O'fish'l under laminate single fin box

BoothPacific · March 9, 2011, 4:57am

I have a question about an o’fish’l single box that gets laminated under the glass. I am a rookie with a new install and with epoxy ( I have a lot of experience with ding repair and PE resin). I made a template that is a very snug fit and have been practicing in scrap foam. I am installing it in 1.5# eps. I have 2 main questions.

1.) how close tolerance should my template allow for. ie. should it be very very snug, 1/16th" gap around the box or somewhere in between? my assumption is that is should be as snug a possible with glass only on the bottom of the box and the laminate over the top makes it a strong install.

2.) how far below the level of the foam should the laminating surface of the box be? or should it be level. If I used cloth on the bottom of the box hole should I plan on getting that rim level with foam?

thanks for anybodies help with this?

BoothPacific · March 10, 2011, 4:30am

Practice is a good thing. and you learn that freehand routing a hole for a fin box won't work. i made a template with scrap 1/8th masonite. and had the router bit sit short in the router so that I could use the template without the bit cutting into it. then i mixed 3 oz of epoxy well, put a layer of 4oz cloth in the bottom of the hole, poured the resin, set the box and now I wait and hope my first fin box install works out.