Gloss Coats - Twin-tip Wave Boards(Wave Twins) - Kite Surfing

General Discussion
1 
 We are a kiteboard research group called "Light and Frost" making twin-tip wave boards for cross-onshore to onshore conditions. These boards are not meant for sale as the market for wave-twins is very low and most kite boarders do not realize that the equipment they ride is designed for flat water and/or cross-shore conditions. 

  In surfboards and windsurf boards, you want a surface sanded to 600 grain to allow early planning. However for kiteboards meant for waves, in cross-onshore to onshore conditions, the ability to hold the edge and go upwind through the wave line is paramount when the wind-wave mix is a dependent system(ie onshore to cross onshore). In this case the bottom of the board must be a glass like surface to promote hydro-suction, thus holding the edge when being pulled by the kite.

   We make twin-tip wave boards with decks of thin plywood(3mm), an inner sandwich of sheet foam or rubber mat and a bottom of formica with the inner wood side of the formica on the outside. We sand the surface to 1000 grain and then spray west system epoxy thinned to 20% with normal thinner. We spray the epoxy on using an airless spray gun. Once the epoxy is appllied, we spray the surface with pure thinner, this flattens the still wet epoxy. Once dried the epoxy is again sanded to 1000 grain and again sprayed with epoxy thinned to 30% and then again lightly sprayed with  pure thinner. This provides a very high gloss to almost glass like surface. We find the thinner sprayed onto the settling epoxy breaks up the tendency for the glue mound giving the flat gloss-glass like surface. These boards use very little glass, only a single strip the thickness of the board is applied along the edge. Everywhere else is thinned epoxy on wood. 

   Using West System Epoxy we have found the bottoms of these board, to be very hard to damage even when dragged across rocks and sand. Fins treated with thinned west system epoxy show no wear while their factory counterparts are worn after a few month of riding.

Light and Frost - Thailand

2

Pickel forks ? Spray thinned West Systems ??? Do I smell a rat here or is this for real ? Wood_Ogre

3

If its for real then they found the

1995 Zeroprestige page.

Ideas that have; fortunately, gone away.

BTDT

Pete

4

Dear Pete,

   We know nothing of the 1995 Zeroprestige page. And I am not sure which exact ideas you are refering to. We began making kite boards 5 years ago with standard foam and glass. We began removing the glass and just spraying on West System Expoxy directly onto thin plywood deck and bottoms. We only apply one thin strip of glass over the edge which has been filled and sanded with a mixture of white powder and cheap epoxy found in Bosney Crete bathroom tile sealant.  Both the work,cost and weight came down. We were out testing a Wave-Twin yesterday with a pulse 13 meter kite. Board works fine. The only problems we have had at first are the edging of the boards. If there is too much flex the edging crack eventually crack as the board can flex more then the glue/powder,glass edging. To counter this we put two plywood strips 3mm one on each side of of the board on the inner sandwich. We just tested a 148X47X13mm board with three fins on each end for waves.

   We have never had any damage to the decks and have made over 20 test boards.

   If you want a light jump board with little ability to really drive up wind and ride waves do not go here.We suggest for a 180lb to 210 persion you make the boards 22cm thick. For lighter persons 13cm seems to be okay.

  I will be happy to comment on any questions you might have.

  Prototypes were ridden in NaiYang Thailand in July-Aug and for wave riding they blew all other twintips out of the water. This was due to the size, fins and glass like bottoms.

 There are many papers in the windsurfing community on surface versus planing. For kitesurfing you want to do the opposite as you are trying to hold water adhesion and not slide sideways easily.

Light and Frost Research