i know very little about placement of single fin boxes so my basic question is how does tail thickness affect position wrt box height? Im using the smallest box for a 7’0 board; the box is about 15/16" high. How thick does the tail need to be for a proper install?
mahalo
Depends a bit on how thin your tail actually is, and what type of box.
The boxes I’ve used allowed me to set it in and grind off around a quarter or more of the boxs’ height down to the board surface. As long as there is enough lip left in the box to hold the tab and pin it will be okay.
Use calipers to measure thickness where the back of the box will be. Maybe you could compromise and move the box forward a little to give you more meat.
Also carefully route the hole right down to the glass on the deck to give you as much depth as possible. Connecting it to the deck is also structurally more sound.
As long as you are not in the habit of riding in too shallow water, you won’t rip the tail off.
Ideally you would want a enough volume to fit the entire box in. But if not then, you can easily grind down the part of the box that projects out of the bottom. IF you a re hurting for volume, remember that the glass and hot coat will add a little bot more depth. Not a lot, but 1/8" maybe.
Grinding down the back portion of the box after you install it won’t really hurt fin performance. IF you fins that you are grinding downa a lot of the box volume, you can loook for a afin that has the screw slot at the front of the fin rather than the back.
Drew
So you can glass in a box, you need 7/8" for the Bahne boxes. With the O’fish’L boxes, go up to 1". This is very minimal, and you might see a “shadow” of the box on the deck. If you do the O’fish’L thing, be careful if the tail is under 1 1/4" so you don’t snap it off before it is glassed. I assume if you are using the O’fish’L, you’ll be gluing it in before glassing it.
You can always use a paper clip as a depth guage on the Bahne boxes. Stick that thing into the routed hole after you start your first cut. If you see the pin, you hit the other side. The pin hole from the paper clip will fill in with pigment anyways, so don’t worry about that.
Good luck.