Making a longboard fin with tinted glass bead

balsa · August 22, 2013, 1:25pm

I just finished this one. The fin was made of balsa and wenge strips (balsa for lightness, wenge strips for strength) and a tinted glass bead was added to it before glassing on; here are a few photos:

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Dave_Town · August 22, 2013, 3:16pm

Nice! I like how you adjusted the fin base to match the board

artz · August 22, 2013, 6:28pm

Looking Like another French masterpiece. Beautiful work

stingray · August 24, 2013, 4:10am

Wow!!!

SammyA · August 24, 2013, 11:19am

Yup. I like that profile rig you have. I would have ‘cheated’ and routed the fin into the stringer. Many of the Sixties board makers advertised routed fins as a feature.

I also like your approach of using balsa for lightness and another species to add strength. Nice work!

GregTate · August 24, 2013, 12:32pm

Very very nice, Balsa!! You have some cool tools too. Give a hug to Cathrine for us.

balsa · August 24, 2013, 2:04pm

Thanks to you all. And special thanks go to Mitch Chechik for the bending rasp tool that he sent me some time ago. He told me that he used it for concaves but I never actually used it for that. But it came very handy for this kind of job.

Now, it’s far from being perfect. If you look closely, there are a few bubbles in the glass bead around the fin, and a few more (less) at the base, too. I hate glass-ons, actually…