Float inside finished

Lamination of the Beamflange


I wetted out each BD layer on a sheet of plastic and put this "prepreg" in place.


Tempering the hull inside
To get the full strenght of the epoxy, i build a tent over the hulls and heated it up to 40 C. The temperature was keeped for 12h.


Prepearing the cutouts for the float deck


Float deck vakuum pressed


Second float ready for glueing the float deck.
On the float deck is the frame to lift the float deck single handed.


Float decked pressed on the float.
I used all heavy equipment to press the deck onto the float.

Back on blogging

During the winter i could not do much work because of deep temperatures and other duties.
In the meantime a managed to finish the float halfes and join them

Vakuumbagging the chainplate and fixing the chainplate in the hull





Folding mechanismun to assist the joining




First Hull Joined




Second Hull joined and form frames converted to hull support

3rd float half finisched

This time i managed to laminate the float half in 2 steps.
1. stern>fwd beam
2. fwd beam > bow + stringer + chainplate base.
More is not possible with the resin i am using. The slower hardener would need to high tempering temperatures.
The picture shows the curing of the second part.



Now the 3rd half is finished and ready to join. The temperatures are to low now, so i moved some of the material home and start with some small parts. In spring i will continue with the big parts

2nd half finished

It took me longer then expected to finish the second half, because the weather got beautiful and i went hiking in the mountains.



The second half was laminated in 3 steps using the 40cm extra layer area at the beam bulkheads as an overlap. The stringer was done together with the bow section. I had no problems with the vakuum this time. The solution was an 20 cm flange mold plate and a 12cm wide flange (the offcut from the 1m wide hull fabric) fabric layer as a sealing surface.
The next half i will do in 2 steps (stern>fwd beam, fwd beam > bow + stringer).


Finally i flipped around the form frames and build a wooden framework to lift the hulls up and later be used to lift the main hull.

Early winter start

No nice warm September this year. The temperatures are around 10 C. So i had the get heating equipment earlier than planed.


I build a heating tent over my work with a 2KW heating fan. To get a air circulation i got a tube fan inside a 150mm air tube. This tube gets the air from the cold end and blowsit to the intake of the heater. So far i could reach 35C. I have to improve the isolation to reach 40 C wich is the recomended temperature for the resin.

First hull half

After some bubble troubles with normal laminating, i decided to use vacuum for the hull. I first put the additional layer on the deck flange. I made it higher then required, so that i could use it to put the sealing tape. The mold was not everywhere high enaugh, thats why you see all the clamps pressing the things together, to get it airtight. Next time i will use a higher mold plate.


Vacuum the stringer.


The hull out of the mold.

Starting laminating

After my gliding vacation (using an other hightech toy) i got the laminating materials delivered


The hull ready for laminating


Patterns for the bulkheads


Bulkhead sheet under vacuum. I didn't want to spent the time drilling holes in the foam. So i did each side seperatly


The vacuum pump. After i first try with a small pump, i changed it to this model.


The band saw with a knife band (no teeth). I cuts the laminated bulkheads very well.