Making Wooden/Glass Trailer Fins

General Discussion
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Well everyone,

After reading all of the posts on here about fin design and foil, a spark has been set in my mind. I want to try differing foils and see how they ride. I am somewhat familiar with glassing and won’t feel that I will need any help (but ANY help is greatly appreciated). My questions are the following:

What is the best way to make the base for the longboard trailer fin?

    -I have read to make it out of fiberglass? 

    -What is the best way for making the base (i.e. Sanding, finishing, etc)

Any links to any prior posts that you may deem resourceful would be greatly appreciated.

I have been looking at the following links/posts as resources:

http://www.hollowsurfboards.com/fins.htm -Paul Jensen, your work is amazing! I hope to someday, try to make the rising sun fin!

http://www.swaylocks.com/forum/gforum.cgi?do=post_view_flat;post=161630 -Granted this is for sidebites/thruster fins, this is the same basic concept of production/glassing correct?

Thank you guys so much!

                    -Nick "Savage" Gregory
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Hey Savage,

I just posted this over on the Surfmag Design Forum.

I think that there are some ideas here that will be helpful.

There are many ways of approaching making a fin with plywood.

Here’s my approach:

I stick with epoxy because of it’s superior bonding qualities. Resin Research products are the best I’ve found. If you put a spine of 12 or so layers of glass between two pieces of 1/8" or 3/16" ply you can foil the composite and put a shell over it of 3 layers of 6oz. The three sheer walls will work to give the fin extra rigidity.

You can build up the base strength by grinding away the wood away from the base of the fin in an arc over the fin tap and building layers of lamination there and get a very strong fin. If you choose not to build up the base this way a thicker spine and shell is a way to add strength to the fin.

If you use Polyester the fin will look very nice but more layers of lamination are advisable because poly doesn’t Have strong bonding characteristics and the laminations aren’t as strong as epoxy.

Note: Fins that are on a little on the thick side work very nicely for lonboards because they are more sensitive. Naturally how you foil the fin will also have a big effect on how sensitive the fin will be.

Mahalo, Rich

Custom Finmaker

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