More Than Signs!

'ello, "The Cook" here...

This week I had a chance to step out of the box a little bit and create a "Water Kite" for one of the guys here at the shop who is an avid outdoorsman.

This is a nifty device used to tow a swimmer behind a boat at a slow speed so the swimmer can scan the seafloor or river bed for scallops, clams, maybe even treasure!.

I used half inch King Colorcore, which is a great material for signage and marine parts. It is an engravable polymer consisting of three layers, it is extremely durable and is great for outdoor applications where it will be exposed to the elements and within reach of the general public (parks, trails, subdivision entrances).

We had a general idea of what we were looking for as far as functionality goes, so our adventurer sat down on the computer and laid out a design for the main body and the parts:

After deciding on what colors to be used, I brought this layout onto our CNC Routing software, set all the parameters and let'er rip!

We operate (2) 5' x 10' CNC Routing tables, and let me tell you, they are EXTREMELY precise, making them ideal tools to produce production parts, full scale prototypes, architectural elements.

Here's a shot of the handles with a little "personalization"

The swimmer holds onto the "bicycle" handles, and by pulling towards any direction he or she can steer to cover any area of the surface below, and if anything is spotted, pull up and signal the spotter on the boat.

After all the parts were routed, all that was needed were some screws and this baby was ready for action

Our Bear Grylls reported that the kite performed beautifully, he was on the water all day and was able to collect a ton of scallops, which had enough meat to feed...wait....what?... two people? seriously?

Anyway, it was great to have the opportunity to fabricate this thing, and as always I'm looking forward to projects like this, were I can bring to life the customer's vision.

Stay tuned, we are preparing a really neat post on woodwork next!

See ya later!

"The Cook"