Cold Week

[V]

With the temps through Sunday being barely above freezing and all night lows of 15-20, I am confident that by Saturday the inland lakes will be sufficiently frozen. If this cold holds and we get some snow, we could be kite snowboarding by Christmas on the lakes no problem. That would be pretty sweet!

Most of the small ponds by me are already frozen over. The swill near the beach at Waukegan was frozen over, too, almost walkable, on Sunday. I'm sure further North, like kosh, there is probably a few inches of ice by now, maybe more.

[kris]

i'll be goin past kosh tomorow

i'll post a report!

[jkjaeschke]

Yea I'm pumped for snow kiting this year. I'm done with school in dec and I'll just be working/hanging out all winter/spring. I have an old one piece windsurfing mast that I want to make into a slider. Anyone know of a good way to do this?

\m/
James

[V]

If you wanna bend it, and will be in the Crystal Lake area this Xmas, I'll help you. I have a torch we can heat it with and bend it by hand. Then we can build a wood base for it. My pops has a ton of tools we could use. Lemme know. That would be awsome.

[kris]

could you just weld to legs perpendicular to the mast

then ice auger two holes and just set the thing in there

[jkjaeschke]

Ice auger? Sounds intense. I'm not sure if I want to curve it (I'm not sure if it would be easy to strap on the top of my van then). Would there be a benefit to it? I think I would have to build some sort of two piece box to support the mast, that way it can be taken apart an fit into the van. Also I think it would hurt less to roll off the box rather than run into a poll. It's kinda flimsy so it would need more than two metal supports. I was thinking of just a simply incline.... unless anyone else has some good ideas. Also would there be a good way to attach the mast to the boxes that would allow me to take it apart easily?

Hopefully we'll get a fair amount of snow this year and we could make a little kitesnoarding park at busse or something.

\m/

[V]

It'd be easier to hop on/off if it was bowed higher in the middle and lower at the ends. Plus, you can build a snow ramp at each end that would tie right into the pole so its seamless so you don't have to get air. So you can ride up onto it, or hop up onto it. Newbies will have an easier time.

If we build a couple trianglular base pieces for each end, that would do the trick I think. We'd have to drill into the bottom of the pole, or weld some plates to the bottom of it that we can drill/bolt into instead of the pole, to leave the pole in one piece. Smooth...

I was thinking about getting a big 2.5 inch piece of pvc for this, but if you have this, that would be awesome!

[jkjaeschke]

Yea, I don't think pvc would bend like the pole will. Also I think that the mast probably will be slicker than pvc. But sounds good. Maybe we could even use this up at Kosh next year...that would be sweet.

Looks like there might be a market for old masts...anyone else have any?

\m/

[Trent Hink]

Hey I think I might have an old aluminum mast hanging in my garrage if any one wants to come and pick it up.

My Design to use it for a slider would be this:

Drill some small holes in the mast so you can mount the mast to the edge of a 2x6 (to make the slider stiff enough - nothing worse than a floppy rail), then build supports and and attach these to the 2x6. For a slider that is not very high off the ground, posts stuck in the ice sound like a good idea. The posts would not have to be very big. Ideally they should not stick out around the bottom of the slider. You could use 3 or four 2x6s for the posts, attach them to the other edge of the 2x6 (with metal truss plates maybe?)

Drill big holes in the ice for the posts, later fill 'em with water and let it chill over night for nice solid support.

Oh yea, a two-mast slider would be a lot easier to slide on so you could have 2 masts mounted side by side on a bench-like structure.

[V]

Trent, how do you bolt a drilled holein the middle of the mast without the bolt sticking up through the top?

I'm ready, we're getting an inch today. The ground will be sufficiently frozen after this week. If we get a dumpage of snow soon, time to bust out the snowboard. I don't think water riding is going to happen for me anymore after this week. Probably won't warm up until March.

[Trent Hink]

Hi V,

I envision two options:

Drill a hole in the top just large enough to stick a screwdriver into, then drill a larger hole in the bottom to take the screw head. The middle would be a bit tricky, you'd have to fish the screw through the mast in order to get it through the hole.

or better yet,

Drill a pilot hole in the bottom of the mast, then drill a hole in the 2x6 support beam so that you can screw up into the mast. Large diameter hole almost all the way through the beam, then a small hole for the screw so you would not need a 7" long screw; a few inches would be plenty.

Then again I have a feeling a thin soft aluminum mast might not last very long with sharp hardened steel snowboard edges constantly going over it. A big piece of thick-wall pvc pipe might be much better.

Trent

[jkjaeschke]

The mast I have is 30% carbon fiber...and whatever else they use mix in with it. I think it'd work. I'm kinda worried drilling a hole into it would crack it. We'll see what happens.

\m/

[rush]

those carbon poles are pretty strong, as long as the hole is a couple inches from the end you should be fine

Rush

[Guest]

You guyz are retarded (using a pole surfers mast), geez, I got an old original Windsurfer,,,,,you can use it to form a ramp and launch into hyper space.