Trike Construction 1

So I’m starting a new project now that the hovercraft is done and operational. My goal is to design and build a 3 wheeled trike (like Billy Connelly drives around on) using a engine from an old wrecked car i have in my paddock that no longer gets used. This portion of the website is […]

Hovercraft Hull

Here is the basic shell of the cockpit made , minus the seat and steering items, i have specifically left these items out for now so that once the basic hull is created i can add the motor and work out what the weight distribution will be and then create the internals of the cockpit […]

Newspaper articles

Newspaper ArticlePhoto : Peter McIntoshBuilding Hovercraft an Uplifting Experience By Katrina MeggettWhat is yellow, blows air and does not touch the ground?Answer: A hovercraft. Larry Shieffelbien’s home-made one, to be exact.The 34-year-old Dunedin mechanic spent 15 months building the craft. Mr Shieffelbien worked on it “every night and every weekend”, finishing just before Christmas.“I felt […]

Hover Videos

View Trike BuildView Hover BuildI’m EmptyHover VideosNOTE: Latest video’s are at base of the page. All video files are best viewed with windows media player 9 or above and all video’s will open up to the Youtube website where they are stored.21st August 2005 – I have had the Subaru motor in my craft started […]

Build Tips

View Trike BuildView Hover BuildI’m EmptyBuild TipsI decided that for new hovercraft builders a “Tips” page was probably a handy thing that way i can list a few of the things i thought about and found answers to during my build process.I will however state that i currently do NOT have my craft finished therefore […]

Trailer

View Trike BuildView Hover BuildI’m EmptyTrailerI’ve added all picture to the above slide in regards to the trailer. After all a trailer is a trailer, however it still shows how i went about building it just without the individual picture commentary  Production of the trailer has started (7th Dec 2005).Trailer specs may vary as i […]

Skirt 3

View Trike BuildView Hover BuildI’m EmptySkirt 3Received the Duralock 2 today which is good because now i can start to attach my skirts. So tonight i started to cut the base material of the duralock 2 and temporarily mount it to the side of the craft so that i know when it comes to gluing […]

Skirt 2

View Trike BuildView Hover BuildI’m EmptySkirt 2I’ve always liked the idea that Charles Dixon had for attaching the skirts to his viper but the “poly fastener” that he used is not available here in NZ so i went hunting for a similar product locally and came up with this Duralock 2 material. It comes in […]

Skirt 1

The skirts for the super wedge are individual segments. My craft has 71 air feed holes so that means there is 71 skirt segments / fingers. They are all the same apart from 11 of the rear segments have a extra strip of material added to them to prevent the rear fingers from scooping up […]

Re Assembly 5

View Trike BuildView Hover BuildI’m EmptyRe Assembly 5I have covered the duralock 2 with some rub rail which should help me bounce of things when i lose control. I’m currently trying some 3M molding tape to secure the rub rail in place and its currently been on there for 2 or so weeks and hasn’t […]