Paint was a bitch, used an alkyd took for ever to dry, didn’t spray worth a damn and tons of bugs fell on it. 2 coats and tons of wetsanding and polishing. for the bottom coat, chewed off a bit of weight once fins were finished. and sanded through the graphite in a number of places in final finishing and had to recoat. Paint 90g finbox final~375g
For perfect aesthetics I should have recoated the entire bottom but woulda added 75g with no usable purpose or speed increase customer and I agreed we’d recoat it when it’s scratched up after a few seasons use.
total weight 3041g or 6.6 lbs a little shy of target but I know where the weight went and what to do better next time. Compared it to other kiteboards on the beach and it was noticably lighter than the firewire kite specific (lightest on the beach that day) and has more glass… Mission accomplished.
Wind hasn’t co-operated so haven’t ridden her yet…will report back when I do…
SPOILER ALERT: it’s gunna be the fastest I’ve ever ridden…:o)
Outstanding job, mr. swell.
That’s about the same weight that my last board came in at, and it wasn’t nearly as well built.
LOL, I didn’t notice the toboggan until you pointed it out, but that explains everything.
I can only imagine the wheels turning in your head now that you’ve been through the whole process. Or as you would say,“proh-cess”.
Was blesssed with a day of 25 mph winds and 5ft windswell and got to take the board for a test drive.
Patence please it’s a kitesurfer reviewing a surfboard…
Speed:
Gets on plane very easily, then has a bit of a spot where it starts pushing some water at mid speed after which it feels like it lifts and all hell breaks loose as it accelerates to scary speeds and wants to keep going…definitely fast, stable and turnable at that speed. but felt a little odd at mid speed compared to what I’m used
possibly the concave?
In the lake chop, 5mm of concave was much nicer to ride than my flat board and took a significant amount of edge off smacking chop.
Turing: has a wider back and as I suspected, it doesn’t turn as fast as the narrow tail boards I’m used to. The additional rail volume compared to my current board was well apppreciated and the board would gybe super easy and not bury the rails and get super unstable if you’re balance wasn’t pefect in doing this.
Balance during airs: I wasn’t pleased with this, When getting punted off a wave in my natural stance, the nose wanted to go down, makes landing easier if the nose stays up
The CoG was well behind the midpoint line when built but I suspect the deck pads and the board being shorter than I am used to and less area in front of my foot to catch wind may have added to this. I advised that a bit of unnecessary deck pad be trimmed off the front in hopes of restoring the balance.
Final board with deck pad and decals (not done by me) looked pretty sick.
Build thread complete.
nice job - that is super involved for a first time! build some more and the shapes will come out cleaner and ride better 
outline on this one looks too wide in the tail and the rocker/foil definately has room for improvement. i like to use a heavier core (2#) and less skin rigidity (bamboo or cork) to get more bend/dampening
