Making our own kite surfing boards


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AlexC
AlexC
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Hello, My fatherand I are avid kitesurfers and have recently gotten into making our own boards.Our first board was made out of mahogany and is 6mm thick at the thinnest part.This has so far proven to be structurally sound but a bit too heavy, so werelooking into reducing the thickness and reinforcing with carbon fiber or fiberglass.

My question is, is carbon fiber skinning a good choice for this? Can Iapply multiple layers for skinning and if so do you have any recommendation asto how many layers would be needed to maintain the strength if I were to reducethe wood thickness by half? Also it needs to be slightly flexible to absorbimpact and would the clearcoat stand up against salt water conditions or wouldI want to apply a layer of something else on top?

Thanks much

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aka
aka
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Hello AlexC / Matt,

A couple of mates and I have been making kiteboards here in Perth, Western Australia for a couple of years.  We have been evolving the process and the materials we use and our latest configuration is a shaped core of Divinycell (a light-weight, high shear-strength foam) sandwiched between two 1.5mm plywood sheets, skinned with a single sheet of carbon-fibre each side - all pulled onto a mould in a vacuum bag.

A more conventional approach is to shape a core out of timber - and it seems the best is Paulownia, which is lightweight, very strong and good to work with - in which case I'd suggest starting with two layers of fabric for each skin.  Depending on the strength of the core (we would aim to have Paulownia max 15mm thick) and whether  you're pulling big jumps you, might need more strength - and therefore more layers of carbon fibre.

We thought we were making great boards just from Divinycell between the plywood sheets, until we had a couple snap across the top in the middle (when landing over a wave).  So we started inserting a layer of carbon fibre under the top plywood skin.  Then we progressed to carbon-fibre on the outside with great results - but we are getting a few pinholes and air-bubbles (not always, but too often).

A question for Matt:  I've seen people suggest bagging to 65% vacuum, or 30% vacuum, etc.  We just chuck it in and switch on the pump, but we are now looking for a gauge and regulator to control the vacuum.  Can you explain how the % vacuum affects carbon fibre, and how we would select the ideal vacuum strength?  Is there potential to go to vacuum infusion for this?

GO

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