Every time I see a photo of someone setting glass on fins, they have the glass fully overlapping the fin all the way around, with the layers of glass meeting at past the edges. Like this:
Every time I’ve tried to do it this way, I’ve wound up with bubbles creeping in right around the edge. That means when I start to sand everything back, I have to take the new glass all the way back to the original fin at the edges. I have the glass rope halo on my glass ons, so its not like I’m sanding back to wood or anything, but it would certainly be handy if I could get my layup to stay all pretty like the one pictured above. It would be particularly nice to have that extra 1/16" of halo left around the fin with which to finalize my foil at the leading and trailing edges.
What’s the trick on this one? Another strip of roving? Or is it as simple as the fact that I’m using epoxy, and it has more time to drain down before it sets up?
I know it’s counterintuitive, Shwuz, but I’ve had the most success by skipping the roving altogether. I could be justifying my own laziness here, but you still get a good bead where the layers of glass intersect, and the edge is sharper, leaving it less prone to form air bubbles. I tend to get antsy by the finning stages of the board, though, and would probably skip the glass entirely if I could just get them to tack on solidly…
I tried to post something and got a server error, so if this appears twice, sorry.
I get small bubbles along the leading edge too but they are filled by the hot coat. I just make sure to get big bubbles and my fins turn out ok. Reverb’s advice is good:
Quote:
after yo do everything and before start to gel, put a bit more resin with the brush
I use that technique too.
Another thing I do sometimes is to put resin on my fingers and run them along the sides of the fin edge and lightly squeeze the bubbles out - like a ziplock bag. keep enough resin on your fingers and don’t squeeze too hard. you want to squeeze out the air and leave a deposit of resin as you go so that when the panels naturally try to separate again it sucks in the resin instead of air. Good luck.
Don’t see many glass on’s these days around where I surf. Have heard of no roving but doesn’t it add strength by spreading the load over a larger surface area? As well as making for less turbulence around the base?
Ive used cabosil …What ive done is put the glass on one side then smear some cabosil resin paste then applyed the other side all in one kick…im shure the pros can do it without make sure its cabosil or some other thickening agent that stays clear even cabosil can get milky if to much is used.sand as needed
Howzit Shwuz,First trim the extra glass down to about 1/8" to 3/16" from the fin leading and trailing edges. the area you want to get rid of most of the air is the leading edge at the front and back of the fin base. When you trim the glass it will leave gaps that you can pour a little resin into to fill. also brush some resin between the layers of glass which act as a sweet coat . Next hotcoat the board and make sure you get a lot of the resin in the same areas on the fins. Now there should be enough resin on the fins so you can sand the fins. Oh by the way there is nothing wrong with sweet coating the whole fin before hot coating since this will give you a little buffer between the hot coat and the weave.Aloha,Kokua
Howzit Benny, That would probably work, I just have always done both sides and all the fins at the same time with the same batch of resin. I have seen guys that did 1 fin at a time but never 1 side at a time. Aloha,Kokua
