Friday 30 March 2012

Resin Glitter

Got around to taking a picture of the glittered resin.

Just plain green dye with pink and green glitter in it. The resin to hardener ratios are exactly the same as normal resin.

The portion of the disc above it has the green glitter and a bigger golden flake, but the effect wasnt as good

Sunday 18 March 2012

Resin Colour Testing

Today i had a brainstorm, (oh oh) i looked at a site that had resin being coloured with other than resin pigment. They used acrylic paint.

Well i tried it and it was no good, sorta worked but not very good.
Here is the site i found.
Colour testing

Then i looked up and saw it "soft plastic lure colour". I make soft plastics and i used a colour that goes into the liquid plastic to dye it.

I made up a small batch of resin and put three drops in. It mixed in extremely well and coloured the resin great. Then i thought id try some green and pink fleck sparkles ( fine) again from lure making and guess what , great. The sparkles suspended in the resin and when set it came out like a sparkly gelcoat boat finish.

In the bottles i got there was about 80gms. I see on the net that 100gms cost about $19 Aus from within Aus.
The bottles i have cost $4.99 + postage  Colour
Glitter ( make sure you get the fine stuff) is $5.50 + postage Glitter

I have dealt with this company a bit and they are very helpful, its a family operation in Canberra.
I will be buying a bit of stuff for again i think

Ill put a pic up as soon as the camera is charged.

Sunday 11 March 2012

KBV State Camps

We went to the KBV state championships  this weekend, it was a great setup they had there at St Kilda and if it had not have been for the poor wind conditions it would have been an amazing competition.

I guess around 15 to 20 knots for Saturday and a touch stronger Sunday. But i was great to have a look.

Saturday







getting ready for a heat


gee the gulls get big around here


  
junior heat , age 11


Nice

The wind was a bit flukey , at one stage a 17mtr cab didn't like the lack of it and decided to molest a bus. This was just after they saved it. Just a bit earlier it touched up a light pole on the other side of the road.

oops

re launch
 four person heat, it was in two groups


Was great to watch the stuff going on , the crowd got into it a few times and some pretty good jumps happened during this heat.

Wednesday 7 March 2012

Sure Can Be dangerous

This week a man got picked up and thumped onto the hard sand at my local beach. Its been long said that it isnt a place for beginers and whether this person was or not it really shows that care that has to be taken when participating in a sport that can be as dangerous as kiting. It also hits home to me that in no way shape or form should you cut corners when getting lessons just to save a few dollars. In the end it could be your own life you save or that of someone elses.
I hope he pulls through.
Kitesurfer fighting for life

Saturday 25 February 2012

Under the Pump - time for a test

So this was the weekend i was to do my first test. All i was waiting on was a piece of perspex for the top to replace the coreflute and off we go. Well again the perspex didn't materialise, again let down by someone else (but hey it's free).
Oh well what to do, i thought nah bugger it im still doing the test. Then the weather kicked in 38deg c one day and the same the next.

My wife went to spotlight to grab some nylon material for the graphics, bought the one we saw the week before. I had all the resin and catalyst, the pump was finished, although no gauge yet and all the glass and plastic had been cut.
Nice bright yellow material in a pirate theme.


I saw a video from foamnfibr on youtube where he used pvc sheet for the top of his board with cotton and no breather or peel ply at all. So with not having that stuff yet i decided this was the way i was going to do it.
 I didn't have a board cut out of foam or ply yet so this test was to see if i could make a top sheet.

So, with a top temp of 38 there was no way on earth i was going to try to do this on Saturday. Sunday morning came and it was around 630 am and about 20 degrees c. Yep its time.

So out to the garage i went and started to set things up. Oh before i go any further i decided to run two vacuum tubes from the table to the pump, why? who knows but here is how i set up the "T" piece. A brass tee with brass nipples. The 6mm tube didn't fit over it , i used some bigger tube, coated the edges with silicone and the same on the smaller tube and pushed it in to each blue tail till it stopped. I tested the seal and it worked great, no leaks anywhere in the whole system.
"T" piece....
I have to say i was very nervous just before i was about to do this. But the one thing that doesn't scare me is fiber glassing. In the past i have re floored boats including mine, made a stitch and glue kayak and other laminated stuff with filler mixes and glue mixes. but every other time i had made stuff i had mixed with my own measurements, not very structured. This time i was going to use the correct amounts. I found a chart on the web whilst searching numerous sites , it shows the correct mix of resin and catalyst per volume. Good stuff.


Catalyst User Guide

I printed this out and used the exact amounts specified on it.
I poured out 250 grams of resin and put 3.8 mls of catalyst in the syringe as specified on the sheet.
scales turned themselves off, 250 grams + 3.8mls = sheet
Ok so here we go.
I laid out the first sheet of glass (cant remember the weight) and proceeded to pour about half the resin on.
glass wetted out....7am...
So i wet the glass out. Above is the first layer wet out. I used an old credit card to do the resin spreading. In the past i have used rollers, foam brushes etc and i found the card especially for this job ( plastic scraper ) to be far and away the best, both for control of the resin and for getting it into the cloth evenly.
I didn't put down a resin layer before the cloth went down. This wasn't about getting a wiz bang finish, it was about getting things ironed out and getting confidant in the processes i would use in the future.
I was pretty happy with the first layer, a lot easier than i expected to be honest. 
In time it is about 20 minutes into the job.
cotton down and glass over the top
So down went the cotton. I used the scraper to spread it out to get rid of any creases ( not a lot of resin wicked through ( hmm a bit dry?). I laid down the last sheet of glass and poured the rest of the resin over it. I used the card again to spread the resin and found that the cotton had soaked up a bit more than i thought. I mixed up another 50grams and added some well measured ( guessed) out catalyst, about 1.5 mls. Geez id never used that little of that in my life. I spread it over the matting and made sure it was all wet. Above is the three layers before the plastic went over the top.

Ok time for the pvc. I rolled it out and realised that i had cut it too short, ahh crap. Oh well , i cut another piece and taped them across the far end. I then proceeded to tape the rest of the plastic down. The tape i used was normal duct tape.
I used some putty i had laying around to seal the tubes in each end and placed a piece of old cloth over each hose inlet under the plastic.

Sealed down, almost.....

The big test was here. I was about 35 to 40 minutes into it, pretty good i reckon for the first time i had done this. The pump started and the pvc began to pull down. I had a leak around each hose  either end. I mucked about and sealed those down without many worries. The close end in the picture really pulled down well so much so that you could see where it edged around the cotton, the other, not so .

plastic pulled down around cotton edge, now that's a seal!!

Where i had joined the two pieces of plastic wasn't air tight, so i fooled around for about 15 minutes and got a good seal, but the far end still had a small leak somewhere that i just could not find. I put a separate patch over it and tried to seal where i heard some air.  But it was pulling down ok so i didn't worry about it too much.

The pump didn't stop at all for roughly 4 hours, i was only going to leave it all on until it cured anyway. I was happy as it was a good test for the pump too.
When i felt the edges that had some built up resin that had hardened , i thought yep that's enough of that. It wasn't going to force down any more than what it had done already. I peeled of the pvc and to my surprise it just came straight off, not tugging or forcing at all. Just a firm pull.

When it came time to lift the sheet from the table i was totally surprised that it lifted of smoothly.
Finished sheet
Well i was pretty happy with this first time effort. The finish is a smooth mat finish with a slight rib pattern in it from the coreflute board.
ooh where did that shine come from
Where i had taped the two pieces of board together had a good shine in places. So when the perspex goes down , i have no doubt this sheet will be like glass. The sheet has a few little pock marks or voids but they are very small. There are no dry areas at all.

Soo, in the end i am very happy with how it turned out. It was a lot easier than i thought it would be to be honest. It took about 1 hour from setup to the final tape up and pump on and sucking.

There are a few things i would do different  next time, but ill leave that for another time and have a bit more of a think. But as a test and first ever time doing this , i would give it a mark of 10/10.
As a finished pre cured top sheet ( well thats what it turned out as) i would give it a 7/10

Cheers
Peter







Monday 20 February 2012

Table Top - no not dancing

This week i had all the best plans in the world.

I had my resin and matting all ready and i was hoping to be able to find a decent top to put on the table.  But as all things, the best laid plans and all that, yeah right.
I couldn't get the time to find a decent top for the table. I do have a glass sheet from and only coffee table but it wasn't long enough to make a sheet the length i wanted to.

I went to spotlight and found some PVC table cover .02 mm i think , 3m long and 1.2 wide for $17, ok i guess. They also had some cool cotton but it was either get the pvc or the cotton with pretty pictures on it. Because i didn't have the table top yet i decided on the pvc.

Right now funds are a bit tight, more so due to the reasons of buying bigger things so Ive been doing this on a shoe string budget.

A few years back i was flying remote control planes, id made a few SPAD aircraft with coreflute plastic sheet nothing sticks to it unless you flame it and score the surface then use CA glue or contact cement. So id been looking at this for the table top but there seemed to be none around locally, (within 5 kms). A product called Ampelite was an option. It's basically a very up market coreflute but for over $100 per sheet, um nup.

Id looked at bunnings i reckon 5 times in the last two weeks for it and today i found some. I have to thank my gorgeous wife for coming with me and helping (we were also looking at swimming pools). They had alot of 3mm sheet, but it is way to flimsy. But they did also have 5mm sheet but it was short and would need to be joined in the middle. But the perfect width and when joined the perfect length. For $7.50 each , all good.

The join you can see is contact sheet, hmm , not sure that will hold all that well but i guess we will see. I may lay the pvc sheet over it and lay up the glass on that.

Two sheets as bought, no cuts, just needed to be joined. If it works i will get a big sheet and maybe lay over the top.

Now i know this is still a bit flimsy, but it will be ok for the test, it has lines length ways along it so it will be interesting to see the pattern that comes from it. Thing is that if im to make a concave bar in the center underneath it will need to be thin, who knows , it may work.

Other thing i did this week was put the legs on. I have an old trampoline that ripped a while back , i saved all the pipe frame. I used some of this to make the legs.


So that worked well. I cut down the legs and drilled a hole for them to click into the supports. All the mounting brackets are from the old trampoline too, so i didn't have to spend anything on this bit.

So what does that leave now?
Well next week i will have the cotton to use as a colour layer and i should be able to make a test sheet. Hopefully it will be good enough to keep it as a top sheet.

That's all for now.

Monday 13 February 2012

On with the Pump

Well i finished all the cross bars on the table. Had to re adjust a couple of measurements and re drill the holes, i have no idea how i got them wrong but i did.

Then it was onto the pump.
All i had was the pump itself. I had to search for a vacuum unit from a carby to act as a switch activator. I looked on the net for "proper" vacuum switches, but they cost far more than a proper vacuum pump would anyway.

I ended finding one at my local mechanics ( he services my cars, an honest one too). It was from an old corolla distributor. Only worry was that the diaphragm was perished. So i grabbed it anyway, hey it was free!

I got it home and had a bit of a look. Well i ended up grinding off the lip, taking out the perished rubber and cutting a new one from some old regulators from years ago. Put in a bolt through the middle with a couple of washers and poked it out the back , siliconed it together , let it dry and mounted it. Only thing i am unsure of is whether the rubber is strong enough when the vac is turned on. I have thicker rubber so if it isn't i will rebuild it again.

 
Setting up the pump
I have set up the rebuilt advance unit with the spring tensioner plus the micro switch which will be wired in the normally closed position. I'm also setting up the junction box where the wires will be run into for the mains, switch and pump.

I finished the pump wired it up and ran it for a bit to see if the rebuilt vac switch worked , it did. I just need to get myself a gauge and run it properly to see if the diaphram works properly and it sucks the vac bag correctly.

I am hopeing to make a top sheet this weekend, some cotton would be nice to try it with . I guess a trip to the local spotlight store will be on.

Thursday 9 February 2012

This Weekend

Well, wouldnt you know it, just when you think things are going well, they turn out crappy. I was planning on doing a dry run with the new table and vacuum pump this weekend but, i have been let down by a freind that said they had the vac advance i needed (so i didnt look for one) and the vac gauge in needed ( didnt look again).
Well guess what, today i was told that he doesn't have them, WHAT THA ??!!!!!!

I was expecting , peeel ply , vac bag, connectors, hose, tape and all the other things (consumables) needed to vac bag something and well, that didnt happen either.

So im back to finishing off the table only.
But thats the way things go i guess.

I did get onto the graphics company to find out the resolution they required for the graphics (300dpi) so that was one good thing. Plus i will work on the graphics this weekend for it. I have a few ideas in mind so i should be bale to come up with something.

For example.
I know i cant laminate a clear sheet on a wooden core due to not being able to have a sublimated PBT sheet on it. So i figure i will make a fake wooden core. I will make a seamless bamboo texture as a base , then overlay other graphics on top of that.
So when it's looked at it will look like a wooden cored board. For the seamless texture i will be using Genetica , it's a really good program, and of course the old photoshop cs5. Although gimp would be just as good.
Ive been working on ideas fr it for a few nights but havent really got into the nitty gritty of making a good looking quality texture.
One idea is a texture burning back from the corner edges of the board to reveal the wood core texture with some charing.

Anyway, things will happen but  not what i expected.

cheers

Monday 6 February 2012

Started the Table

This weekend i started making my rocker table. Yes , yes i know i haven't ridden a board yet but hey, got to have something to keep the interest up don't you?

So the bill of materials is this , so far.

25mm formply cut into strips 130mm high by 1700mm x 700 mm in width
3/8' bolts ( nylocs, yuk)
3/8' all thread rod cut into 150mm long pieces for risers
25 x 25mm alloy angle 2.4 m
cross bars are  TV antennae support bars x10 cut to suit.
Self tapper screws for corner angle 15mm

  
Screwing the 25 x25 angle onto the sides 
  I cut the angle to length , 1700mm. I made a bit of an error when buying it i only got it in 1200 lengths. I had to join it just off center. I could have bought a 2.4 mtr single length for the two sides. I matched it up at each end and made sure it was flush with the top edge , pre drilled the screw holes and then screwed each side down. I don't think it needs to be  bullet proof as glass/carbon isn't all that heavy.

Once i had done both sides , i cut angle to go from the bottom of the top rail to the base of the board to join the corners. I think though i will put 50 x50 alloy angle in there and on the outside corners.
corner bracket

The two side rails screwed on and the boards joined together at the corners.
rails on





Next i drilled all the holes for the table support bars to go into they were just evenly spaced from the center mark. Although that is where i have made a bigger gap between those two. I bolted two on to check  how they worked and looked and then spaced out the other bars before measuring and cutting them. With the bars i cut them to the right length and then smashed the crap out of the end to flatten them and then drilled a hole in it. The other end has a pre drilled hole already.

Setting out the cross bars

Setting up the support/ rocker adjusters.
testing the adjustment screws
I could only find 3/8" nyloc nuts , no matter where i looked there were damn nylocs , damn Bunnings. I had the uprights cut to 150mm. I was going to go for 100mm but changed my mind for some reason. I screwd a nyloc on the bottom of each thread pushed it through the hole and screwed down another nut to the rail to firmly hold it in place.


Then i screwed another nut on by geez, damn nyloc's again , hard thing to do . Also with this being the nut to be able to adjust the height of the rocker they needed to be free screwing. What i did was get my gas torch and burn out the nylon ring. When the torch ran out (ooo bugger) i fired up the BBQ and put the nuts on the burner and yes , well done nylocs, but now only with the locs bit left.
They screw up and down nicely now and is really easy to adjust the height of the cross bars.


So right now i have most of the cross bars on. I ran out of bolts and thread.

Right now i haven't thought of what to use for the table top yet. I want it thin enough to put the concave bar in and for it to be able to change the shape without to much force but not have it too thin that it will have waves in it between the bars when the rocker is put in.

I will update this post when i get more work done on it..





Tuesday 31 January 2012

What have i done? lmao

Just short post about last night.
I went down to the beach (altona) to have a look at what was happening down there. It was blowing about 20 knts and wanted to see what people were using. The wasnt alot of riders out there , maybe ten or so that i could see.
It was great watching them, funny thing was that a woman riding a bike almost ran into a pole whilst watching someone jumping, oops. There was also someone taking pictures of the riders.

The thing i wanted to mention though was that when i got there with my 9 yr old daughter and we parked the car to watch from, was a bit cold.
This is what she came out with.
Daddy , there is a North another North, Cabrinha and i think that one is a naish , isn't that right dad?

what tha????

cool though!!!

Sunday 29 January 2012

Still Going + table idea

Well we went down to the park again to fly the Hydra. Got it up a hell of alot easier but forgot to zip up the air outlet valve on the back , so had to land and fix that. No worries there.. The wind would have been about 15 - 20 knots , possibly a bit less , but i still couldn't get the kite into the power zone where i wanted to without risking coming down hard.

Practiced a few down turns again and actually was able to slide across the grass whilst being pulled and stayed on my feet.

Things are going ok with practicing  so far, next i have to be able to launch on my own , so i think that will be the next stage, landing is not a worry..

Ive been getting the gear together for a vacuum table. So far the pump, a fair bit of old lpg gas hose and fittings, a large syringe ( cant get the carby part yet.)

I have been thinking about the PBT sheet that goes on the boards for the shine finnish. I have seen how every ones that makes a board by vacuum bagging gets a great shine on the bottom and at times a crinkly finish on the top. Got me to thinking.

Ive read how people make the boards in two part. They laminate the base and at times later on laminate the top at a different time.

So, considering the bottom comes out slick and shined because it's on the perspex sheet how about if you turned the board over once the top was done and laminate the top as you did the bottom.
Maybe the pics will explain better.

 
Normal Rocker Table Setup
So above is the way a normal rocker table is set up, (Remember i have not done it but )lay up on the roccker with the perspex and then set the core on it and shiny surface when finished.

So we adjust the rocker like this. Turn over the board with the completed base and lay it up in this position with the top facing down.
 

Inverted table top
In my way of thinking this should give us a shiny top finish as well.
Maybe i am right , could be wrong, but hey worth a thought. The drawings were done in Google sketch up pro.

Thursday 26 January 2012

Up In The Air

We got the kite out for another fly down at the park. The big kites were out along the beach have a run in the around 20knt winds.

We got a little bit more adventurous this time. I decided to wear some gloves so i could hold the bar a bit better and boots and be more confidant with my footing, the ground is a bit rough at the park.

Launching was a heap easier, but we still put it up near the edge of the wind window
Here it is just sitting nicely about 5 mtrs above the ground

. It's really stable and has heaps of power, maybe a bit too much as when i get it in the power zone straight down wind it rips at you. I ebnded up on my face almost once. At least i let go of the bar when i was about to drop ( maybe a bit late) . It floated to the ground and once i dusted off it relaunched easily.

Here is me just having a quiet relax.

Nah i was actually practising pulling myself up. I am around 90kilos and it did it easily in 20 knts.

Here is a video of mt doing that and of my youngest holding on too, she got lifted a couple of times slightly and i was holding on fairly tightly.

She is loving it and you can see how easily it picked me up from flat on the ground.

Thats all for now, cheers

Wednesday 25 January 2012

Got it up

Well this arvo i got the Hydra up WOW..
I took the hydra down to Apex park and finally got it in the air after the false start Tuesday night. I knew it would have some power but i could not have imagined how much this 3.5 mtr would almost pull me off my feet. 20kmh (oops that should be 20knts - 37kph) and wow. I tried to reverse launch it and yes i got it up and turned but there was no way i could hold the bar with one hand . I ended up getting my girls to take it further to the edge of the window and up she went.

It was a blast, no need to go to the gym the thing pulls like , well , i wont say it..
Flew it in figure 8's very gingerly i may add ( too scared to really give it a hammer across the window) kept it at the edge of the window , walked along and had a bit of a run with it just sitting there and trying to fly at times without looking. To my surprise i could feel when the kite moved in one direction or another.
Sat down and gave it a bit more stick and the thing just pulled me to my feet, was funny actually , back leg bent and front leg straight when i got up ( no poo stance). Then laid down flat on my back and gave it a bit more with a down turn this time and straight up again. The down turn was funny actually i did the first while standing earlier and geeez, how much power and how fast was it , i guess it went straight into the power zone. I sorta hesitated to do another down turn on the other side to unwrap the lines cos i knew how powerful it was going to be.

A couple of times i almost had to let the bar go and let it drop but managed to control it by fast turning back up and out of the power zone.

Landing was easy , took it to the edge of the window , sat it about 2 mtrs of the ground and my daughter held the LE at the bottom and half way up and i just let the bar go and down it flopped.

It was great and a big surprise at just how much power a kite this size has. I didn't even hammer it so i just cannot imagine what the 10's and 12's are like to control that were down the beach a bit further, or maybe i can sorta understand a bit better. :drinks:

Anyone reading this that is contemplating learning on their own, um forget it. After using this kite at 3.5 mtrs in 20kmh winds trying to do it on your own would be crazy. Those one hour trainer lessons before a real lesson with a big kite, nup.
Yeah, well, i can take it from side to side park it at each side of the window a few mtrs off the ground but in no way would say i am even remotely ready for proper lessons until i am comfortable with this thing.
This is gunna be fun .
That's all for now , If the wind is good tomorrow ill get some pictures of it in the air.

Tuesday 24 January 2012

It Arrived

Well today my journey started. I got my Hydra from the post office and it was waiting for me when i got home. The kids were rapt especially the younger one. I think she is more excited than me about it all.
A brand spanker, straight out of the packet and of course i had to open it up to have a look..

I was actually surprised with the size, lol , and this is a small version of the real thing.

So i packed it back up. Why is it they don't go back in the way they come out.

Off i went to Apex park in Altona. I wasn't sure the wind would be strong enough but had to have a go at it anyway. When i got there one kite was only just up along the beach and two others waiting for more wind. I went to the west end (in the park) and unwrapped, laid out the lines , did the walk down the lines thing and tried to fill it will air, but bugger me , not enough wind. tried for about 10 minutes hoping the wind would pick up but to no avail.

But it gave me a chance to have a good look at the kite and lines etc. It looks really well made , nothing feels cheap, the bar was comfy and the 3rd line wrist strap was surprisingly comfortable to wear. Packed up and went to the beach instead with my daughter. At least i got to practice setting up and packing up again .

Had an interesting talk to a kiter packing up though. It was hard for me not to have a slight chuckle and he was a really nice bloke, however it made me remember on one of the forums how people get stereo typed from where they come from and how they learned to kite....

Hopefully ill get some wind soon.



Sunday 22 January 2012

Hopefully

Hopefully it's here.
I was out earlier today and was left a parcel pickup form in my wife's name ( she bought it for me). So after 4pm we will go down and look, geez i hope it is the kite and the wind will be up.

Saturday 21 January 2012

Passing Time

So while im waitng for my trainer to arrive i decided to pass a bit of time and try to set up some board making gear. I have access to fiber glass and some carbon but thats a bit further down the track. It's funny sometimes, i was searching around the net, asking as work for anyone with on old fridge that i could make a vacuum pump from with it's compressor. Only thing anyone had was an old air con pump, (2 stage) to hard. Then it dawned on me, I've been using an old fridge as a storage cabinet without the door on.

I came home tipped it on it's face and TADA!!!

It looks a bit old and is i guess . it was the fridge we bought 21 years ago when we first got married. I wired up the compressor and again TADA!!!!!
It works.
Ive found a heap of carbon , well not a heap but some suppliers i can get most gear from including glass. Right now i get my glass from Martini glass in Geelong.

For anyone interested here are a couple of carbon suppliers.
Play With Carbon  and Carbon Fiber Australia.
Play With Carbon has gear for vacuum bagging as well, including pumps if you want to spend $400 on one. and carbon is $60 per mtr.


Vacuum bagging really did confuse me a bit until i watched this video. it doesnt show a board being made but is very clear on how they are doing this. Also the rest of videos they have are good too.
( i thought everybody loved ray was finished)

The kids are excited as they are helping me clean out the garage so we can set things up. If nothing else come of this at least they are having fun getting involved in what im doing.


That's it for now





Friday 20 January 2012

Information

Wow , when i say information i mean it. There is just so much onformation about kitesurfing it's not funny. Where to start?
I started looking at Seabreeze , an Aussie based community dedicated to water sports. There are a lot of good forums threads for kite-surfing, product reviews and for sales sections. Well worth the effort to join up and make yourself known.

Next, another good site Extremekites. The forums here are great, they cover everything kite related, from surfing to stunt kites. It's a great resource. Some of the info on there can be a bit old though, but forgetting that it's a great site.

Things like this section in a blog Stuff for non kiters, great stuff and helped me a lot. One of the best blogs ive seen so far is thisVirgin Kite Board Project. It deals primarily in building kite-boards. Some great stuff in there and Matt is always willing to reply to a comment you have made. It's the sort of thing that keeps my interest way up as im half decent with fiber glassing . He has a great board design program that is free and once you figure it out , WOW, it does the trick nicely. I have to say out of all the sites i have seen that one has me all eager to get out there on my own board.

 Now reading all the info out there wont make you an instant expert , but it will help you understand the theory behind it all. After all , you have to learn the road rules first , before you are allowed to learn to drive.

This one too Pete's Kitesurfing Blog , i could post these links forever , i have so many of them , but it gives an idea about the wealth of information im drawing upon , yep you guessed it "On The Road To Ride"


Thursday 19 January 2012

What Ive decided on

Like i said earlier, i have had some experience with a trainer kite. I was actually going to get into the sport about 12 to 18 months ago but for some reason just lost interest or thought the expense was too much.

The trainer i had was an ebay special, $60 @ about 1 mtr in size. I flew it into the ground  ( literally sometimes) and in the end the stitching gave way because i just hammered it constantly. I even tried to super glue the seams to keep it going.
Basically it was a cheapy. Taught me a few things but wasnt really made to last. It had a little bit of power when the wind got up, so it gave me an idea of what power may lay in waiting. I also muck about a bit with a stunt kite.

Was very much like this.
 So what is different now and what type of kite ( trainer ) have i settled on.
Well im not sure what has made me want to learn again i just do. I have decided to and have purchased an HQ Hydra 3.5 mtr kite. The Hydra is a big step partly because of the price ( around $350) and because of the size.

Hydra 350
The Hydra 350 is water re launchable , as is the hydra 3 mtr. Ive gone up to a larger kite because of the fact that i have played with kites before , i do know a little about the wind window and thought i was at the point where i needed to up the learning curve a bit..
It's ordered , now i am just waiting for it to hit my door. The kids are happy as larry about it and my wife looks at me like, "yeah you're nuts". Having said that though she is fully supportive of me and eventually the kids learning to do this, so thats a good thing.

Also here is a promotional video of the Hydra, sorta gives you the idea of what I'm looking at.
I dont think i will be trying the dragging  at first but later on it will be an option to get the feel of what to do whilst still being reasonably safe

My Perceptions

Some of the perceptions i have gotten early on from doing research about kitesurfing is that it is regarded as an elitist sport by some members of the kiter's comunity.
What do i mean by that you ask? Good question.

To be honest i dont really know. It's just perception i got early on that some of the members think that they are way and above mortal humans in their bravery and skills and attitudes.
Having said that though, once you peel the layers back a bit you find they comunity looks after it's own very well but is always wary of newcommers that think they know everything like  how they have surfed for years, this will be easy without lessons.
Just FYI i do not surf.
But if you are new like i am and take the time to listen and understand what is being said you will be accepted reasonably well through your progression into the sport.
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When you look around at the prices for things you soon realise that it is not a cheap sport to get into.

Kites bought new can cost well over $2,000, when you through a board in that costs up around the $600-1000 mark and over for some, sheesh . Thats without forking out 3-4 hundred in lessons, harness etc. One could expect to hand out almost $5,000 in the end all up if not more.
I have based that view on all brand new gear.

In my nooby eyes this is a bit because it's classed as an extreme sport and the price goes up straight away and some people take advantage of that. Partly because there is a high demand and again people take advantage of supply and demand when charging for things. It's a growing sport and i have no doubt more manufacturers will come onto the scene and offer items, maybe not kites early on , but rather accessories like harnesses . The prices will then start to come down due to market pressure.

Wednesday 18 January 2012

The Decision

So what has made me come to the decision to do this?
It looks like fun. I is also something i can get my kids into that they may enjoy to spend some great times at the waters edge with them..

Ok, so where do you start.
I guess go and buy the stuff and do it? WRONG!
First off i have gone to as many web sites about kite surfing as i can find, reading as many articles about it as possible to try and understand what the hell everyone is talking about, especially the technical terms. You soon realise that there is allot more to doing this than just putting a big kite in the air and going for a bit of fun.
This sport is can be DANGEROUS ,people get seriously hurt and have been killed whilst doing this if they have not learnt properly. Almost 99 percent of people will tell you to get a trainer kite and learn about the wind window .
I am not about to hurt myself seriously while doing something that should be fun , just for the sake of saving a bit of time or money.

At this point in time i have my trainer on order and should (hopefully) be in my hands within a week. I have had a small two line foil kite before so i sorta got the idea of what i need to learn. Plus with asking questions on forums about what i should learn to do there is a wealth of info out there to use.

Many of the people on the forums are keen to help out if you need it. I definitely will use some of that offered help at some stage.
Here is a video of some rather ouchy accidents whilst people have been kiting, not something i want to experience

Road to Ride

This blog is about my trip down the road to learning to kiteboard, kitesurf..

My intentions are that I will be putting my thoughts from an outsiders perspective about this sport, learning, researching, opinions (wether founded or not) as i travel down that road to being able to do it right.
Some you may agree with and some you won't, but hey , thats the way it is.