ELTA BOARD
BIO My name is Kyle Ross. I am a student of RMIT, studying a double degree of industrial design and Mechanical engineering. Born and raised on the Mornington Peninsula of Victoria, from a young age I have always enjoyed and excelled at solving problems and forming
solutions to an issues. Leading me to where I am, now. With a strong skill set across the more technical side of design including CAD and rendering programs such as solidworks, keyshot and Maya, I tend to gravitate more towards this side of design. I currently work at a company called Iron edge drawing product layout, architectural renders and drafting of products. This Job as helped me develop my skills and given me an insight into product design and engineering. I am committed to my study and continuing to further develop my skills and experience, with the goal of finding a job combining degrees in product design.
DESIGN ABSTRACT
The design brief is to introduce craft and individuality into mass produced product, through the use of materials and processes. With the goal to create a product that uniformly combines the use of traditional industrial design processes, with that of a craft, creating greater depth of design and emotional connection to its user. Looking into one of my passions; kite-surfing, I saw an opportunity to design a board, moving away from the high gloss boards with graphics that dominate the market currently. Introducing timber as the core of the board instead of polyurethane foam, reflecting the old craft of shaping and making wooden
surfboards. In conjunction with modern processes such as CNC milling. This allows a shape to be created that not only reduces the weight of board with cutouts, but allows more complex shapes enabling an organic look that can still maintain modern features and shapes needed. In addition, also using differing techniques of laying fibre glass cloth, which in itself is a modern craft requiring an incredible amount of knowledge and skill to get right. The design of the board will use an exterior modern shape with a flowing organic pattern to mimic water flow with the strength where it is needed and maintaining weight.
STUDIO CONTEXT
DESIGN DIRECTION With the exterior shape of the board largely determined by the hydrodynamics needed for its performance, the design development is largely to do with in interior shape and materials. Craft is implemented, through the use of timber and exploration of use of fiber glass with color and nonuniform surfaces. While the use timber references the old wooden surfboards crafted from timber, the board still needs to have equivalent of modern performance in weight and shape. This achieved through the use of a timber called paulownia, which is incredibly light for its strength with a density of 280kg/ m3 compared to that of around 500kg/m3 of pine. Paulownia is also very environmental friendly due its fast growing, much more than polyurethane foam cores.
Furthermore, as timber is much stronger than the foam normally used in the core, much of the timber will be cut out creating an internal pattern. The pattern will be thicker, where the strength of the board is need ie. around the attachment point of the hydrofoil with less where it is not. Taking inspiration from the flowing pattern of a river delta, from trickling streams down to strong currents at the river delta. This pattern will be visible due to fiber glass being laid directly on to the core, meaning there will be semi translucent windows into the board. The surface of the board will be experimented with colour spot dying the wood and the laying up of fiber glass over void areas.
BENCH MARKING
To ensure the design and shape of the board is optimal for its performance, a comparison of a range of boards currently on the market was done. With many different types of boards within kite surfing such as wake style, surf boards and skim shapes, a hydrofoil board was chosen for a number of reasons. Firstly, as a foil board it is effectively a platform to stand while it hovers over the water 95% of the time, therefore the boards flexing and spring properties due to the material do not make a difference in its performance, like in other styles. Secondly as this is the newest and fastest growing style, this is where the most development is being done meaning this design will stay with the time as kitesurfing progresses more towards foiling. While the board is not in the water for a great length of time the shape of the board is still very important to its performance. This is because it effects factors such as take-off speed and the amount of declaration if the board hits a wave. The boards overall shape and outline is based off a combination of boards already on the market seen here. With the overall length and width of the
board taking an average of 1370mm long and 465mm wide. With the foot strap and hydrofoil positions also accounted for. The lines of the board are loosely comparable to the ‘Slingshot’ board seen at the top of the page, with other features of shape introduced. These include, double concave bottom along with hard chines edges under the rails and using an industry standard kf box method to attach the foil, for a cleaner and smoother connection between board and hydrofoil. A double concave bottom surface is also added to the design to minimize the deceleration if touching the water reducing the chance of crashing. Where other boards with flat bottoms slap the water, stop, and veer off course causing.
CONCEPT PROPOSAL
Weight of core is 3.1kg making same weight as market available boards.
River delta inspired pattern distributes strength throughout the core where it is needed
Creating organic surface pattern and colour, using splotchy wood dying and letting fiberglass natural sit when curing
CNC Milled out of two joined slabs of 1500x600x55mm paulownia timber
480mm
CNC milled hole cutouts for nuts
Foot straps Fiberglass sheet
1370mm CNC Milled wooden core Embedded Aluminum C track
Embedded nuts for foot straps
Wood Veneer
Hydrofoil
DESIGN DEVELOPMENT Through the results of the benchmarking of current boards a compromise of shapes, sizes and feature that are best suited for a cross between free riding style and racing was found This was refined into the exterior shape of the board through many reiterations on CAD. The internal pattern went through many design reiterations starting off very geometric then moving into more organic shapes, following the pattern of flowing water. The internal pattern had some restrictions of its own, needing to have thicker parts of wood in areas such as the bolt points for the foot straps and attachment of the foil. In addition, a line had to run most
of the may down the board so that there would material to give the hard chine a sharp corner. Also as the process of CNC milling can put a lot of force into the material while being cut, the thickness of the ‘strands’ in the pattern had to be determined in a test cut. This was done and found 10mm strands will be the minimum to ensure the board can be cut. This resulted in many patterns being drawn to find the balance of limiting factors and desired appearance before settling one that produces a core weight of 3.1kg meeting al requirements. This test cut also allowed the dying of the wood to be tested and practiced
FINAL CAD MODEL
FINAL RENDERS
REVISIONS
465.5 REV.
DESCRIPTION
DATE
TECHNICAL DRAWINGS 1368.7 870.2 744.6 382.9 337.9 253.3
Isometric view
88.3 24.6 131.5 top view 264°
A
16 6 113
SECTION A-A
129.9
A 61.4
46.7 35.6 Back View
Side view
GENERAL TOLERANCE UNLESS SPECIFIED ISO 2768 - MK LINEAR DIMENSIONS 0.5<t 3 3<t<6 6<t<30 30<t<120 120<t<400 400<t<1000 1000<t<2000
UNLESS OTHERWISE SPECIFIED: DIMENSIONS ARE IN MILLIMETRES NAME
±0.1 DRFT'D Kyle Ross ±0.1 ±0.2 DRAWN Kyle Ross ±0.3 ±0.5 CHK'D ±0.8 ±1.2 APPV'D
THIRD ANGLE PROJECTION
DO NOT SCALE DRAWING DATE 16/4/2015
MATERIAL: Various
16/4/2015
ANGULAR DIMENSIONS t 10 1° 10<t 50 ±30' 50<t 120 ±20' 120<t 400 ±10' 400<t ±5'
83.6
WEIGHT: 3660.60 g
FINISH: none
MAX QTY PER PALLET: DATE CREATED: Saturday, October 22, 2016
DESCRIPTION:
DEBUR AND BREAK SHARP EDGES
PRODUCT ID: SCALE:1:10
Detla Board Core
Detla Board SHEET 2 OF 2
A3
REVISIONS REV.
DESCRIPTION
2
DATE
8
1366.5
7 9 10
1 6
465.2 Top View
1166
Exploded view
ITEM NO.
1
Front View
2 6 7 8 9 10
Side View
GENERAL TOLERANCE UNLESS SPECIFIED ISO 2768 - MK LINEAR DIMENSIONS 0.5<t 3 3<t<6 6<t<30 30<t<120 120<t<400 400<t<1000 1000<t<2000
UNLESS OTHERWISE SPECIFIED: DIMENSIONS ARE IN MILLIMETRES NAME
±0.1 DRFT'D Kyle Ross ±0.1 ±0.2 DRAWN Kyle Ross ±0.3 ±0.5 CHK'D ±0.8 ±1.2 APPV'D
Delta board core Foot strap Hydrofoil Back Foot Strap M6x35 Bolt fiberglass M6 Nut
QTY.
1 2 1 1 8 2 6
THIRD ANGLE PROJECTION
DO NOT SCALE DRAWING DATE 16/4/2015
MATERIAL: Various
16/4/2015
ANGULAR DIMENSIONS t 10 1° 10<t 50 ±30' 50<t 120 ±20' 120<t 400 ±10' 400<t ±5'
PART NUMBER
WEIGHT: g
Delta Board Assembly
FINISH: Assembled
MAX QTY PER PALLET: DATE CREATED: Saturday, October 22, 2016
DESCRIPTION:
DEBUR AND BREAK SHARP EDGES
PRODUCT ID: SCALE:1:15
Delta Board SHEET 1 OF 1
A3
PROTOTYPING Once the design of the board had been finalised it was then prototyped. Starting off as 12 lengths of 150x50 paulownia. These were then planned to be square and glued together to form a slap measuring 147mm x 570mm x 127mm. The core of the board was then cut on a CNC mill, after a complicated programming of the cad model, to ensure it would work correctly. With the core of the board shaped it was then a process sanding the attachment points off the board and finishing it ready for fibre glassing. Firstly, using food colouring to of varying strengths mixed in water and using a cloth to streak and spot colour into the core. Once this was done the first layer of fibre glass was applied to the top of the board. This was done by laying the matting out on a non-stick surface to impregnate it with resin to the correct amount then moving it across to lay it on the board. This was done to reduce dripping of the resin down the voids in the core. While the original plan was to finish the bottom surface with a wood veneer, the bottom
shape of the board proved to be too complex for it to bend correctly, with multiple tries at varying thicknesses down to a sheet of 0.4mm birch plywood. With the top surface of the board smoother than expected I decided to finish it the same way, meaning light can shine through the voids of the board. While some mistakes were made during the laying of the fibre glass after multiple layers, my technique was improving and would be much more consistent and clearer if I was to do it again. After the layers of fibre glass finishing touches were done; including a finishing coat of resin, embedding and gluing the nuts for the foot strap bolts in, making and aligning the plug for the hydro foil attachment and lastly making the foot straps from brown leather and wetsuit material secure with stainless steel plate insert. The end weight of the board is 4.8 kg which is around the same as the market available boards with the most common production foiling board being 4.6kg.
FINAL DESIGN
REFLECTION
Through the process of this design, many problems arose to get it to a point where it would be a functional and enriched design. With The CNC milled wood core working above expectations a refined design would cut out even more material. With more practice the craft of the fibre-glassing would be refined seeing as latter coats had much better results than first attempts. Therefore while there are imperfections in the laying of the fibreglass due to lack of experience, the final prototype proves the concept well and shows it can easily be perfected.
While small changes were implemented from concept to prototype, the end product shows the wooden organic flowing pattern with varying color shining through the wood grains reflecting the design concept well, with the shape and weight needed for its performance weighing the same as market available boards. Therefore, achieving the goal of introducing craft into the product of high gloss kiteboards, while still maintain performance and am very happy with the end result of the board.