Foil Board DIY

[Benicia Wind]

I recently built this board from 5 layers of 0.2" thick plywood from Home Despot. I routered out the 3 inner layers to help reduce weight but I left material in the center of the board to support the foil attachment area and the center of the board where I stand. It's about 10.5 lbs so still on the heavy side but not too bad. I stuck on 3M rubberized traction tape which I would not recommend for bare feet.

[tegirinenashi]

The weight is pretty respectable, especially for plywood from home depot. For comparison, LF rocket is 12.5 lbs. Their excuse might be slightly bigger size, sliding plate mount and combination of inline and V inserts.

[TomW]

I've glassed the bottom on mine....

[Jyoder]

I made mine from 1/2in Baltic birch and cheap Home Depot Bondo poly resin and fiberglass cloth. The deck pad is a $6 roll of adhesive backed cork which is holding up surprisingly well. 10 lbs.

A fellow kiter recently broke a similar board at the front of the mast plate and I'm thinking of making another with 2 layers by the plate to be safe.

Here's a question. How important is it to have the bottom of he board be flat-ish like a regular kiteboard? What if I put a couple external 1-inch high stringers along the bottom of the board to make strong T-beam joints? Since you don't edge a foilboard when riding the board on the water, it might work right?

[Jyoder]

Something like this?

[BWD]

The picture above with tall stringers sticking down might be too grabby and make the board hard to steer on surface and cause problems on touchdown transitions. I would go with 1x6 glued flat to the bottom, with the edges fully beveled so it has a trapezoid cross section. This would be less grabby but still stiff.

[TomW]

I'd glue another layer of ply, as wide as the plate, onto the bottom, from tail to nose, bevel the longitudinal edges, then bolt plate through both ply layers.

Problem is weight.

[junebug]

What do you guys think the minimum thickness of a plywood (probably birch) paipo should be? I’m thinking of making a 40-42 inch x 18-20 inch board with 2/3 layers of thin ply. I want the board to be as light as it can but still strong enough to handle crashes without splitting. This will be strapless and no jumping.

Instead of ply, I’m also considering the method of using strips of wood. If I did that, I would probably use cedar. My hesitation with using strips of wood is that I wouldn’t be able to give it any nose rocker inasmuch as I’m not experienced with bending wood.

[patrelsa]

World-Paulownia
www.worldpaulownia.com
This is a great place for your wood and you can even buy some trees to plant

[junebug]

@ patrelsa — thanks! That’s a great resource.

Allow me to amend my question — what does everyone think should be the minimum thickness for a 42x20in paipo made of strips of Paulownia?