The half moon keels I made for my ‘Maple Bar’ mini simm project recently, 9" x 5". Art on the inside of the fins by a local neighbor kid.
The half moon keels I made for my ‘Maple Bar’ mini simm project recently, 9" x 5". Art on the inside of the fins by a local neighbor kid. [waste of time trying to put pics up, apparently; the site doesn’t seem to be working properly]
Hey Ben finally got your panel foiled and put the extra plug into my Twin, gonna give it a surf soon…
Yewwww !
STOKED , Noe !
let us know how it feels eh ?
with two more extra plugs , SINGLE fin option , mate , maybe even with the trailer sized sideys too, if you're not into singleys [ .... I LOVE single fin fish / swallowtails !]
now ...
WHICH of the other sets will you foil , next , Noe ?
feel free to give ANY to 'tommorth' , too, as I can always send you heaps more
************* I'm trying to reduce my fin quantity by at least 80-90 percent ... ************************
so , anyone who is wanting fcs tabbed , fibreglass , homemade , fins ...
..... just pay the postage costs , and a few bucks for the materials .... and they are YOURS !
cheers !
ben
KG: You’ve probably finished this by now, but if not, there are some great threads on glassing wooden fins, but I’m not sure if search is working right now. In a nutshell, I always put a couple of sheets of glass one side of the fin making sure to allow plenty of overlap around the edge to create a trough for the halo. then I flip it over and add some saturated roving along the edge to create the halo, and finally glass the other side. once its all dry I clean it up a bit and glass it to the board. (its more complicated than that and I’m definitely not a master.) I don’t know him, but Austin has posted some incredible work and a great “how to” on the subject. Maybe you could track it down in the archives somehow.
Also, thats an interesting foil happening on the trailing edge/base. Looks
like a fairly abrupt foil out the back, transitioning into… I’m not
sure what to call it, its almost a “semi-canard?” How do they work? My
first (only) keels also had a fairly abrupt foil into the trailing edge,
I’ve since adopted convention and go with a more traditional foil on all my other fins, but my first set actually work fairly well and I like them. I’d be interested to hear
your thoughts on the “semi-canard” down low, and/or hear the
Sway-brethren pontificate on the merits of of this technique. seems like a lot of that effort would get concealed by the roving when you attach the fins to the board. If not I wonder if an abrupt transition from vertical to horizontal planes would create some kind of drag effect (maybe not though because every non glass-on fin I’ve ever seen basically has no transition at all.) Does anyone have any thoughts?
I think the foil has something to do with it being not foiled enough! Ran out of blanks so I figured I would give fins a try and had fun with it, by I DEFINATELY have to reveal a few more glue lines to blend the foil more. I haven’t tried them yet and haven’t glassed them either yet. I have a simmons I could glass them onto if they come out good enough!! We’ll see… I appreciate the response and input!!! Everyone on here is great
Hi verde,
You’re foiling is quite good!
But you can improve it by moving the thickest point closer to the leading edge. (read: the contour lines in front of the tickest point should be closer together).
You can always try my foiling application to get an idea of what I mean.
How difficult is it to fabricate something to fit into a futures base, without using an all glass fin blank? I feel like a wood and glass fin jammed in there would snap?
Also, has anybody ever bought the cheap plastic fins then added something to them? I was considering getting a set, then vac bagging wood or something onto the trailing end, refoiling it and making big keels or something. For the hell of it, I’d make a center keel and have a 3 keeled board. May be super fast, slow, may not turn, who knows.
Cause I’ve only ever made a wood set of twin fins, but the board I’m finishing up has futures boxes so I could try all sorts of strange stuff.
Hi warrior1515 -
Nice job on those. The foil pattern looks totally functional. Very cool that you received some pointers from Bill Thrailkill.
I use a very inexpensive material: Textolite is harder than plastic,but softer than G10.
Super easy to work with and
no need to glass or to finish with coat.
Just brush/smooth with grid
paper progressively from 60 up to 500 or 800 for smooth finis
Nice foiling!
Where do you get this textolite? Textolite is the productname, do you know what the materials are called?
It seems that it is phenolic resin with cotton cloth, is that correct?
Any itching while sanding?
How is the flex compared to polycarbonate fins?
Thanks for sharing, really interesting!
some answers bellow, hope it helps
It is called textolite, u can search for pictures on net.
Yes it is that brown
material with cotton cloth, (used also for electronic circuits in old
times)
I didn’t do any research about
the material since I used a big piece that was laying in garage just waiting,
but I know that it’s also sold locally,
variety of depths, and relatively inexpensive. (just for example a plank
600x400x15mm cca 25€)
Foiling with electrical
hand grinder is the way to go, no itching like from the cloth.
I used thin plate for stainless steel (inox).
About the flex, I must say
that I expected the fins (cloth in material) to soak water, but no change in flex no big change in
colour.
That is a kiteboard on
picture, I have no complains about stiffness, but I dono how the material
changes in time and wear.
I can tell U that it is
quite fragile when thin.
Good job for your first fin Verde,i do like it but your going to loose some height straightening up the base edge,foil looks good,just a little meat too remove from the tip! i’m no expert esp with fins,but that’s my tuppence worth anyway. keep @ it. Slanj
Tefffanson-
Thanks for the writeup on Textolite. We use phenolics at work, I might have to see if I can get some scrap and try some more fins. I think we use a size that is compatible with my boxes...
How are people getting the sweet glass halos around the wooden cores on their fins? I tried vacuum bagging some and had difficulties on the leading and trailing edges. I thought the two layers of glass would wet out and cling to each other but that was not the case.
-J
Nice work Monroesurf I love the carbon look. Is that fin curved or is it the carbon fibre deceiving my eyes?!
Fin is composed of epoxy, cut up glass, q-cell, and long individual
strands of fiberglass (from unwound fin rope) that was laid into mold from base
out to tip (like the bones in a fish fin) before mixture was poured in. After
fin blank was foiled down, one layer of fiberglass (with rice paper underneath)
was glassed on. Result: very strong but flexible fin.
Striped pattern is based on Samoan tatau (tattoo) design and was hand drawn on rice paper. Some of it got sanded off (by accident) of trailing edge of fin during final foiling. Also, when the fin was glassed on to board, air bubbles formed around base and epoxy clouded up (noticeable).
Original fin blank was made by making a mold out of Plaster
of Paris’ using a polycarbamate fin as a model (have now developed a better
method using pottery clay to make mold).
Knocked these out real quck for one of our shapers. Based off the Stretch RTMs
Bubinga wood.
Double foiled rears.
Hi AcquaGlassing,
The trailing edge of your fins is to steep. Read: There is a big flat spot on your fins.
You should avoid this, this considerably increases the drag of your fins.
