lazza – Larry's Hovercraft and trike build

Newspaper articles

Post author:lazza
Post published:January 8, 2021
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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 […]

Build Tips

Post author:lazza
Post published:January 8, 2021
Post category:Build Tips Uncategorized
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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

Post author:lazza
Post published:January 8, 2021
Post category:Trailer
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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 […]

The aluminium bracket is extremely light and i'm picking its probably just as light as the other "poly fastener" . the bracket i will be gluing to the side of the hull with 3m 5200 marine adhesive just like Charles did but i will probably also screw it in certain places as well for 2 reasons. 1 is that the aluminium bracket once fitted will never have to be removed to change skirt segments so screwing it will not mean i have to ever undo the screws, therefore i can screw them in place and then seal them then they will never let water in but still hold everything intact for good. and 2) is that i may also fit some brackets to the other side of the screws in the plenum chamber area so that my steering cables can be held in place. Oh and obviously i'll have to shape these brackets so that the air feed holes aren't blocked off like this picture shows.

Skirt 3

Post author:lazza
Post published:January 8, 2021
Post category:skirt
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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 […]

I find it hard to take a good picture of a skirt segment to show clearly how they look or made up but here is a side view of one of my skirt segments. It's made from material that's called "Polyester Oxford" and as mentioned on a previous page i believe its the same material that suitcases are made from and has passed all the tests that i tried on it.

Skirt 2

Post author:lazza
Post published:January 8, 2021
Post category:skirt
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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 […]

Now that i've had a chance to attach a couple of segments i'm glad i went with this system for attaching them because damn its simple to do and there is no screws holding them :-)

Skirt 1

Post author:lazza
Post published:January 8, 2021
Post category:skirt

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 […]

I made some hand rails out of aluminium for the passengers to hang onto when i'm doing 360's in the middle of the lake hehe. Notice how shiny aluminium comes up when you sand it with 400 wet and dry sandpaper then 1200 wet and dry then several coats of metal polish (its a example how bored i am at the moment, i really need to start on my trailer sooner rather than later haha)

Re Assembly 5

Post author:lazza
Post published:January 8, 2021
Post category:assembly
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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 […]

The mesh is 4mm wire and the outside frame of it is 6mm solid round bar and due to the way my transmission is all set up, my mesh is made in two halves . Both halves once mounted are also bolted together to form a 8mm thick wire right through the center near the fan frame. Now that i have it all mounted its off to be powder coated, then i can finally reassemble the drive train and see if it hovers.

Re Assembly 4

Post author:lazza
Post published:January 8, 2021
Post category:assembly
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View Trike BuildView Hover BuildI'm EmptyRe Assembly 4We were bored the other day so i decided to get my wife to push the craft half way out the garage door just to see if it fits, and yep it does but without alot of room to spare. By doing so we did achieve two things. […]

Re Assembly 3

Post author:lazza
Post published:January 8, 2021
Post category:assembly
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View Trike BuildView Hover BuildI'm EmptyRe Assembly 3I don't know why but for some reason even though i've built the whole craft from the ground up, securing the engine cover i have been putting off for months. It was one of those jobs i just really wasn't looking forward to and it's kinda weird cause […]

Now that its back from being painted i can start putting it all back together again, so once again I'm a happy man hehe. Still waiting on the gears to be painted so for now this is about as far as i can go in the engine bay area, other than tidy the wiring and stuff up.

Re assembly 2

Post author:lazza
Post published:January 8, 2021
Post category:assembly
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View Trike BuildView Hover BuildI'm EmptyRe Assembly 2I started to make a wire mesh Fan guard for the front of my duct. and before anyone comments i know that technically having the mesh in a convex shape adds to the strength in the event that someone were to fall onto it but in my case, […]