X STAR with a WEDGE

i know this video is old but i noticed at the 3:00 mark the xstar has a wedge... which i think is a badass idea. what do you guys think?

from Optika Creative on Vimeo.

man that could be sick. that wake didnt look all that huge however.

Originally Posted by andy_nintzel

man that could be sick. that wake didnt look all that huge however.

i mean you probably dont wat that huge of a wake for a 12 year old kid but imagine with a few more bags in there

Little dude rides smooth.
I bet the mastercraft dealer about s#it when they brought their boat in for service the first time. If I was Malibu I would blow that pic up and put it in my show room! "only way to get a good wake out of an x-star is to put a wedge on it" would be my sales pitch

I love the wedge on my boat for my kids. It is just enough to put a little more pop on the wake for them. The nicest thing is I can change from my 10 year old to my 6 year old in seconds.

There was a thread on teamtalk a while back about it. The thread is pretty useless for the most part, but here it is
http://www.mastercraft.com/teamtalk/...ad.php?t=29995

pic from vid:

I could see a wedge working great on a star. They need a ton of rear weight. That would easily get it done. I always figured Bu's were re-inforced back there for a wedge. I'd be nervous to run it on a boat that wasn't designed for it. You'd be screwed if it ripped the transom out of the boat.

The guy in the MC forum said he reinforced the transom (even though MC transoms are the thickest ) with 2mm stainless..

How old is the wedge? Patents last for 20 years so it could be up soon and anyone would be free to start copying.

Lol, kid is 12 years old and was driving around that big truck and trailer with a boat? I remember when my dad let me try backing a trailer up when I was probably around that age and it ended with him running along side the truck yelling HIT THE BRAKE! It wasn't a boat at the lake btw.

Originally Posted by robandrus

How old is the wedge? Patents last for 20 years so it could be up soon and anyone would be free to start copying.

They have a while to wait then. The original wedge came out in 98. The Power Wedge came out in 2006 as an upgrade option over the standard wedge, and the original wedge was replaced with the better floating wedge in 2007 I believe.

Regardless of patents, he isnt selling the wedge and trying to pass it off as his own, so it wouldnt matter. I like the idea tho.

PS. Id like to see the MC vs BU commercial on this one. lol

http://youtu.be/joXHoWz5vPM

Has anyone seen what Malibu calls a Reinforced Transom. When I saw what the raw Trasnom of a Bu that holds a wedge looked Like I was VERY un impressed at the Lack of no additional supports or Fiberglass or metal or Composite . The transom had some woven row and backer , Thats it .Noting thicker or stronger than a traditional transom on a high end boat. I would bet you could install a wedge on the back of almost any Nautique or MC. It my thought that Malibu has everyone afraid that if they bolted a wedge on the boack of their boat it would rip off from the stress and that their boats are the only ones that can hold a wedge.

P.S My mom told me eating raw cookie dough would give me worms. Guess what It worked for a while

G, I hear ya on that. All you need to do is see a couple wedges that were ripped off, transom and all, to feel the same way.

i wonder how they got it! When i bought the original wedge for my 03 response LX, I had to give the dealer my hull # in order for them to give it to me! I was also lucky that my boat had already come with the bracket installed, if not they said i would have to bring it in and let the dealer mount it for warranty issues. Back then it seems like they were definitely trying to "keep it on malibu's" i'm sure over time you could find one at a junk yard of an old malibu that had been wrecked or something, or the dealer i went to just may have been to strict i don't know. that was just my experience with it. the wedge definitely helped with out wake a ton, expecially with an extra 2500 in there!

I have seen one post on here in the past 12 years with a ripped off wedge. You are going to rip off all your other running gear if you rip off a wedge. I have had a wedge on my 1996 sunsetter for 10 years and it has held up fine. Wedge even bent when a friend hit something with it and did no damage to the boat. There should be a shear-away bolt for this thing though. There is a million dollar idea! After market wedge bolts that break before your transom "protect you 85k wakeboat for only $49.95 with these special bolts"

BTW, the guy said he built it from scratch and didn't buy it from malibu. I have seen several home built wedges on here over the years. think someone put one on a ps190.

Originally Posted by robandrus

How old is the wedge? Patents last for 20 years so it could be up soon and anyone would be free to start copying.

http://www.google.com/patents?id=_zd...page&q&f=false

Looks like they got it approved it 2006. I thought Malibu Boats had it earlier than that...

Originally Posted by jtech

http://www.google.com/patents?id=_zd...page&q&f=false

Looks like they got it approved it 2006. I thought Malibu Boats had it earlier than that...

That is the patent for the Power Wedge, which as I said in my above post was released in 2006. The original, fixed, manual wedge - aka "The Wedge" came out in 1998.

My ski challenger has a floating malibu wedge on it and the transom was reinforced. If the wedge were completely down (which it shouldnt be while driving), the prop and everything else would hit the object first.

You can buy one for just about any boat. At one time I think you could even option this from Centurion.

SwitchBlade

Damn those things start at $2000 and go to $4000. I thought the $900 malibu wedge was pricey.......