Here We Go Again

[hermco]

I had to modify the ends of the grabber bar on the hatch so I could get it fit in the hole. I had to do the same thing on the hatch on my 23 3 years ago.

Just pull the circlip holding the bar on and turn it over.

[ScottM]

Strick,
Looking good. Do yourself a favor and chain those boat stands together if you're not going to block the keel at the transom, especially if you're going to be crawling under there.

[EVERGREEN]

Strick

“There are some imperfections. I don't know how they got there because the mold was smooth. I'm thinking too much wax”

The imperfections that you are getting are called alligator or pre-release. They are caused by one of three things, either the gel-coat is to thin, the cure time of the skin coat is two slow, or the gel-coat pre-released off the tool from shrinkage "to thick". From the pictures the Gel coat looks good, no pin holes/fish eyes/pools. I would bet cure time of the skin coat.

I used to build a lot of one-off molds and I would use Whiteboard for a tooling surface “particleboard with a white melamine surface bonded to it”or Formica. The material is not porous like MDF and is about the same price. We used 3-coats of high temp wax and one light spray of PVA. I think Home depot sells something like it now.

Great Job with the Boat! Keep up the good work.

http://www.thelaminexgroup.com.au/tr...ials/index.asp

[strick]

Don- Last night I tried for about 4 seconds to screw the grab bar in the upside down position but it seemed to not want to thread so I just ground a little off the lip. After reading your post just now I tried it again and I got it to thread. There was a ding on the threads that was making it difficult. Thanks for the tip.

Scott-thanks for the tip I'll do that.

EGreen- I've heard of alligators but this is my first experience with them. Thanks for identifying it. You are right the polyester primer was not too thin. I layed it on thick. However it's been hot here in calif these last few days and I was wondering if that could have had an effect. The part generated a lot of heat while in the mold. I think the cure time of the skin coat was fairly fast due to the increased outside temp. Maybe it was #3? due to a gel coat too thick? I've been using the white board for my flat molding table and never a problem.

Thanks for the input fellas

strick

[Ed]

Hey Strick-

Your bracket is coming along pretty quickly.

As far as "alligatoring" is concerned, my experience with it was teh result of cold temperatures or not thorough mixing of teh catalyst.

Alan Viates writes about it in length in one of his books. However, for the time being...I thought these two links should be able to give you a clue as to what caused your problems.

http://www.fibreglass.com/trouble.htm

http://www.dsm.com/en_US/html/drs/ge...leshooting.htm

[strick]

Thanks Ed After reading that I think that I may have not added enough catalyst to the skin coat. Temps were hot that day and I decided to use a little less catalyst to increase my working time. I did not want the part to set up too fast. At least it was only in a few small areas. It's fixed now. I will do another light sand and then another coat of primer and it's going on then boat hopefully by this weekend.

Here is a close up of what alligatoring looks like.



strick

[strick]

Slow going this week. Work has me running around putting out fires. Spent most of the day digging footings for the new shop. I've been waiting 4 months for the building permit and I finally got it yesterday. first the engineer screwed up on the plans so that had to be fixed and then the city took it's sweet time getting the permit issued. I rented a mini backhoe and let Jared go at it.



I managed to get the bracket faired, sanded and primed after work this week. I did a test fit to see how it's going to sit. I'm having some 1/8 inch SS square washers punched out at a local welding shop and they should be ready on Monday. The bracket is pretty much finished. I still have to put in a drain plug, and cover a few small annoying pin holes then sand with 220 grit. It will get painted when I paint the rest of the boat.









strick

[1bayouboy]

Looks awesome Strick.....as usual... Is the bottom
parallel to the keel as on your other one or does it have a little rise front to back.

At least you get to sand in the shade.. [img]/forum/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img] I'm not sure there's anything worse than sanding in that position. It's looking great though....so hang in there....I need you for inspiration.

[strick]

The keel of the bracket runs parallel with the keel of the boat. I have not got a weight on the bracket. My fish scale only goes to 50 pounds. I may have to estimate. The bracket took about 11 gallons of resin which is about 100 pounds of resin. The glass I'd have to say weighs about 40-50 pounds. so I'm gonna say about 140-150 pounds. I'll try and locate a scale before I permanently bolt it to the boat.

George has been doing a good job of sanding off the blistered gel goat. One side of the bottom of the boat was not too bad but the other side has lots of blisters.

strick

[NoBones]

Strick, Boy do I know about that freakin' permit process.
11 months for architect and 4 months for building permit.
Impact fees, etc, etc. I quess it is the same no matter what state you live in. It is all about the money!!!!!

Any how the boat is lookin' real good! Break-out the old
bath room scale although not 100% accurate, it will be close.

See ya, Ken