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Anyone got plans for a Foil? I have a old skurfer deck that I want to try convert to a Foil board. Next "lightwind" project.

Here's a start:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Hastyfoil/

from what I understand, unless your REALLY REALLY GOOD. Hand shaped foils just won't work, they'll be uneaven and make it very difficult to ride. Think about it this way, Boards are big, so i takes a big imperfection to affect the ride. Foils are so small that even virtually imperceptibly imperfections will kill the ride...Are you a machinist? If so then ignore everything I wrote...

Plus, unless you get lucky and find something useful like a broken carbon mast, that materials will be very expensive. G10 ain't cheap

TooMuchEpoxy wrote:from what I understand, unless your REALLY REALLY GOOD. Hand shaped foils just won't work, they'll be uneaven and make it very difficult to ride. ...

Shaping Will be difficult, but the sense of accomplishment when finished
is Well worth the learning curve.

** if Ya use straight taper lines at first, (ie--no compound curves), on the
airfoil, then the shaping can be done with a hot-wire & 3lb density foam.
Ya can get +- 0.010 tolerances on the
thickness that way if you cut 1/16" thick aluminum airfoils for the root and tip.

** first thing i would try is to make a mold of am existing foil lay-out; if you
got t buddy that has one. If you PM me, i'll tell you how to build a cheep PFP
mold; it's how designers make prototype plaster molds for one-off's. if your
careful then Ya can get 15 - 20 parts out of it.

** shaping a male can be done with the use of a multi-ply plywood. the more
lamination's the better. just past your airfoil on the ends and follow the glue-lines
of the ply for your shape. Any deviations will show up like Rad !!

** Materials ?
Use a good grade of glass then put down a 50K carbon uni on the top & bottom
of the airfoil. Carbon uni can be had on the roll for about $30 a pound, which would
be enough to build 30 Hydrofoils. By then you'll be getting good at it.

** Any Really "Good" grade of Epoxy will work, West Systems is the cheaper of the
ones that will work.

Without getting on anyone's case. I didn't have the money for my first board...
so i built my own---three times till i got one that worked.
The current state of the art in prosthetic's were designed by an engineer that
had two perfectly good legs. I broke both the ones they made for me,(one 80ft up
a rock wall & the other in the middle of lake Mohave while kite boarding), so i build my
own now !
The Hang glider that got # 4 in the world on in ACRO...
Yea i built that one also, (i blew up my First try) & had
to toss a parachute, to save my Ass !
I got Better at building frames, kinda quick after that !!

The point i'm trying to make here is :
Don't Let Some Idiot with the Creative ability of a Friken Slug
try & talk you out of building your own S**t !!

Once again --- the sense of accomplishment is Well worth
the Learning curve !!!

Bille

Why not just buy the blades, then make your own t-bar and board. The board is almost insignificant since it doesn't really hit the water.

I was thinking of trying to attach a foil to a SUP...but not sure how I can do this without killing the board.

Any ideas?

tautologies wrote:Why not just buy the blades, then make your own t-bar and board. The board is almost insignificant since it doesn't really hit the water.

I was thinking of trying to attach a foil to a SUP...but not sure how I can do this without killing the board.

Any ideas?

Thanks Taut. Would like to try scratch build first. Found a very nice site (http://kitefoil.forumactif.org) but it's mostly in French. Only just signed up so I'll see how far I come. Been trolling through pages and there's a wealth of info.

What I want to start off with is getting a comprehensive set of hard and fast rules to start off with that, I can fine tune later. Looking through the pages there are so many different shapes out there that follow the same T-Bar + twin foil rule it looks like you could make anything work. There doesn't seem to be a "magic" formulae from what I could find.

As for SUP, I'm assuming you are talking without kite? That would really be the holly grail of sort for being totally self-sufficient. A lot of the surf footage I've seen involves guys being towed up to speed. With a SUP you use your paddle and some swell to get up to speed no PWC needed. I see where you going.

Found this for you. Looks like a handful.

I've been working on hydrofoils. First attempts I tried to make mods from windsurfing fins. That was a lot of work, and easy to introduce imperfections and make big mistakes. Now I am working with a CNC machine. A friend of mine got me in touch with a guy who uses one for woodworking.

This way I could design the foils any way I wanted on my computer.





Make your molds from plastic, then paint them, because the plastic is so porous that it will absorb any release agent you use. I use either Azek or Versatex, which you can get in the wood department of Home Depot.

I've gotten some good results. Putting them first on an old windsurfer. That hasn't worked right, yet. Need to find the right balance point. I think I've been putting the foils way too far forward.

Thanks for sharing Saul those foil look really good. I don't have access to a CNC machine and I'm going to wing it and hand shape. Not looking for perfection just yet just a proof of concept. I saw a guy turn a wooden toilet seat into a foil and that worked lol

I take it you are basically laying up carbon in the molds and gluing two halves together? what is the skin thickness 3-4mm?

I'm design the T-bar currently and have come up with this in Skecthup. The T-bar is the most critical part of the system and and has to be really strong I've been told. Still some tweaking to be done but once I've finished T-bar I can go to town on the foils.

Why does everyone build foils with anhedral instead of dihedral?