Creation of a Wakeskate

Creation of a wake skate
Hello and welcome to my instructable on how to create a wake skate. The following steps will show how you can create your own wake skate.  For those of you that do not know what a wake skate is: A wake skate is similar to a wakeboard, however it is often smaller and the rider is not bound to the board. It is either build from fiberglass or wood. The wake skate built in this instructable is made from wood. On a scale from one to five, the difficulty of this project is about 4. 

Step 1: Materials

Materials List:
- 4 Birch Plywood (4mm thickness)
- 3 Foam Plates or Sand 
- 1 can epoxy resin
- 1 can spar varnish
- 1 small can contact adhesive
- 1 small brass tube
- 2 fins, 1.3 inches
- 4 fin screws
- 4 washers
- 2-4 timber beams
- Screw type-terminals
- Brushes
- Screwdriver
- Palette knife
- Jig Saw
- sand paper (maybe grinding machine) 
Some of the materials used are not on the pictures above.

Step 2: Sticking Plywood

The first step will be to stick the 4 birch plywood together by using epoxide resin or also waterproof wood glue. You can also use other types of wood; however make sure that they are flexible and strong at the same time. Each of the plywood should have a thickness of about 4 mm, so that the total thickness of the wake skate will be about 15-17mm. You can easily spread the epoxide resin with a palette-knife. You can also use a brush when using wood glue. The best way is, to brush the front side of the plywood side and than pressing it onto the next plywood. Before the epoxide resin has dried, you will need to bend the wake skate using a continuous rocker, as seen on the picture. Put wooden blocks on both sides of the wake skate, to lift it from the ground. Place a weight in the middle of the wake skate, so that the wake skate has the perfect bending. When you want a very accurate bending, you can use c-clamps to fix the wake skate's bending. The more c-clamps you use, the better and smoother the bending is and the better the wake skate looks and rides.

Tip: If you want to use transparent spar varnish than make sure that the best looking plywood is at the bottom and top.  

Step 3: The Cutting

After the epoxide resin has dried, which should take at least 24 hours, the wake skate needs to be cut out. For this you should lightly sketch the shape of the wake skate onto the wood. 
After the cutting is done, all the edgy parts of the wake skate have to be get rid of. This might take you 2 hours, as it is important to do this step very precise, as it will shape the final outcome. Some of the pictures show how much I smoothened my wake skate. Even with a machine, it took me about 2 hours to do this. 

Step 4: Fin Holes

After the wake skate is perfectly sanded, and there are no more edgy parts or anything that stand out, it will be important to create the holes for the fin. Even if you do not want to use fins at the beginning you might just create the holes to which you could attach fins later. Bare in mind that if you do not create the holes in this step and want to create the holes after having finished the wake skate, it will be more difficult than if you just create the holes now. 
It is important that this part is to scale, as you will have issues when riding the wake skate, if the fins are not perfectly in the middle. So you better draw a sketch on the wake skate before you start drilling. 
After the sketch is finished and you found the exact middle spot, you will need to make sure that when you start drilling the angle from the drill is perfectly 90 degrees. 
You can create one hole at the front and also one hole at the back of the wake skate.  
There are no pictures for this step, as I did not create holes for fins. 

Step 5: Painting With Spar Varnish

After you have completed the drilling, you will need to get rid of any sand, saw dust etc. This is important because when you paint the wake skate with the spar varnish, then every small particle of dust can be seen, because there will be small raises.  Then, you will need to paint the wake skate with spar varnish. Each side should be painted at least four times. After the first layer has dried, than you should roughen and sand the first layer, so that the next spar varnish layer will stick better to the previous layer. Each layer should at least dry for 12-24 hours at room temperature. 
On the pictures you can see that I used  grey spar varnish in spraying cans, as I found this easier. However, I noticed that it actually was harder, as it was hard to spread the paint equally. 

Step 6: Decoration

When the first two layers of spar varnish have dried, you can start to decorate your wake skate. For this step, it is not important to use water proof paint, as the paint is going to be enclosed in the spar varnish. You can draw any design on your wake skate. On the pictures, you can see an example of what I have drawn on my wake skate. It is very hard to use many different colors, so it is advisable to use as few colors as possible. 

Step 7: Finishing Up

After the paint has dried and you are happy with the outcome of the decoration, you will need to put at least 2 more layers of spar varnish onto the painting. Just make sure to always roughen the previous layer of spar varnish, so that the next layer will adhere better. However, you will not need to roughen the paint layer. 
After you have finished the two layers of spar varnish you can decide on whether you want to have a foam plate on the top of the wake skate or whether you want to have sand. If you choose sand, you just need to make sure that you cover the front side equally with waterproof glue. Onto the glue you can disperse the sand. 
If you chose to use foam plates, which is better when you are riding barefeet, you will need to again cover the front side of the wake skate with waterproof glue and than you will need to put the foam plates onto the glue and press the wake skate and the foam plates together. 
Just make sure that you will leave space for the fins, which will be attached at the end. 
On the pictures you can see that I used sand.

Step 8: The Fins

You will need to fill up the holes for the fins with the brass tube. The brass tube needs to be sticked into the hole, using waterproof glue. For this step you should use a lot of glue, to make sure that all the wood inside the hole is covered with glue, otherwise the wood will start to rot. After the brass tube is attached, you can place the screws for the fins inside the brass tube and attach the fins to the screws.
There are also no pictures for this step, as I did not attach fins. 
This was the last step for the creation of a wake skate. 
I hope you enjoyed the creation of the wake skate, as much as I did. :) 

Comments

[MitchellT22]

Hey mate, I’m trying to make this and just wondering how much of a bend you decided, are you able to measure this or is it just a look and see what you like for your bend

[Larms8]

Looks awsome can you tell us the dimensions

[yoboat]

I'm planning on making one myself but before I start I've got to know a few things.. 1. How wide is the board?
2. Where did you find the grip tape?

[bruppricht]

@I8nite: that sounds fun! Unfortunately I live in Germany and it is very hard to find good places to wake skate/wakeboard.
@audreyobscura: I don't have one right now, as I just finished the wake skate this winter, but I can upload a video in summer if you want me to! :) 

[audreyobscura]

Do you have any video of this thing in action?

[l8nite]

Pretty cool, I grew up on the Barnaget Bay in NJ during the 1960's, we made"wake boards" from old wooden ironing boards, drift wood, packing crates..basically if it floated we'd take it out in the boat, even somethings that DIDN'T float like metal snow sleds