The loxbox/pavel speeddialer fins got me thinking about curves, maybe something clever with ply and glass, then I spotted this retired skateboard under my desk.
figured it was a supply of good curved ply.
Templating. I’m using the concave part for these fins. I’ve still got tailkicks, any ideas what to make with these? Something more extreme?
I’ve kept away from the boltholes and tryed to keep the curve in one direction.
More pictures. These fins will be glass ons, not made the board yet, I was going to wait, but I liked Oldy’s idea of making the fins first.
The front fins are single foiled with rounded inside leading edge.
Trailers are fairly symetrically double foiled.
Trailers front on.
I’ve need to finish sand these, and get some more resin and glass in. Will go for the Bert Burger glassing method. I’m home for easter at the moment, revising for finals so will probably wait till the after exams in the summer to glass these, when I do the board.
I thought this’d be a nice way of keeping a favorite skateboard alive. I wanted to keep the paint on but the curve is the wrong way to have the single foil on the painted side. How about some others try skateboard fins, post them here?
Also was thinking about trying to use the curve for concave on double foiled rail fins?
Surfthis, another Texan, did this a while back… Pics are gone though, but they were regular fin template with curve from the kicktail EDIT: whoops–from the concave…
I got bored of revising yesterday. This is what the kick ended up as. The curve’s not uniform for a section large enough for a whole fin, so I kept it in the middle 3rd if the fin.
I like this curve, it’ll be harder to glass than flat fins!
Janklow: Can’t believe i didn’t find that, i’d searched for curved fins but I guess should’ve used the word skateboard.
Skiny: I’d like to see what you get from yours. I wanted do do some more plywood fcs ones, the tabs on my 1st attempt were weak and I lost 2/3rds of a thruster setup. I’d been thinking of laying up 2 thin sheets of ply with glass in between, to strengthen the thinned out tabs, so guess they’ll have to be conventional flat fins, thought that way It’d give a good halo too.
Any one else have anything new to add to this? Looks like a pretty cool idea. I have a couple of old busted skate decks floating around the house and my new fish will obviously need fins. I’m a cheapskate and I like to make stuff so this may be a perfect match. How have these performed?
Any one else have anything new to add to this? Looks like a pretty cool idea. I have a couple of old busted skate decks floating around the house and my new fish will obviously need fins. I’m a cheapskate and I like to make stuff so this may be a perfect match. How have these performed?
Was a twinfin (and may become one again) right now it’s a “twinzer.”
For more pics, see my “ResinX Twinfin and Skate Fins revisited” thread down this page…
Yeah, your post this week is what inspired me to search for more skate fins. I was hoping to see some progress shots and where on the board you laid the templates out.
Almost took some pics of the progress but got sidetracked. Those fins are so raked, I had to include a bolt hole in the fin. I laid them tip to tip on the same side of the curve of the concave. I messed up a broken sector 9 by laying the templates down kind of yinyang. After cutting them out, and placing them together, I realized my error. Instead of mirroring one another, they “spooned” when i put them together! I had to use a full deck to get the ones I ended up using. Anyway, the concave of the deck sort of transcends into a wheel well and the curve changes there, so I moved the base of the template in, towards the bolt holes until that both templates were sitting on the same part of the deck having the same amount of curve. If you’re making smaller fins, it’s not such a big deal, just make sure to flip the template so you don’t make the same mistake I did. Just lay the base of the template on or near the edge of the rail. If you have the full deck, you should be able to get 4 fins (normal thruster size) this way. I’ll check and see if I have any remnants of the cut outs when I get home later. A pic will explain it better than I can! Keep in mind, the skateboard is likely to be a little too thick, so you’ll end up foiling a few plys off. The first time I did this, because it was one my kid’s grinded up, broken skates, I sanded off one or two plys off the inside then foiled normally. On these latest ones, I just “skinned” the inside (concave side) to get the finish off of it, then foiled to desired thickness. Maple’s really, really hard, so a 50 grit hard disk simplifies and speeds up the process.
Funny about the ying yang thing. I just made the same mistake on my first try at fins. Laid up some thin plywood with carbon fiber to stiffen it and epoxy then traced and cut our a pair of semi-keel looking fins. Sanded them to clean the edges and then when I placed them back to back to check uniformity low and hold I had made two right side fins. sonofabitch
Cut it out of the deck, you can see that the base is inset from the rail a little ways. This got it off the wheel well and onto a flatter part of the deck in the lengthwise direction. The other fin was cut out with the base in a straight line from this one and “mirroring” it so the inside curve would be the same.
First attempt, what’s wrong with this picture???
I hate it when this happens!!!DOH!!!
So now I have two leftover same side Sector 9 fins, maybe I can find another broken one the same size and make bookends!
Just out of curiosity how did you take the thickness out? I did some fins today out of an old broken skate deck. Is was snapped off center so it was a bit of work to find spot to lay them out that I felt had a uniform curve and no wheel well. Since patience and subtlety are not two of my strengths I decided to take the brute strength approach and split the plywood using a chisel. It worked pretty well except for a few small gouges that were left on the fin surface, even after sanding. I figure after an epoxy coating they should fill in good and smooth. Cool thing was that 4 layers of the ply are just under the thickness of my ProBox inserts so once they are epoxy coated they should be a good fit. Since I don’t consider myself to be overly talented with tools I was pretty damed pleased; they are nearly perfectly identical and have what I think is a good foil (I used Larry’s instructions on ProBox/Greenlight thread). I’m not sure but they feel like they have a very subtle “twist” to them so I am not sure how that will affect their performance.
PS-Skateboard plywood looks really cool to with the colored layers.
Sorry the last one is a little out of focus. The inconsistency in the top pattern is from the coloring from the plywood glue. You can’t feel a difference in the shape itself.
The second pic will help me explain what I started to post last night but couldn’t figure out a good way to word it.
If it were me, I’d continue foiling the edges, then grind off the extra layers to get to desired thickness. This lessens the amount of “flat grinding” you have to do, limiting it to the little triangle of material left over from your foiling efforts. Trying to grind a large area flat and keeping it even is pretty tough. It can be done, but you have to be a lot more careful.
I’d take more off the tips and probably overall thickness, but that’s not as big a deal to the foil as getting the taper down. That’s just my preference, I’m not saying that you’re not okay where you’re at, just what I’d do. Maple’s tough stuff, no?
I haven’t been on here for a while (getting married, moving to Cornwall etc…), and saw this thread had popped up. The fins at the start of this thread got there 1st surf the other day. seemed to go well. I’ll take some pictures and post them up of the finished board.
I like the coloured plywood look, tinting the glass is fun too.
