My board is completely laminated, and I just picked up a nice 10.5" glass on skeg. Never done this before…
The skeg is all fiberglass, and is “dull” as it came, not shiny. I’m assuming this is the stage to glass it on (over the lam coat). Does this sound right?
Find correct position and hot glue in place.
Lay 3 layers of football shaped patches on each side going from the board and completely covering the entire fin(?)(Or do I just need to go half way up the fin??)
Lay lots of roving down each side over the patches to get a fillet (seperate pieces on each side as opposed to one big piece that “wraps” around the entire skeg)?
Laminate it all together and let cure.
Hotcoat board, including fin
Sand as normal and then gloss entire board and sand as normal?
Ah! Good idea, thanks. It seems like no matter what I do to get a fillet, it ends up being “flat” or just like a 90 degree angle from the board to the fin…Any tips? Just use tons of roving? also, how do you get that nice fillet from the trailing and leading edges onto the board?
mask off the area, about 2.5 inches on either side of fin and an inch or 2 in front or behind
put 15 strands of roving on each side of the fin (frway it so that it becomes one big piece on each side) cover that with one piece of glass on each side that goes up the fin about 3 inches, and about 3 inches onto the board, and laminate that !!!Use the rounded corner of the squegee to get the “fillet”!!! push it up to the fin from the board and down to the board from the fin and then run the squegee at an angle so that it lays the roving out nice and smooth.
after it kicks cut the masked area and let harden
mask a slightly larger area
lay two layers of glass to cover the maskedd area and the entire fin, and a piece to go three inches up the fin on top of the two full layers, and laminateall of that
after it kicks trim it up around the fin and the masked area
then mask again and hotcoat.
You get the nice leading and trailing edges by sanding it down
Thanks very much thomas, that was an awesome description…
Maybe I need a definition on “strands”. I have 50’ of roving that I bought that is, geeez, I don’t know, maybe 100 actual fiberglass “threads” thick. Do you mean 15 layers of that??? Or do you normally do it by pulling individual strands off sheeted fiberglass, and THAT’S what you’re referring to when you say “strands”? Thanks for the clarification…
Ive been pulling the roving off of a sheet of woven roving that I have. But you should use 15 layers of the roving that you have. just roll all 15 between your fingers until it becomes a single piece of ugly looking mess, but not too messed up, and then pull on it until it is straightened out again and somewhat uniform. This is the same thing I do for glass leash loops too, except I lay the 15 pieces of roving over a pencil wrapped with wax paper so that it doesnt stick, and hold down either side of the pencil with chopsticks until the resin kicks.
thomas- I follwed your instructions to a “Tee” and it came out great…The fillets turned out exactly how I wanted them to. The only thing is now, as we speak, I;ve been sanding down the resin around the base for about an hour already, and I reckon I have at least one more to go until it’s flush with the bottom of the board! I don’t have a hard pad for my sander, so I’m doing it all with a block and 50 grit…OUCH. Thanks though, those were great instructions (thanks ambrose)…It’s the last hing I have to do before sanding to 120 and glossing it. I’ll post pics when it’s done. I’m slowly getting my boards to look how I WANT them to look.
Are you using epoxy or poly? Because if you’re using epoxy it takes a few days to fully cure (harden) and you can file or surform down the excess during that time.