Pushfins - fins made from recycled skateboard decks

Thought these fins looked cool for what they were. Ran across them a while ago but the foils looked a bit rough. Seems he’s gotten a lot of practice and quality seems pretty nice. Really intrigued by the fin system bases.

http://pushfins.com/

Random related question - has anyone had any success molding Futures bases and attaching them post-foiling, similar to what they are doing with the glass tab?

I was in a composites shop a while ago and saw they were using a high-strength adhesive to bond 2-part molded pieces. I was asking about the strength of that joint and they mentioned it was a lot like woodworking where the glue joint in most cases was stronger than the material it was bonding. Most production Futures appear to be made this way.

I’ve played with molded Futures bases onto wood fins with poor results.


Nine Lights is doing some cool bases on some of the wood fins they’re making. Check them out too.

The fit looks sloppy AF on that tail photo.

For sure, been digging Nine Lights since they first got started. Been seeing their fins on Insta, very nice.

https://www.instagram.com/nine_lights/

This is a fin I recently made in the same style as Pushfins. A friend of mine cut off a box fin to use as a glass-on and he gave me the base. I figured I’d use it to try an experiment marrying wood to it. I cut the curve on it and ground down the thickness of the sides a bit. I then used resin to attach the wood, foiled and glassed it. I ran the glass all the way down past the half-moon to the bottom of the base trying to give the upper part enough support. This was a first attempt at this for me and I am pleasantly surprised at how strong it is. I can flex it in my hands as hard as I can and it flexes perfectly as a whole unit. We’ll see how it stands up to the test of time. It’s been pretty flat here, so I haven’t had it in the water yet. This one has a few air bubbles around the halo, but like I said, this was a first try. I think I will be able to do better next time.

I just layed up a panel a bit thinner than normal to try to make another, this time with my own fiberglass base. I will do the same thing and run the glass all the way to the bottom. By laying up my own panel I left myself extra room to add more layers of glass and get a thicker halo around the wood. If I get a nice result, I’ll post up a photo.

i dig em just made a set but used virgin ply not skateboard. used fcs so was able to use flat fiberglass plate for the base (angle built into the box)