I’m planning on making a 6’6" twin fish. I want to start off by making the fins. I have some 9mm 5 ply but this is just standard builders ply and doesn’t look too good, its a bit redish.
I’ve seen some really nice quality ply that is also 5 ply but only 6.5mm think, is this too thin to make fins from??
Ive also seen the same ply 5 ply 4.5mm thick, I was thinking I could lay 2 peices up to give me 9mm 10 ply, I was also thinking of adding acrylic paint to the glue to give a coloured glue line to match the board.
That’s about 1/4"? The one’s I’ve been working on are out of 1/4" stock. Probably fine for the skilled, but I’ll definitely use 3/8" next time. A foil without flatspots is tricky over 9 inches of 1/4" stock.
Silly’s two layers idea sounds good. I was considering doing the same since I’ve had trouble finding good quality 3/8" stuff.
Im doing my first set of ply keels at the moment. They are made from 12mm ( 1/2’’ ) ply. I was going to do double foiled, but, i had them clamped in the vice and i thought, what the hell, i’ll single foil them. I have to hand sand a little more to get rid of a small flat spot, but ohter than that they look good, as there are 5 layers of ply, very pretty. Whether they work or not will be another story!. I did them by hand with a rasp. It was slower than a sander, but i didn;t make as many mistakes!.
I used 6mm marine ply only slightly foiled on my 6’6" fish they work great but they do hum when going fast and i have never had so many cuts on my toes due to sharp edge’s. Summer downtime will be to install plus and try a quad set up for next years surf season.
I would use 9mm minimum or do as silly and stick two bits together.
I am about to do a D fin and will use three layers of the 6mm for that
“Ive also seen the same ply 5 ply 4.5mm thick, I was thinking I could lay 2 peices up to give me 9mm 10 ply, I was also thinking of adding acrylic paint to the glue to give a coloured glue line to match the board.”
hi woodster !
…a guy here used two layers of tinted 6oz cloth to join his two bits of wood together .
Silly - yep thats the suff hobby ply, nice pale colour, really well laminated.
Kiricore - that was my main concern too. Like oldy I usually use 9mm 5 ply for fins.
Oldy - that is a beutiful set of fins, is it a black and white photo or did you stain the ply some how?
BTW thats the cleanest halo I’ve ever seen, on my last one I used epoxy and it looks a bit milky, mabye too much glass, any more than 3 layers of 6oz cloth and things start to show up. any tips?
Chips great idea mate, 2 layers of tinted glass between the wood layers, I’m leaning towards that one. means I need to be a bit more patient as I havent ordered the pigment for epoxy yet.
Could I glass the fin in poly and then glass them on to an epoxy board using more epoxy?
Oldy - that is a beutiful set of fins, is it a black and white photo or did you stain the ply some how?
BTW thats the cleanest halo I’ve ever seen, on my last one I used epoxy and it looks a bit milky, mabye too much glass, any more than 3 layers of 6oz cloth and things start to show up. any tips?
not a stain, it’s just a B&W shot. here’s colour: i just built up a clear halo using rovings. admittedly, it took me hours to get the fins looking this clean.
Thanks for the colour photo, I remember you posting the pics before now.
What I was impressed by was how clear the halo is, you can see straight through it.
I used rope made from strands of cloth and epoxy but its not clear, kind of milky, you can see what i mean in the picture of the loop, that was more or less done the same as the resin bead on the fin.
just cant think what I’m doing wrong, its not air bubbles, seems to be a problem with multiple laysers?
i just built up a clear halo using rovings. admittedly, it took me hours to get the fins looking this clean.
