Carbon fibre Fin/Keel for a Footy
by Peter Jackson

The pictures here show how one way to make fins for Footies from Carbon Fibre, if you don't have the equipment to maufacture rigid carbon sheet this can be purchased online already made from companies such as Easy Composites, althouh this is a considerably more expensive way of doing it if you do have the equipment.
The process I used here can be extended to make fins for other class boats as well such as the RG65.

To see the descriptions for each picture hover your mouse pointer over the picture

Preparing Glass Surface with Release Wax.

Preparing Carbon Fibre 200gram material, Bleed Membrane and Bleeder Cloth and Vacuum Bag.

Laying up Carbon on Glass wetting out with resin and then loading Bleeder Material.

Vacuum Bag in operation. Note spots of resin bleeding through.

Fin laid up and consists of the following layers working from the centre outwards- two layers of ‘Cormat’ two layers of ordinary ‘E’ Glass one either side of the Cormat at 45 degrees to vertical, and the outer layer of the already cured carbon.

12” Rules used as clamps to get straight edges and tapering at the leading and trailing edges.