Building a HIGH ASPECT hydrofoil wing Part 1

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Designing and cutting out a high aspect hydrofoil wing on the CNC. Up next will be laying up the wing with some carbon fiber and attaching it to the fuselage.
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[@clearwaterhydrofoils4313]

What should be the layup schedule?

[@wojciechcora8976]

Hi, great stuff. What do you guys think about using larch wood for a base for fiberglass?

[@julianandyvonne]

Have you considered applying some thin CA to the trailing edge before milling the top surface? It soaks in and gives the trailing edge a bit more strength before the top cut and sanding. It's a trick I use on RC aircraft wings.

[@clearwaterhydrofoils4313]

Thats a very good suggestion to keep in mind for other situations. I evened up redesigning the trailing edge thicker for milling. After the bottom of the wing is glassed up its easy to sand the extra 2-3 mm off to get the trailing edge really thin.

[@maarten8868]

I do wood cores by bolting oversized, pre-drilled stock outside the wing boundary and then use a scallop operation to machine from inside to outside. The first operation should stop just before the boundary and leave at least half the material thickness. Then turn over to the other side using the same holes and positions, and do another scallop for the other side, again inside to outside. The thickness of the unmachined material around the outside will support it. When the second operation reaches the boundary, the core will come lose. This way you can create cores with features that are quite thin, without fancy holding tricks. You do need to be able to machine the full depth at once. I use light and soft wood (paulownia) or hard pvc foam as core material.

[@tedschmid9946]

Awesome. As soon as I finished my 1500 cm foil I was hoping you would work up a H.A. Wing. Can’t wait to order one. Is it around 1200 cm?

[@clearwaterhydrofoils4313]

The 1150 is 1620cm^2. The 950 is 1280cm^2. As time goes on I am sure I will scale the design to several other sizes... for now just three!

[@johnbamburoski2099]

I imagine you modeled this after the AXIS 1150 wing, so props for doing that. That wing is incredible. The layup is going to have to be intense though. You'll definitely need to do carbon for stiffness. I have made custom wings and compromised on stiffness and it didn't work out.

[@clearwaterhydrofoils4313]

Really fond of the axis design... simple but effective. I developed the basic size/ shape from them and went from there... The layup with carbon was lighter then I expected in order to get really stiff results. It will be interesting to compare to 100% glass if possible.

[@pianex9045]

Your litterally my savior I really wanted to get into wing foil but I’m 14 and don’t have the money I’m good at making things so thought I would make one but didn’t know where to start thx so much for the great content you make Any tip on making a hydrofoil please tell me

[@clearwaterhydrofoils4313]

That is exactly how and I started making foils!

[@wardhagaman3139]

Nice! Did you use a vacuum nest for the second side?

[@clearwaterhydrofoils4313]

No vacuum bagging in this build. Those that have the gear and skills can certainly bag the part easily and probably save on cleanup work. I like to find hand layup techniques

[@wardhagaman3139]

@@clearwaterhydrofoils4313Good plan. I was just wondering how you held the plywood for the second side.

[@clearwaterhydrofoils4313]

@@wardhagaman3139 For the milling process I simply hot glued this one down to a fixture. If I need to make dozens of them I am sure some sort of screw down fixture will be needed.

[@davidkolokotronis4456]

Hey do you sell the cnc plans by any chance

[@YorkTrader]

👍👍👍👍👍

[@fluiditynz]

That's not a challenge I'd entertain now. High aspect wings need a lot of unidirectional carbon thickness that is already taken up by your wood core. Not only that, but you want a good strong seam between the sides. If not epoxied in one go, then you need some front wraps. Personally, I 3D print a dummy of the wing in pieces with dowel holes and then glue them together. That's my model, not a core. I used cores in my very early work but not since, there's too much of the volume needs to be designated with carbon in the correct orientations. In your wing, you have to create the design and then thin all the surfaces by the intended thickness of composite claddings. Else you get what I did on my first wing, extra thickness from your design. Not such an issue for a beginner wing, but you can't do a high performance wing like that.

[@clearwaterhydrofoils4313]

I do take the skin thickness into consideration when designing the core. So once laid up it did not get thicker then intended. The leading edge gets double wrapped during layup. Lastly I have already surfed on this wing and it performed great. I went with a pretty light layup but even with that it is very stiff... video to come I suppose

[@fluiditynz]

@@clearwaterhydrofoils4313 Good. Still, I wouldn't recommend a wood core for a high aspect performance foil, not unless it's just small parts inside many outside layers of carbon. Also, you need to reinforce around the mounting to the fuselage. if it's tight enough not to move substantially under load, it's probably not wood in the bolts region. wood will crush under required fixing pressure for bolts unless you core your fixing holes out for hardwood end grain inserts. Performance foils are quite demanding, a good performance foil is working near available material strain limits.

[@clearwaterhydrofoils4313]

​@@fluiditynz You should see part 2 to answer some questions... The build / wing speaks for itself.