Stay connected in the wind. This forum is for anyone who rides the wind, winter or summer, on whatever board suits their fancy. Share the stoke, find out where people are going, ask any question, share your discoveries, and discuss any esoteric idea you may have related to the pursuit of wind. Please keep it positive.
Since this weekend is a 3 day, Simon and I would like to start building our own custom plywood kiteboards. Does anyone have any recommendations concerning the materials, design, and overall build of the board? We will likely be using a pattern similar to the SX151 board and both tips will have a slight rocker. We'll start out finless, and then add fins later if necessary. The basic material will probably be two sheets of 1/4" plywood glued together. After the pattern and edges are finished,the boards will be covered with several coats of polyurethane. Footpads might be purchased, unless someone has some info on custom footpads. Also, if you have any previous experience with DIY boards, please share!
Note: I am building my own board because I have an 18month old and another on the way in July. So, as you can see, I do not have the $300-$500 to shell out on a retail kiteboard because it will have been already spent on diapers.
Otherwise....I currently have too much "stuff" in my garage. I have a beater board that's 130 x 41 (I think). It's a beater prototype board and one of the strap inserts is stripped BUT it has new straps, pads, grab handle and fins. I haven't put it up in classifieds but I'm asking $125 for it. I have pics I can send if you're interested: dmzimmer at visi dot com. Kids sure are 'spensive!
You should get a lot of info from others on sources for some of the accessories to get, fins, pads, straps etc. Also, most likely you'll get some good info on building it.
One thing I would do if I was building one, and to be honest I never have, would be to look at some of the boards out there now that are using step technology. On the SX boards the form is so smooth that you loose a lot of the construction going on inside the board. If you look at some boards like the Nobile, Crazy Fly, etc, the construction is much more apparent. You can see a thicker area under the feet that will have less flex, then a step down out near the edges that will give a bit more flex, and then some have a real thin section right at the tip. It's not hard to imagine how you could have 3 sheets of thin plywood that are shaped progressively smaller and smaller and layered up to give the same controlled flex.
I like the outline of the 151, though this year they went a bit smaller to the 147 and there isn't that much loss in light wind performance. Some brands are going shorter and wider and claiming the same light wind performance, I haven't ridden them so can't comment. If you've ridden the 151 and like the feel stick with it.
Good luck, sounds like a fun project.
Last edited by Tighe on Sat May 26, 2007 8:18 am, edited 1 time in total.
I have built 4 or 5 plywoods boards now, and I learn something important every time I build one. Here is some quick advice. Avoid the plywood with the particle board sandwich. It is too flexible and weak. Get something with sheets of real laminated wood. Also, pine is too soft. I just built a skimboard out of 5 x 4 birch for subfloors at Menards. The stuff is 5 layer 1/4 inch. Very strong and stiff but a bit heavy. Use waterproof glue. Get some t-nuts and drill the holes in the top sheet and put them in before you glue the sheets together. That way you will have a smooth bottom with no holes for inserts. As I think about it there is lot of other advice I would give. Send me an email or call me if you want more info.. mwinter at stthomas.edu 651-695-0624
I am stoked about my skimboard. With straps and small fins, it is virtually the only board I use now. Light air is a blast, and big jumps are no problem. It is 51 x 21 inch. It holds an edge really well when the wind picks up. Here are some photos:
You might get some insight from http://myplykiteboards.com/cubecart/upload/ where they have settled on a couple of simple plywood designs that they sell for really cheap. If I hadn't dumped a ton of cash into that Spleene!....
Don't dis the spleen man, that thing is worth every penny. That is if you bought the rip. For light wind, what winter made looks like the ticket, minus the straps. Light wind is really fun with a strapless skim board.
The board I made was really simple. I used birch plywood into a simple oval-shaped board, and coated it with marine epoxy, got some cheap $5 beach sandals from Target for footpads (I just cut off the toestrap) and mounted them using contact cement (I would suggest not using contact cement now). I bought sailboarding footstraps and fastened those to the boards using some small bolts countersunk into the board. It works well, but I wouldn't use it in a competition or anything.
That's pretty cool that you like your board so much Mike. I'd love to ride it some time. I just build for fun.
Mike's board is a SS SX outline that was blown up to a 150 x 45 (if I remember right). It has a continuous rocker. The core material is 3/4" Corecell that is tapered to 1/2" at the tips. The glass job is 2 x 9 oz biax cloth plus 1 x 6 oz E glass. These three plys are duplicated on top and bottom. Epoxy resin and vacuum bagging are used (vacuum bagging is sooo much fun). The fins are hand shaped from G-10 (or Garolite). Regrettably, I did not shape the fin bases to the contour of the board's bottom.
Pictures of Mike's board plus the other three are posted on the Yahoo board builder's web site
The slingshot footpads and straps arrived yesterday. I ordered two pair, one for my board and one for Simon's. They came to $50 a pair, shipped.
We decided to go with two sheets of 1/4" baltic birch plywood, laminating them with West Systems epoxy in a rocker table. Rocker will be added in the tip regions only. The basic design is a reverse engineered version of the Slingshot SX / Spleene Rip board. Pro/E was used for the CAD model design and a plotter was used to transfer the design to paper. The final dimensions are 144 cm x 42 cm. These are going to be our primary lightwind boards.
Simon's board will be the proven two glued sheet design with several coatings of polyurethane, similar to Mike W. Simple, clean, easy to build, but a bit on the heavy side.
My board will have 6 cutouts in low stress areas to reduce the weight by about 40%. These areas will then be filled with hand cut foam and epoxied in place. Stainless inserts for the footpads and straps will then be drilled in. Finally, a sheet of wilsonart laminate will cover the top and bottom surfaces to add strength, durability, and water resistance. I did a bit of research on the material properties of the laminate, and it should work fairly well. Also, I found out that Realkiteboarding uses Formica laminate on the bottoms of their boards for strength and durability. After this has all cured, the perimeter will be routered to give a nice clean edge and a layer of epoxy will be added to seal it. This board can be considered more of a hybrid of plywood and laminate. For simplicity, both boards will be finless, with the option to add fins later.
I have started taking pictures of the process, and I will post them soon. These will likely be the first two in a series of boards that Simon and I build. I'm sure our techniques and designs will change as we gain experience by breaking inferior boards.
