Got caught in a pinch I had to foil out some fins from some marine ply I had laying around. Came out nice enough that I figured I could post them up. It's alot of work, but it's always rewarding. Here's the templates drawn on the scrap ply. Old trusty fish template from 2003 that never lets me down...
Then a little quick work with the old jigsaw
Looking good already, nothing like a 5500 rpm grinder to smooth out those curves
Unfortunately the ply was 3/4" thick, I only needed 3/8" ...needless to say alot of wood had to turn to dust. In this picture I'm checking the taper of the fin from base to tip, the first step in setting the foil
Here's another shot of the taper
Now a quick line defining a rough 30% to keep the foil true...
Setting the foil... an art in itself, I could go on for pages talking about this subject :) It's just like shaping a little mini surfboard though
Looking pretty tasty. Now all I gotta do is cut the base off and do it all over again for the opposite side.
Once the other side is done, they get a couple layers of fiberglass and then get glassed on the board. Simple right? Make a set! -Carl
