Moving Big Things

Well it's been a while but I'm settled in now in coastal NC working for Graham Brynes, fellow watertribe adventurer, naval architect, sailor, and owner of B and B yacht Designs. B and B is a small company with big ideas and an abundance of knowledgeable people who love boats. I am having a blast working on the latest project, a 45 foot power catamaran. Designed by Graham for a client as an efficient live aboard cat she has wave piercing bow bulbs and a very narrow entry angle. This is the largest project that B and B has taken on but it's something that has been on paper for a long time.

In addition to glassing, sanding and brainstorming, I have been modeling the Cat in Rhino 4.0, a popular solid modeling program. It is possible to build such a large and complex shape with very few people with the help of CNC cut parts. We use a shopbot table large enough to cut shapes out of 4x8 sheets of plywood. Computer cut parts can be joined into large and accurate jigs for building the hull panels.

This week, we rotated the Starboard hull over with the help of computer cut circular cradles in order to fair and glass the outside surface. Eventually, the hull will be rotated back and the process repeated for the inside surface. Below is a time lapse video of the move.

Before and After

Before and After. The new floor looks great. The engine mount holes are drilled and bedded. The battery box cover is done, the new vents hoses are installed, the steering cable was routed through the new tube and the bilge is now bright shiny white with a second coat of epoxy. Some things remain. Installing the motor, fuel tank, hull hardware and eventual finishing out with carpeting or possibly wood veneer. I'll post updates as I get them but my work here is done so I hand it off to Bobby for re-powering and getting her back on the water.

In other news, I just bought a new car! a 1998 Toyota Corolla. Some dings and dents but a solid engine and a roof rack to boot.

Floored

The floor is on. I had originally planned to knock it out in one massive layup but I quickly realized that it would be impossible for 1 person and such a complicated part so I ended up breaking it up into 3 pieces. I did the port and starboard side floors up to the ski pole and then the bow floor and battery box in one large layup after laying the bow section. I did the bow section wet with a layer of peel ply but no vacuum bag.

For the last 5 bagged layups (port stringer, starboard stringer, port floor, starboard floor and bow floor) I've been using "peel ply" and "bleeder cloth" which is how it should always be but before I didn't have any. I found some nylon cloth at Walmart, a 10 yard bolt for 5 bucks and a cheap polyester blanket that have been working great. The nylon peels right off the cured epoxy and the blanket soaks up the excess. The vacuum machine has been working great but my bagging skill is a little lacking. I haven't once had a seal good enough that the pump didn't cut on about every minute or so and the last two, the pump just ran all night long.

Tomorrow is my last day working on the ski boat. There are 2 coats of epoxy in the bilge area with white pigment giving it a nice industrial gloss white finish and and my friend has decided to hold off on carpeting the floor until after the engine installation which could be a bit of a dirty job. All that is left now is to drill and fill some mounting holes for the engine mounts, and steering cable attachment and reinstall and rebedd the hull hardware. More pics soon.

The Blob

I've never worked with expanding foam before so putting in the new flotation foam in the ski-boat today was pretty fun. It took about 2 hours to pour all the foam. I've been ready for it since last week but was waiting for the delivery. During the foam pouring I also installed the new battery box. After the foam hardened (about an hour) I sawed off all the foam muffin top blobs and brought it down to the level of the floor with a Sur-Form tool which worked great but took a little while.

An added bonus today was the 60 degree temps which are a welcome change from last weeks freeze. This may be Asheville's last warm week before winter. It was SNOWING on Saturday for crying out loud. What a great break that this week in particular is going to be warm. Tomorrow I'll start laying down the 18oz roving for the new fiberglass floor.

Carbon Canoe Paddle continues

A long time ago I started building a carbon fiber canoe paddle. Not from scratch but a copy of a ZRE carbon paddle. I bought some carbon fiber and some tooling resin from ebay and started with the handle. I made a mold and then a very nice part that broke the mold but came out great. Then I got distracted and put away the project for a while.

Yesterday I started it back up with the paddle blade mold. I laid up the first half of the blade mold using a technique I guess I'll call "moldless mold making". I saw this method, or at least a version of it online. Moldless vacuum bagging where some guys are making a bicycle frame and bagging the parts by suspending them in a frame with bag on either side.

I suspended the paddle in a picture frame which took a couple of tries to get right but with the plastic stretched tight when the vacuum was pulled it stayed wrinkle free and gave a nice smooth surface. The advantage of this method and why I tried so hard to make it work was that I didn't have to mess with making a mold platform or coat the paddle with mold release. After curing, you just peel all the plastic off and presto done! Sure the plastic has some thickness but who cares, I'm not worried about a tenth of a millimeter.

Unfortunately, I didn't have any peel ply or bleeder cloth so I substituted some thin white fabric which soaked up epoxy and clogged my vacuum tube. It was ok, it still worked but I had to leave the pump running and lost about 6 inches of tubing. I also experimented with warming the layup using a blow dryer which gave me an excuse to monitor the temperature with a new toy that I bought myself.

Ski Boat in Final Stages

The Ski Boat rebuild is going smoothly. The expanding foam and the final round of materials (epoxy and more glass) are on their way from US Composites. Last week I finished the layups on the main stringers using the vacuum press. The starboard one went great but the port one got a little wrinkled on the top and will need to be scraped down and smoothed out. I installed the secondary stringers that section off the side bilge space for the exhaust pipes and I got the new ventilation hoses installed. The old vent hoses were flexible plastic with a spiral wire in them. The new ones are PVC gutter pipe shaped with a heat gun and glued together and sealed with 5200.

The 2 main jobs left are to pour the new expanding flotation foam into the various under floor compartments and then lay down the new floor which will be 2 layers of 18oz woven roving smoothed out with filler and a layer of 3/4 oz glass. This time next week I should be pouring foam and the floor should go in pretty quickly. I hope to have this project wrapped up by next Friday.

Vacuum Pump Project Update

It's alive. The vacuum pump is fully operational and boy does it suck. Sorry I couldn't help it. I got all the parts in the mail last week and started assembling right away. I originally planned a configuration similar to this one but once the parts were here and I started playing with them I ended up with what I think is a little more user friendly setup with things facing you and the valves right up front.

It took about 4 hours to build the tanks, put the box together and fit all the pieces together and then about an hour to reseal some of the threads with more pipe tape before it would hold a steady vacuum. With the valves closed, she will suck about 22.5 inHg and only drop about an inch overnight. I kind of wish the pump was a little stronger but no issues so far. After a few layups on the ski-boat I brought it home. What is the first thing I did with it? Vacuum bag my leg of course.

A day for Flying

Last Sunday I had a great opportunity to meet up with an old sailing club friend from school who was in the area and currently in training at Navigation training school in the Air Force base out of florida. He offered to take me up for for a flight at the Hendersonville Airport just 45 min. from Asheville. Naturally I said "HELL YES" and I showed up there about a half hour before he did.

The plane they use down there is the Diamond DA20. It's a small 2 seater and a new one goes for a cool $169,000. The motorcycle of the air I heard one guy at the field say. The plane was fuel'd up and ready to go for us and after doing the preflight another friend and I waited on the ground while Andrew knocked out 3 takeoffs and landings just to warm up and get back up to date with his hours before taking anyone else up. Here is a video of us taking her up. One of the coolest things about the plane is the wonderfully clear and unobstructed canopy bubble.

After my flight, they went up for another flight to do some more navigational type stuff and I wandered over to the Western North Carolina Air Museum which was sitting right next to the strip. What luck! I talked with a guy named Jim Hammond who has been working there a guide and he showed me all the neat and unique planes they had in their hangar. From experimental replicas to aerobatic iniquities to models! If your ever near Hendersonville, the WNC Air Museum is worth a stop. Plus it's free!

Here are some other shots from the day.

Another project?

Well it's more of a present to me and I realized it would help with my current repair job so I decided to just go ahead and build my own vacuum press system. It's pretty simple and I am following some simple and detailed plans from JoeWoodworker.com for the layout. I'll post some pictures when I get a little farther along (I'm still collecting the parts). I got some of the important bits from VeneerSupplies.com and I am waiting on a pump that I bought off ebay. Here is the basic layout.

I had thought about just going with a cheap-o direct pump to bag bang on bang off design but with just a little more care you get some really nice features. This design incorporates some relatively inexpensive parts to accomplish automatic vacuum regulation using an adjustable vacuum sensor and relieves the strain on the pump at startup with a sub-reservoir and a "mac-valve" (basically solenoid valve) after startup to suck air from the main reservoir and vacuum bag. Although Joe Woodworker's "vacuum press" is aimed at woodworkers for laminating veneers and such, I'll be using it mainly for bagged composite projects. I'm interested in trying my hand at a technique called resin infusion. Oh and did I mention, I've ALWAYS wanted one of these.

New battery box

I spent most of the day (last thursday) building the new battery box for the bow. The new box is made of fiberglass molded over a plastic battery box I found in the garage which was previously used as a liner for the original battery box. I laid it up on a flat surface to give it a flange which will be glued under the floor panel to give the battery cover a lip to sit on so the panel sits flush with the floor.