Going to start my build soon and I’m going to have a go building the board from scratch (never done it before!), but I suppose jumping in at the deep end is the best way to learn!?
What board dimensions should I be aiming for? I’m 75kgs.
Depending on you skip level in terms of skating and surfing, I’d say go as short as your skill allows for.
The smaller the board the lighter, easier to transport, less wind resistant when riding and easier to use. The only drawback would be getting up.
I am 90kg and 6’2" and would happily ride a board between 4’6" and 5’. For my next board I’m thinking I’ll probably go around 5’ x 65cm and then the thickness to accommodate batteries etc. Look at the dimensions bon the lift boards.
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Do you think that in terms of available thrust a medium skilled rider could get up on a small board that doesn’t float with the rider on it?
I guess the biggest thing to asses is what motor you have and what power is available. Ultimately what you want to do is get the board up out the water where it has enough speed to easily stand and balance. Then once out the water you shift weight and pop to foil.
For an under-powered motor, a bigger board helps. But you don’t want to go so big its hard to deal with. Lift’s board sizes really are great advice:
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Roughly how thick are the commercial boards? What sort of strengthening do they put in the bottom. Going to have a go at CADing something up tonight.
That’s the one spec they don’t offer. But if you were to plan 10mm for hatch lid, 75mm for depth of hatch, then 35mm for the longboard finboxes that’s gets you to 120mm. I don’t think they are much more than that.
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Thanks. Any benefit in fitting a turtle box like you can get from Gong? Do the fin boxes need additional strength?
No, it just makes it harder to run wires through the mast.
You can go a bit thinner If the hatch is not directly above the US box rail but forward of it then you don’t have to add up +35mm.
The max thickness will be given by the hatch.
A hatch hull floor: sandwich fiberglass (or carbon) with 3mm high density PVC 60 or 80kg/m3 will give you heaps of strength, thickness will be around 4mm-5mm max depending on your layup. Hull floor of my hatch is 200gsm glass x 2 - 3mm 80kg/m3 PVC - 200gsm x 2 and it is super strong, 0 flex.
Lid: I’m using 10mm perspex too at the moment to keep an eye on thing, but if you also use a sandwich construction with 3mm high density PVC it would be 5mm max and a fraction of the weight of perspex. I will build one soon.
So assuming your hatch is 8-9cm deep you can keep board thickness under 100cm.
My for my next board project I will build a full carbon cassette that slide in the board. This will allow to have different board shape and just remove the cassette and slide it in an other shape. Lets say you have one big board for friends and a small one for you.
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Slide idea is epic! I’m just starting my build - been saying that for a long time but this looks brilliant. 2 latches at the front and 2 at the back would secure it nicely. SOmething like this:
Or what were you thinking?
I was just going to use some M6 screw on the flange and some inserts in the board but yes some nice latch flush with the surface could work well
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