hung up on fins

General Discussion
1

going to be attempting my first epoxy glass job and having been scrubbing the forums for

all the information I can.

I think I’m pretty comfortable glassing the deck and hull, but I’m a little hung up on the

procedure for glassing the fins.

I have a pair of wood Pavel keel fins, already glassed…they are going on a HWS.

I’m only using 4oz cloth on the top and bottom.

I’ve read a few different write ups on glassing on fins, but haven’t been able to figure

out what weight cloth they were working in and how varying weights effect how many

layers are used to lay up the fin.

do I need 3 full layers of patches for the fins, including fillets?

Can I get away with 1 or 2 given a 4oz cloth?

do I need to go all the way up the fin or is halfway sufficient since the fins are already

glassed?

any tips or tricks for a nub would be greatly appreciated.

2

…if you have the fins already glassed, sand it if you got a H coat, leave it if its lam (you see the cloth)

use 3 per side if you use 4 oz

use 2 with 6 oz

use 4 if a thicker and big

use fin rope in the base

use 5 or 6 if its a large single fin

if you go halfway, when you sand you ll have bumps so be ready to check it and sand

3

roger. thanks.

4

Everything Reverb said…

The Glassing 101 video covers glass on fins.

A book called “The Ding Repair Scriptures” has a whole chapter about fixing and installing glass ons. It’s worth the 12 dollars just to learn how the guy installs fins.

I use my fingers quite a bit with glass ons. That’s why there’s a roll of paper towels always handy in my workshop…

Ray

5

those 101 videos do look great.

I think I’m going to spring for them…bday is rolling up soon.

6

Epoxy 101 also covers this if your working in epoxy.

7

I could use Epoxy 101…

I’ve had some serious malfunctions at every stage so far.

lots of newbie mistakes…but good to get it out of my system sooner rather than later.

the good thing is that even when things go to hell I can usually recover with a bit of

sanding.