What is your dream project? For years I answered this question wholeheartedly with: A Hovercraft! But yeah, I didn't have the space so it probably won't happen.. But now, a few years later I do have the space and there was no excuse left. I started on my own hovercraft! Very cool!
What is your dream project? For years I answered this question wholeheartedly with: A Hovercraft! But yeah, I didn't have the space so it probably won't happen.. But now, a few years later I do have the space and there was no excuse left. I started on my own hovercraft! Very cool!
There are several manuals and kits for sale on the internet, but I decided to go my own way and design it all by myself. With some clever copying of existing models, I drew the shape of how I want the hovercraft to be in Fusion 360. With the starting point: how can I keep it as small as possible but still stable. The result is a 1.4 meter wide and 2.3 meter long hovercraft.
Most kits are based on a wooden frame and thin wood around it for the outside. This seemed like a pain in the ass to design and build so I decided to make it out of styrofoam and cover it with fiberglass and polyester. In the design this was indeed a lot easier…
Also building the polystyrene model went well on all sides. By simply building the model in blocks digitally I could make dimension drawings of the simple blocks to build the hovercraft with. This took about a day's work. Then I gave the hovercraft the beautiful slanted shapes with the jigsaw and a sanding block. This also took about 1 day's work.
But I had overestimated the covering with fiberglass. I thought I could do it in a few evenings. Luckily there were two friends who didn't see this coming completely right and decided to help. With the extra help it was two long days of laminating + another day of preparation. That's actually not too bad.
This is what I used to laminate the hovercraft:
The next step is to sand the hovercraft down, fill it and give it a top coat. Once that is done, the engine can go in.
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