Construction

These pictures were taken during the construction of the Burden Brothers Hovercraft. Construction took approximately 3 weeks from start to finish! Click on the picture for a larger view.

The craft is complete and ready for its unveiling at Stubbs.

These pictures show the front of the craft that has been painted. The paint is an exterior high gloss Pure Black. The white stuff is pieces of styrafoam leftover from sanding the thrust duct. That stuff gets everywhere.

The skirt has been attached and the top of the splitter box has been fiberglassed. Two bricks are used to help hold the shape while the epoxy hardens.

The bottom of the duct has been cut out and I have just tested the pieces for the splitter box to make sure everything is lined up. In the first picture you can see the two holes in the hull. The small hole is for filling the skirt with air, and the large hole is for filling the inner compartment with air which provides the lift.

The thrust duct has been now been mounted on the hull. It is held in place with a can of "Great Stuff" expanding foam. The second picture shows the front of the cockpit has been painted.

The cockpit walls have been put together and primed. We tested out the black paint to see how it looks. It looks bad ass! You can also see the pieces of fiberglass cloth that I need to epoxy to the leading edge of the thrust duct.

These pictures show how the thrust duct comes together. In the first picture you can see where I hotwired the styrafoam wich will wrap around the discs. The next picture shows the discs with the plywood wrapped around. The following picture has the styrafoam wrapped around the disc and epoxied to the foam. The last picture shows the sanded leading edge. Sanding styrafoam make a huge mess, but you want to get a nice aerodynamic shap to the leading edge.

In the background you can see the styrafoam and fiberglass is layed out and ready to be epoxied together to form the thrust duct. In the foreground you can see the cockpit is starting to come together. The second picture shows the plywood that will form the inside of the thrust duct.

The bottom of the hull is now complete. The first picture shows the the landing skids and attach strips being epoxied and fiberglassed. The second picture shows the hotwired edges on the front and sides. Two coats of primer have been applied to all of the exposed wood.

This step was a real pain in the ass because of the Texas heat. The 2 inch styrafoam has to be epoxied to the base. In order to get a good bond you have to put a lot of weight on top of it.

1x3/4 inch pieces of wood have been attached to the perimeter of the hull. The second picture shows the front and side skids which have already been painted with 2 coats of primer.

It all starts here. The hovercraft is 5x10 feet, so the first step is to make the plywood base for the hull. The seems are fiberglassed and epoxied together. I used bricks to help hold it flat while it dries. The second picture is how it looks from the other side when done.

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