Just bought an FCS Fusion jig. Would like to hear your input on installing 1) in a shaped blank 2) In a glassed board.
Don't do #2, that would be sorta defeating the purpose of the design.
Test fit the piece before you move the jig. Route until flush or almost flush to foam, then nick the bottom of foam collar if needed for final fit. Again, don't move jig until piece is ''fit''. Make sure you install correct cant angle where needed, you don't want a 5 on one side and a 9 on the other; or other hilarious combinations. Watch for little bubs around step when you do the wet work, and be mindful of keeping fiber over flange intact when sanding. Dem's yo tips for the day.
.02 from a backyarder
To insure tightest fit/smallest joint, I always try to first rout all but the perimeter, then go around only once. Each time you run around the perimeter seems like a micron bigger. Tight fit means good bond, no bubbles and no taping to set cant
If necessary, there’s room to add a couple more degrees cant by forcing the box over a bit. You can get away with quite a bit of grinding of the flange to accomodate this or when you have a lot of vee/concave
the foam foundation is very dense and is often very ragged, (can be sanded). be careful when pushing into the routed hole that you don’t ding the clean edge of your hole in the foam
Dealing with stringer blow out/burning - I’ve had good results with the trimmer by first marking the front and rear of your cut out then “plunge routing” holes in the stringer near the front and rear of the box hole before you do the actual rout with the jig, then following the instructions. Basically separating the stringer to be removed from tearing out at the ends if that makes sense
maybe a little babysitting to watch for tenting/bubbles around the tabs. small slits in your footballs helps
most in the foam but I’ve done probably a dozen boards with glass installs, so far with no problems, done on the lamnation then hotcoated.
done a bunch of thrusters retro-fitted to quad option (glass installs) all worked well and super easy
In my very limited experience…
I find these to be fairly tricky to glass over(bubbles), so I will smear lam resin over the top of the box, and then let it kick, so that when I put the footballs over top, the dry cloth sticks to the box and lays down. also, stringer chunks on the center box when routing can fly off and knick the perimeter of the routed hole, so for this reason, I cut the stringer down, and then do perimeter of the hole.
sometimes on colored boards, I will install after sanded hotcoat, then glass over, but it seems to be a much tighter fit than with foam installation. If you need to do this way, be careful not to crush/crack/dent the glass surrounding the hole when you press the box in. plastic top of the box seems to catch on the glass, and can do bad things. I will lightly sand the box and hole perimeter and be super careful to avoid this.
good luck
I just got the Fusion jig for this little board I’m building right now. I installed the boxes after the hotcoat(only because I was impatient and wanted to glass the board before I had the jig). It went smoother than I could’ve hoped for, the boxes fit really nice and tight, and after sanding, all was good…I really can’t see how these boxes would stip/pull away, even after installing post-glass…Unless you surf like Taylor Knox or something…Which I definitely do NOT.
Thanks for all the info. I set the jig up today and made myself some dummy fins out of aircraft ply. I never got any of those plastic sticky tabs that cover the slots. I can do it with masking tape but the tabs looked pretty sweet on the video foamez has on their website. Was I supposed to get the tabs???
No, the tabs come with the Fusion boxes.
But i bought the boxes also. I guess it was an oversight?
Sounds like it…They’re really nothing special, like you said, you can easily cut tape to fit over the holes…
maskingtape and a new razor blade will work just as well. Ask the guy you got em from for the stickers
Practice your routes on some scrap foam (tailblock cutoffs, whatever) and get your depth set that way. I forgot to mention that an old jigsaw blade works well for ''grabbing'' the inside of the tab slot to pull the unit back out when you're trial-fitting.
Did you get your fusions from the main east coast warehouse here in Indian Harbour Beach? If they owe you ''stickers'' I can yell at them for you lol.
Yeah, what MD said about the depth for sure! Very important you get the depth pretty close to exactly what the recommend on the video…
boxes rip out if you dont glass over them, had two go in heavy ass waves
bit of resin under the cloth helps. but a razor and slice the bubbles out
I just installed a quad set tonight. Do the set screws go on the inside? or the outside? Well, you drop those dummy fins in and it is pretty obvious. Good thing I used slow epoxy resin. There 's a tip for ya. ha.
On a more useful note, if EPS, use some colliodal silica to reduce drainage and bubbles under the glass. I set them up the night before and hope the foam is sealed before I lam so drainage is minimized.
I love the fusion boxes.
But what am I doing giving YOU advice? I am not worthy.
all the best.