Hi guys,

As more of you do, I'm planning on building a class 5 land yacht. I know that there are more topics for class 5 design, but I still got some questions, that's why I (again) start a new one.
I've spent some time now on the design, mostly based on the French class 5 Sport (www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Land-Yacht-Sailing/Construction/Class-5-Sport/). My design until now is on the following images.




I plan on building my own wheels, since I can't realy find suitable wheels, and certainly not for a good price. I've seen how Aus230 does it (www.seabreeze.com.au/) and have a couple of questions about that
- What exactly is the stuff you use to make the mold?
- What's the best way to make sure that everything is square?
- What do you use for spokes? Are they from a plate of glass fiber that you made yourself, or is it from a plastic plate you purchased?
- What material do you use for the axle (and bearings), just steel or stainless steel?
I plan on using 25 mm axles, as I read somewhere on the forum that they can break if they are too small.

Then the rest of the frame.
- I saw that Aus230 once had problems with his mast step possibly being too far back (www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Land-Yacht-Sailing/Construction/Class-Five-Design/?page=6). Since in my design this dimension is almost the same, do you still have any troubles with this dimension and should I change it, or are these problems solved.
- I found in the French class 5 Sport plan the dimensions of the frame tubes (for example) being 60 x 3 mm for the steel and 50 x 4 mm for the aluminium. This leaves some space between these tubes, but how is the connection between these tubes made? Is it like one of the following, or in another manner? And what size should the bolts and nuts be? I have now designed with M8.



- I used the rear axle design of yankeesailor in his building movie (www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Land-Yacht-Sailing/Construction/New-Class-5-YOTT-build-slide-show/, very nice by the way). I'm not really sure about the dimensions and I don't know for sure how to connect this axle to the aluminium tube. Can someone help me with that? My design until now is shown in the following image.



Finally, the seat. Until now I haven't found any dimensions for it. Off course I can just start designing something for myself, but it would be really helpful if someone could post a picture/drawing with some dimensions of his own seat.
Next to this, I have seen some photos of how to make the seat (in the same post topic of the wheels), but I'm not sure if I've seen enough to start building one myself. Unfortunately this part of the movie of yankeesailor isn't finished yet, so could someone give me a more detailed overview of how to build this.

Stephan