Yes, another one of the new builders. To start with I want to thank you guys for the "welcome" page. Very strait forward and to the point. I was hesitant to post until I read that. To begin with I am 72 years old and a good welder so the frames were a walk in the park. I am building two so that I will have some one to compete with. Only problem so far is the "angle of the dangle" on the mast step. I could not find the dimension in the plans so I lofted it off the drawings. I am sure that is not the most accurate way so my question is how critical is that angle?? On the faster designs I see that they are adjustable. Would that be a benefit on a mini?? As for the wheels, I am using some wheel barrow wheels for now but in the future I will move up to something with a little more class. My question is how about some fat tires like the kit/buggies use?? Our beaches are quite soft. Thanks for your patience with us beginners.....

Welcome to the assylum!

For the wheels, the "barrow" type wheels were adopted as a world wide standard and keep this class of landyacht roughly even in competition.
As you are running on soft ground and not in official events, this restriction need not apply!

An easy fix could be to keep the original wheel rims and just fit oversize tyres.
Standard tyres on these rims are 4" wide- you could probably fit 6" wide tyres and suitable inner tubes and then mess about with air pressures until you are happy.

edited a bit cause gizmo bounced in while I was poking away at the keyboard

all the best!

stephen

You are 'correct' again nikrum...................................................................................................................................... you are a silly old fart.
All hot smelly air!

Welcome webby!

Where in WA are you going to sail? There are others lurking in the internet who live somewhere close to you I think...

The main thing is "have fun"

John

Searching and reading all the posts will take ages.... just ask the question and we will answer it for you or send a link so you find the answer.
In answer to your sail size question the standard sort of size is about 4.5-6 sqm, there is a section on how to re-cut the sail to best suit a land yacht on the forum.
www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Land-Yacht-Sailing/Sail-making/How-I-recut-sailboard-sails-to-suit-landyachts/

Hi again Webfoot,
You have already said you will mostly be using a sand surface.(high drag)

The best sail for this type of surface is an unmodified windsurfing sail of a decent size, 4.5m minimum, larger is better. Preferably with a bit of a belly to it- not so much a dead flat sheet.
flat= better for high speed, belly= low down grunt
Use a standard windsurfing boom, and a standard mast with a reinforcing stiffener in the lower meter. (close fitting timber is best)

You may need to add some length to the mast- you could make the stiffener a little longer so it protrudes out the bottom of the mast to gain some height- and extend the top of the mast by jamming a vacuum cleaner pipe on top.

To work out your mast length, drop the assembled mast and sail into the mast step, sit in the seat, work out how much clearance your skull has when wearing helmet, add some extra for mast flex under tension and add as much length as needed to suit.

The standard unmodified sail will limit your top speed, but give you more low down grunt to get moving on the softer surfaces like dirt or grassed ground.

If you have access to hard ground like concrete, bitumen, claypans, salt lakes etc then you can start messing around with modified windsurfing sails and conventional type booms as you have the potential for much greater speed on the harder (low drag) surfaces.

all the best,

stephen.

Webfoot,
You is gettin' t' idea. Pick it up as cheap as you can where you can..Great stuff you rotter, that was cheap!!

The fuzzy mast is a breeze to fix www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Land-Yacht-Sailing/Construction/Cuddly-Mast/?SearchTerms=Smurf

I scraped the Blue Smurf back with the back edge of a knife. Broken Glass will do the job as well then sanded from there.. the web address will take you there..

It looks good but I have yet to use it.. The wind hasn't been all that good recently.

Anyway the above will halp to start you off..
Ron

OK! TP1 What proportions Talc to Resin??
Ron

Test pilot 1 said...

To be precise enough talc to stop the resin from running to freely. This allows you to cover your mast without having to rotate it whilst it is drying(stops drips forming)

Well Ron,

You certainly couldn't ask for a more precise formula than that! For those that have a hard time with all the complicated mathematics TP1 has presented here, I have an even simpler formula;

'Not too much, not too little"[}:)]

I wouldnt bother with sanding or scraping the "furry" strands off the old mast- just hit it with the resin/talc mix.

The loose strands of fibreglass or carbon would add strength to the mast while combining with the resin/talc.

Stephen.

Where in WA are you going to sail?
The main thing is "have fun"

John

You know, that is a good question! I have looked on the internet and called a couple of the beach cities. No answers yet. There is a place SW of here called Long Beach where they let cars onto the beach. Figured I would start there and maybe the Boeing parking lot on a Sunday afternoon.

Front end is coming together. I chose 5/8 " cold rolled steel and 1" 095 wall square tube. As you can see I just tacked everything together so I can set the frame up on three wheels and have a good look. I read somewhere in another thread that the angle of the dangle is important on the caster and already I can see from the pictures that the contact patch is going to be ahead of the castor angle. I'll take some better pictures tomorrow.

Wf, (Webfooted),
OK! Up until now I've been playing nicely. More info' on the Two sails on the RH side in your gallery. To my eye the mast curve looks pretty near to what you need and being so lean they may get a bit of speed so at this point I would keep at least one for a later date and possible re-cut.
The Engineering is looking pretty Schmick as well.

Ron

Nikrum said... More info' on the Two sails on the RH side in your gallery. To my eye the mast curve looks pretty near to what you need and being so lean they may get a bit of speed so at this point I would keep at least one for a later date and possible re-cut.

Ron

My apologies, I did not know the pictures would be posted before I used them. Figured on taking individual pictures with sails mounted and start another thread to discuss them. I have a Pfaff sewing machine left over from when we lived aboard a sail boat. Not planning on disposing of any of the sails. Just cut them up.<G> Never can tell what we might come up with.........Terry

webfooted said...

Nikrum said...
so at this point I would keep at least one for a later date and possible re-cut.
The Engineering is looking pretty Schmick as well.

Ron

I'll bite, what does "pretty Schmick" mean??

OK! Wf,
I thought given our mobs mentality, we stole it from your mob??

Schmick. Least ways that is how it is pronounced and is short for Mickey Schmick. A term we used a lot in the forces referring to the quality of the job. "Now they look really Mickey Schmick/Good/Great. On the other hand if someone should say it is "Mickey Mouse" you should feel insulted.

www.fluther.com/16107/how-did-we-come-up-with-the-term-mickey-mouse-to/

www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=schmick

Can't do you no better than that.[}:)]
Ron