With the first batch of fins on their way across Australia to their new owners and more to follow soon, I thought it would be good to have a FF Community page where our collective experiences and knowledge should be able to benefit all. I would really like this project to be open source. I will provide the 3D CAD files to anyone who is interest on the basis it is personal use only. ( not for commercial exploitation please).

I would love to see; a gallery of finished fins, a Q&A because I am certain there are sailors out there who have far more metal working know-how than I do. Tips and Tricks to get the job done faster, Get out jail tips for when you stuff it up - I have a few of those already ;-) , better ways to seal the hollow and finally finishes: polish, anodised and paint.

I will start it off with FF used for wood splitting. This was a FF20 that I finished and then managed to drop on the concrete garage directly on its tip...Solution, careful bending of the tip back to original shape ( it was looking a bit Free Willy) OR cut it off and make an FF18. Off with the tip and a quick polish and voila the "block splitter" was born



So don't leave me hanging here peeps, as you finish your FF or need some collective wisdom please post :-)
cheers
fangy

As it was not windy today i played around in workshop. I have wanted to start reboxing fins as you cant buy decent quick weed fins.

I knocked this unit up. I have the stuff to make the mould.

The arm that holds the leading edge is on a hinge so i can change the angle as i wish. The ali track that hold the fin is the mast track out a my long gone course racing borad from years ago(Windrush XP). The fins(well all of mine do) wedge in nice and tight so minimal clamping is required.

can anyone see and improvements i could make before i pour in the goo to make the rubberised mould(yes Sam i have ripped off your design).

Dumb Question: Ok, just what is a mast shim for? I thought it was for mast protection, but this just seems silly now. Something to do with boom head sizes?

Puzzle: I've got a 6.5 sail that has a luff of 467. The guy I bought it off threw in all his equipment.

- There's a 460 top and a broken 460 bottom, together they make 430. He's sanded the once broken 460 bottom back.

- There is a 25cm tip extension.

- There is a mast extension but when set to 12cm it won't fit into the 460 bottom as is too narrow. The mast extension fits at larger extensions, goes to 30cm.

How did he rig it?

Also/Or: There is an aluminium mast it actually does rig on but it just doesn't "look" right with the bend and all, plus is a bitch to downhaul on it.

From talking to him for about 10mins he seemed to have spent his life windsurfing, Gorge, Maui etc. so I guess he knew what he was doing. I can't contact him as he is now somewhere between QLD and Indonesia on a boat.

Thanks in advance.

Seems I saw instructions on the web somewhere, but can't find it now. Good weed fins really are in short supply, aren't they?