Hello everyone,
I was thinking of building a surfkiteboard for lightwind conditions... It seems that not a whole lot of you guys are building surfboard type of boards but for light wind, I think that it is one the best option to use as there is not a whole lot of jumping, more cruising and even though I never tried one with my kites, it looks like a comfortable style of riding (always on a light wind kind of perspective)... I will use boardCAD for dimensions and try to replicate it manually, meaning I don't have all the sophisticated tools to make it the exact dimensions. I guess I will have to use my sixth sense!!! Also, having no board construction experiences, I am planning of doing some tests of shaping and glassing on piece of scrap styrofoam as I will not be happy to make a big mistake on my first shaped board.
I watched a small video of how to do a skimboard and thought it might be a good idea to use the same kind of method for a surfkiteboard... You can watch it here the video called ''Home made Skimboard, making a foam blank(PART1 OF 3)'':
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Z4x67dhw-s
My question is then do I really have to make the center of the board with wood or just styrofoam (like the one for insulation a home depot) will be strong enough. It seems that the rocker could be easier to do with a piece of wood in the middle but at the same time if it's not necessary to add some strengh to the foam, I don't think I would bother doing it... I guess that a big piece of styrofoam would be harder to shape but might me stronger than cuting it in the middle on the whole lenght!!!
My other reference for my project will be the book that can be found on of surfersteve.com (there is also some videos on youtube) even though I am planning to use lower quality material (in particular for the core; insulation foam).
Any comments or suggestion would be appreciated.
Thanks for your help guys.