Guster

Don't worry Dave... looked just like an Edge to me as well. Even the way it behaves through the jumps.

7m Ozone C4. It is my cyclone sail. It takes a ridiculous amount of wind for me to get going with it. +40knots is just getting going. 45knots is well powered as it safely hauls you through over head high breaking waves. Then at 50knots it comes alive where you can tweak and redirect to float you over that breaker that scares the living shit out of you. But then at +51 knots it starts to take you for a ride and you don't know if this was such a good idea anymore. It safely lifts you over the first wave right into the jaws of the next one. So you start top looping to make it stop... top looping a kite in 50 knots landing between over head high breakers... ...not to mention anytime the kite points in a direction it wants to go like a 2L Turbo with a stuck accelerator and no rev limiter!

It's called Genlon over here. Comes in different weights/thicknesses and available at most canvas/awning or boating upholsterer suppliers. Buggybags also uses it for the outer shell of their seats, wheel bags and buggy covers.

That clamp you circled looks tidy. It won't damage the surface of the carbon axle by afixing like the others, though might over time wear into it. If all you wanted to prevent is the axle moving sideways, I'd rough up the surface with some sand paper and wrap a roving of glass or carbon wet with epoxy so it forms a little ridge. If you do it between two tight fitting stainless washers it can be made quite tidy.

Unfortunately that makes a weak spot in the middle of the axle where the axle will fold. I'd suggest making the carbon continuous and gluing a retainer in the middle. Its' only purpose is to prevent the axle shifting if it is bumped from the side. CKB has been doing this with carbon sleeved stainless. They also tried elliptical taper on the axle which has been successful however costly to produce at mass.

The day has come... a storm of epic proportion anounces the portent of its coming. Now the end is nigh... Well start assembling and building the parts. I have a feeling you will want to build your own axle and you know who's fork you'll want to procure. Once you have those and some wheels just start filling in the gaps. Either making your own or... borrow, buy, beg for the parts you like.

Took delivery of the new milling machine today. Freight just left it in the motor entrance. Lucky I have a trailer and some Egyptian style skills at moving heavy things else it would have been tears. Spindle needs a good clean anyway, otherwise it looks like a good compliment to the machine I have and all my existing tooling is compatible. Anyway... found my first little issue with mounting these like I have. Plummet pointed it out while we were up the beach this weekend. The truck puts a lot of torque on the mounting and starts swiveling there rather than on the elastomer. You can tighten the bolts but they keep coming loos on you. He solved it by making the mount integral - glued it on hard. Revo's worked but the newer Genesis P-style trucks were hit-n-miss for that very reason. However I have a plan... going to laminate an 'embossement' to form a recess for the mount to lock it in position. You won't swivel on me now!!!

That, ridiculous shipping cost and a little bit of non-establishmentarianism mixed with a little can-do goes a long way. I definitely don't eat wheat-bix and apparently there is a marmite crisis so it can't be diet related. Hehehe... our beer is better apparently but I can't say I've had enough over there to be a good judge of that. Sadly it's 200g standard weave or 600g biax... it is all I have in stock right now. Otherwise I think I save the resin for MarkII and buy something black and straight for the long wheelbase cruiser. My 14ft Javelin skiff needs new foils before the end of the year so it can be sold so there may be a little something I can sneak on the shopping list. Would have to wait till after I sneak a new milling machine into the workshop.

The board itself is 9ply Fijian Kauri with 2 layers of 600gr biaxial glass and precured cotton(the blue finish) top and bottom laminated in a gentle curve. Finish came out a little lumpy as I was in a rush to get done and the final layup is a little soft for my weigth as I didn't add in lateral curve in the deck to stiffen it up. Another layer of biax should stiffen it up plenty without adding much weight. Overall the board is already a lot lighter than any of my old channel trucks. Elapsed time... 3-4 years. The 'trucks' and axles were fabricated over 3 years ago. However I only really made the board and put it together over the last 2 weeks. The elastomers also needs recasting... apparently it doesn't last in the bottle for 3-4 years. I've bought a fresh batch as I also have a longer wheel base cruiser(possible speed board) in construction rigth now. Its trucks are a little more ambitious given I'm making elliptical stainless housings, hence a bit more welding than this one. Rather than casting the elastomers in the truck housing I would also like to make some molds so they can be maintained without complete overhaul. I would like to swap out the axles(12mm bearing) for another set I made last night for some Trampa Hypa's with ribbed tyres.

Made me finish a project that has been on the back-burner since before he started building his last one. The only thing not made from scratch is the wheels. It's not perfect but you have to start somewhere... right?

Hen actually... Funny nobody spotted the 'hood ornament'

That's my 'chick' posing for the promotional photo shoot! Probably just thought there was food available or something. Ended up in the background of all the photos I took. Only noticed it when I got them of the camera.

Those stats are under extreme conditions where it’s easy to illustrate an improvement in performance. Every setup will be slightly different and every material has a its own harmonic frequency. The length of material can alter the affects as well. For instance, my shorter 1.2m stainless tube axle behaves much worse under those conditions than the 1.5m axle I used for the baseline comparison. Principle was just an exercise to find a material and setup that has improved behaviour to what I experience with my solid axle in the conditions that I found hardest to maintain control. Also don’t forget this is in combination with the leading link front I already have set up which in itself improves performance. what I have not yet discovered is where this setup starts to misbehave... It’s smooth, stable, heavy and turns like a truck compared to my barrow wheel buggy… it rocks! I’m looking forward to chasing the +100kph club.

I tried to maintain the load stiffness on the axle so that camber does not change too much when the kite takes weight off the buggy/pilot on the upstroke. This had the added benefit of not having the buggy frame 'roll' towards the kite under traction - ie. kite side bending under kite strain. As you can imagine both of these scenarios can introduce some tracking issues. Then I tried to 'deaden' the laminate and used copstrand in preference of longstrand fibres so the axle would not load up on bounces ie. kill returned energy and thus absorb bounces to some extent. The main idea here being that you do not transfer wheel bounce to the frame. Not so much for ride comfort but more as Chook elaborated on keeping rubber on the ground to maintain traction. This allows you to hold your line and get the most out of the kite especially when the beach is not 100% smooth. The rest of the mechanics was just around keeping the axle in centre to avoid any tramping. I tested a classic tube axle back to back with the springboard axle on a particular area of the beach where I know the washboard surface prevents me maintaining my speed. Initial runs on the tube axle only allowed me to maintain 59kph max before the wheels would judder so much that I slip sideways. Powered turns were also near impossible. With the springboard axle I topped out at 76kph on the day and maintained it through the washboard surface, maintaining speed through turns without the washout problems on the tube axle.

The axle is 3x 3ply Fijian Kauri and fibreglass laminate. Kauri is used in a lot of older wooden yachts still in use in the pacific. Similar to a blend between Cedar and Maple. Also have a foil profile stainless axle that just needs mounting tabs welded on. Here's the story of the original... http://buggy-builder.blogspot.co.nz/200 ... me-to.html Mark 1 was a testbed for a few ideas hence oversized in a few aspects. First day out it clocked 79kph. Mark 2 trimmed out all the gaff. Since I fitted it with Kenda BR's and made a new laminate axle. The original axle is on my barrow buggy. http://buggy-builder.blogspot.co.nz/200 ... ng-in.html It's not light but well within the the 60kg Euro race limits last time I checked. Should be even lighter now I trimmed it.

Tried to inline the image which the forum garbled so I reduced it to a link. Kept wanting to shorten the url with '...' in it. Just wrapped quotes around it and seems to work now.

Cleaned up and refitted... lower, narrower, new seat etc. http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8195/8078 ... 8f4f_b.jpg

Good stuff Dave! Enough time to get it done and ready to test this weekend at that rate. @Southerly... I gave up on the pump dispensers as I found them pretty unreliable over time. For cheaper than the price of a West Pump kit I bought a small digital scale(Trademe) and as long as you follow the 'mix by weight' instrutions it is 100 times faster to decant and mix that way. You can also mix any proportion whereas you can't really mix hulf a pump stroke acurately meaning less waste too.

Think of it as powering up, not depowering. Being able to get on the water with a kite that already pulls like a truck under the conditions(when fully depowered) and then powering up to get to speed and tuning the power along with everything else to get the optimum speed. Historically most buggy top speed records have been attained over very long runs whereas water speed records can only be achieved over a few hundred meters between a set of flags. It would take too long a run up to get to speed with a smaller fixed bridle foil that would comfortably sustain the apparent wind speed and a larger more powerful foil would soon become a handful. Bring into context high winds, often gusty conditions and the ability to maintain control/tune the power to the conditions means fixed bridle foils are just not quite up to the task

Absofreakinlutely! But not for ride comfort. Mostly so I can hold a line at speed. Especially on a beach with a bit of ripple or washboard. Whereas without good suspension I would be breaking out at 50kph I can happily keep trucking at 70kph. For the front I’ve been using a Carkeek style leading link and for the back I am trialing a laminated springboard style axle to great effect. Large land yachts have been running with this back axle setup for years. Just need more hours on it to prove it’s robust enough.

Currently wind coincides with time at work during the week. Weekends coincide with rain and sick kids… and more work! The only consolation is that I’ve managed to introduce a whole new level of disarray in my home workshop with the addition of over a ton’s worth of machinery.

I had input to a QR pulley spreader design. It placed the spindle of the pulley on a releasable pivot with a very basic sprung cam to hold it in place. The problem was everyone who saw it though it looked like a 'steampunked' crotch. Back then I didn't have the machinery to take the design over and refine it(sadly now I don't have the time) but it is doable... perhaps I should show Craig at PL what we had.

You forgot super expensive, super stiff and super brittle...

Having the QR where your hands are would be the ideal but has been difficult to implement in any practical fashion. QR on the strop usually uses up valuable strop length and no handle has been designed that could easily integrate a QR(as yet ). Alternatively there was a test to add a double QR to the toplines but they never released together which usually ends in tears. The other solution was the deadman handle which was also impractical as you always needed to grip both handles. I would add that you have to be comfortable with a kite to use a pulley spreader bar and be prepared to grab fist full of brake ling to drop the kite if you can't unhook.

Where are you located Tianui? I've just upgraded to foils myself and have all kinds based on performance and handling after trying a few for myself. Cheers,