way better than I thought you would. Grasshopper's absolutely right about the grit saw, only way to fly. I burned up two or three metal cutting blades before I made the switch. Making tight bends with the metal blades would make the G10 turn black and start smoking, now talk about toxic! That shit's nasty!!!
After cutting out the fin template, tape up the flat sides of the fins and spray over the tape with adhesive then stick the fins together and foil. The tape will show a centerline to work towards and it will make unsticking the fins easier and you will not have to sand the flat side to get any adhesive off - just peel off the tape. This method helps to keep your fins symetrical.
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I sprayed Super 77 directly on the G10 and it was a little challenging to get the goop off afterwards. Putting tape on the fins before spraying is a good tip.
It did smell a little funky. I definitly recommend wearing a good respirator. Sanding G10 is super dusty.
those are some crazy fins! they must be for racing kiteboards? Do you have to putt extra reinforcements to keep those boxes from pulling out with such a long fin? are they 1/4" all the way through or do you have thicker stock and grind down for the base tab?
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Yes grasshopper, The racing kiteboard ProBox area was reinforced with carbon inlay into high density foam. I cut the tab to full length inside the box to transfer some of the base load up. I got .312 thickness and milled to .251, G-10 varies in thickness so stock .250 isn't that most of the time, it's a few thousand thinner. These fins have no tip flex. Double foil on all 4 fins with the leading edge foil pulled back about 40 percent for speed.
Didn’t mean anything in particular reminding of your signature, just saw some irony in it and followed up with a weak attempt at humor.
There’s only two colors that I’ve found, sort of choice between piss yellow, and pee green. I didn’t see the black panel on either site I linked to, but that would be a great option over the funky color I got.
If you use a fin system, then you’ll want something close to 1/4" thickness. That’s what I used, and it fits right in the FCS slots, therefore, I assume since FCS fits in Probox, that 1/4" would work in that system as well. Lokbox used to sell adapters for FCS, so maybe that would be the thickness for that system as well??
i wore a mask so i didnt notice the smell - just noticed that they foiled out ridiculously smooooooooth
i rode this board last week and it is FAST - fins feel good - cant wait to draw up a few templates to foil out and compare!
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I just put the price list into Excel, so that I could compare to Ridout Plastics prices. Ridout Plastics, in San Diego, quotes their prices in $/pound. I did a Google search and found a site that said G10 was 119 pounds per cubic foot. Doing the calculations shows that k-mac-plastics is charging about $10.30 per pound for normal green G10. The black stuff is almost double the price. It has been a while since I was there last, but I think that Ridout's prices were about the same (if not less). If you are in SD, and don't want to pay for shipping, then you might want to stop by Ridout.
