Cyclone

                Construction Techniques
                    FINS - Laminated

Home       Fins       Centering Rings

The fins are made up of two sheets of 3/16" 10 ply Baltic Birch and laminated together with West Systems Epoxy (for a 20ply fin) with 6oz fiberglass cloth between the two layers. The goal is for the fins to be as flat as possible to minimize roll for the onboard video while adding a little strength. We placed the laminated pieces of plywood on a 1/2" sheet of glass and stacked weights on top of them while the epoxy cured.

After the laminated plywood had several days to cure we used the Rocsim fin template to trace out the fins. We then used a scroll saw to cut out the fins close to the marked line and then a disk sander to get them exactly to size.

We used a jig which has a router mounted to the bottom of a table top to cut the bevel on the fins (see techniques for the jig). We first placed blue tape on the plywood at the location where the router bit would daylight at the face of the plywood to minimize chips. We then clamped the fins to the guide which is made at an angle to match the bevel for the fins. At that point we put a stop behind the guide clamped to the table and then slid the guide along the stop to cut the bevel. It works very well but you need to be very careful not to get you hands or fingers in the router bit.

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