two fishes, yellow one has been baptised and i loved it. blue one is almost done. different rockers and outline
Fat flex fins. Both Brewer templates and around 5/8" (16mm) thick and 8 1/4" tall.
First is a Paulownia spine with grain running horizontally and a couple of layer of glass per side. Then cork sides added and finished with resin coating only. Designed for lateral flex.
Second one (in progress) is designed for trailing edge flex. Paulownia and cork, three thicknesses of about 5mm each, with a staggered joint at the interface to strengthen it. I plan to glass each side, but only just past the interface. So the trailing cork portion will have a resin finish only to seal it.
pretty cool RDM,
how are you building your base of the fin? i woyld love to see the process in photos of the building of composit material fins.
Ive got a couple projects that I wraped up this last week, didnt get a chance to post at the time, had to get em done for a weekend trip up to La Push. but im back now feel kindof like a sunburnt idiot, but im pumped that we got sme nice clean small surf, making it well worth the discomfort. butr I will never underestimate the unpridictability of a chance of sun up in the rainforest on the peninsula again.
Any way, The two recent projects are coming up…
the first is a short fat diamond tail twin fin 5’8"X21"X2.5"
and the second is a midlength mini longboard resin tint free lap shit show, that gave me more learning expierences than the last 5 lam jobs put together. 7’0"X20"X2.75"
Hey Gibeau. My method is as follows.
I generally use Paulownia (15mm thick because I like thick fins), but any wood or plywood will do. I router the base down each side to achieve about a 7mm thickness and then glue a small piece of laminated fin panel of the same thickness on the front to be the screw tab and sometimes at the back to take the fin pin. You could use anything that is tough, waterproof, adheres to resin and is the right thickness for this screw tab though. If you are making fins of normal thickness then just choose wood or plyood of about 6 to 7mm thick to start with - no routering down required. Then I set the fin upside down, create a dam wall with some masking tape around the base and just pour in some resin to set and create the resin strip you see along the bottom of the base. This is just to seal the bottom of the base. Then after foiling I simply glass each side completely with a couple of layers of 6oz cloth minimum (or more if required to get the thickness of the fine base up to the required 9mm). Hotcoat, sand, etc. Drill the hole for the screw. Drill an oversized hole for the pin, fill with resin and then redrill with the correct sized hole once it’s set - that is if you haven’t added some fibreglass fin panel at the rear of the base as already mentioned.
Hope that makes some sort of sense. Let me know if it’s not. I have made a number of fins in this manner without any issues, breakages, etc.
Don’t know how I missed this, I even up-voted it, without realizing I’ve seen this board in person, several times, and looks even better in person! Nice job Grant, and have a great surf trip with your new board! - Huck
This one is 5’ 10" x 22" x 2.9", 40 L. Made this one for a friend who is ~6’ and 200 lbs. We’ll be testing it out in Costa Rica on Tuesday 
Dipped in the inkwell!
hope you guys score some epic waves
Yumm Yumm, With the amount of sharks down under. you’d look like a big fishing lure.
Paint the bottom of the nose red. Maybe put some streamers on the tail.
All the best
I always think about the colors and patterns on the bottom of my boards. I stopped doing anything that will end up attracting sharks. Try to look like something they will not want to take a bite of. Seems like they like come straight up from below when they are going to attack.
So I’m building a new board and because it is very similar in dimensions to one of my favorite boards of all time, I go and measure my all-time favorite for the first time. This board has been out in big east coast (US) hurricane surf, Mex, Hawaii, Santa Cruz, SoCal, Nova Scotia, Barbados, etc. It is from 1989, glass-on fins, etc. BEST BOARD EVER.
Then I get shocked. My front two fins are not the same distance from the tail and one is toed in ¼” and the other is toed in 3/16”. And one fin is an 1/8” closer to the rail than the other.
I took off on some pretty serious waves BITD with this thing. Got pitted at Soup Bowls and a mysto reef break in Nova Scotia. Got a set wave at Steamer Lane. Got a double barrel in Mex on it. Had I known the person setting the fins was high or wide might have changed my confidence in this stick. Mind over matter, I guess.
I doubt even a pro could tell the difference in riding performance from an extra 1/16" toe-in or even the 1/8" difference in distance from the rail.
I agree
We are fast becoming the shark capital. My old home town is coined ‘Death Coast’ it’s gnarly!
And hey, DingyMcDingFace, Yep. Glitter is Gay.
A 5’10 x 19 3/4 x 2 1/2 just hotcoated.
Yeah, first time at a purple tint, and yeah, purple def is a bitch, couldn’t avoid some minor little squeegee marks.
One day it will be perfect, one day :D…
