Okay folks, lest you think we’re not going to take this seriously here, let’s get back to the most important issue:
How can I stiffen this flabby piece of plastic?
Here we need to pay attention to the following:
- the stiffener should not add much weight to the complete efoil
- it must be able to absorb the forces from the weight of the surfer
- there must be a solid possibility for the mast plate to be screwed on, in order to transfer the force over a wide area to the bottom of the case and to the sides
- the case lid should of course still be able to be folded open
To accomplish all this, we have lasered and beveled an 3mm aluminum plate. Two more U-profiles are screwed onto this aluminum plate via Item aluminium profiles, on which the lid rests.
The mast plate is screwed by closed blind rivet nuts. I love these sexy waterproof rivet nuts! I use these now since my last 3 Efoils. It is the fastest and cheapest way to attach the mast plate in my opinion. You get very sturdy M8 stainless steel female threads. The pull-out force is given with 7840 N per rivet nut!
To pull in the rivet nuts, I bought an attachment for cordless drill for about 60€. It works so nice!
To adjust the height of vertical aluminum profiles exactly, we have printed stylish spacers. The correct height is of course crucial, because otherwise the lid no longer closes properly and the sealing cord is no longer properly pressed in.
Stay tuned 