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Random Quote: You can tune a piano but you can't tune a fish
Thanks for all the compliments and interest. Here are a few pics as we got her ready to leave the shop for the trial runs. Then there are a couple of pics of her floating around the dock from different angles. I also have a few shots of her running on the test days that I will get posted shortly, just need to get them loaded up right.
Jaime, think we were just using resin thickened with cabosil for our fairing that you see in those shots of the deck plug. Obviously that would not cut it for a real boat, but that is just a plug for the deck mold and will never see the water.
Parrot, love the lines on your boat as well. Seems hard to believe how fast you guys seem to be progressing on yours. I had thought about adding tumblehome back during the design, but like you said, that would require a two piece mold for the hull. That would have added quite a bit of work in our tooling process and also added a lot more labor (read $$$) in each hull layup. For a model this small, and how small the tumblehome would be, just didn't seem worth it.
Rigged with a temporary console, floor, etc
Running the motor on muffs a minute before heading out.
Here are a few pics from our test runs. The temporary floor we put in is about 4 or 5 inches higher than the actual floor will be, and the temporary console didnt have any handholds. It made the runs over 40mph a little interesting, heh.
I see where your love for cat boats started....what is the story on the tunnel hull? Is that a SST60 or 120? Kinda looks like a Pugh capsule. Just curious, as we raced SST60's a long time, and when I see another tunnel boat....well, it is kinda like crack to a drug addict!
I see where your love for cat boats started....what is the story on the tunnel hull? Is that a SST60 or 120? Kinda looks like a Pugh capsule. Just curious, as we raced SST60's a long time, and when I see another tunnel boat....well, it is kinda like crack to a drug addict!
Dan
this is the shop doing the toolinghttp://www.questracing.com/live/
__________________ 1979 manatee cuddy
1983 24 aqua patio
Looking at those tunnels you did repair work on sure did bring back a lot of memories; Benny Robertson's 120 and I think that is Mike Floyd's 60 boat. If I remember, Quest Racing started outside of Charleston, SC. My brother stopped by their shop in the mid 80's when they had a Sport E boat...he met James Blake there (and that guy was a real character!) My brother and I both ran Sport E boats (our own design and build), then moved up to the SST-60's. Had a great time racing with the Low country guys, then moved on to race the APR circuit for until 2001.
Sorry for getting a little side-tracked...keep the pictures coming on this project, though. Excellent work and great idea to test the actual hull plug; easier to make changes now than once the mold is made!
Those were all the photos up to the stage of testing the prototype. The photos from then til now are all about turning the prototype into a plug and getting it and the deck plug gelcoated and to a good finish to build the molds. I am not sure any of you would find that as interesting and it is certainly not in the same fun category as building the prototype or the beautiful work going on in Tarbaby or Parrott's threads. I will spare you the photos of the plugs getting sanded day after day and post the one shot of the plug when the final polish was done. I will post some shots of the actual layup of the hull in the mold soon if there is interest in the glass side of work and not just the wood stuff?
Don C, yes there is an anchor locker, it has a twin locker beside it. The only difference being the anchor locker has a cutout in the hatch for the rode to pass thru and a retaining eye built into the bottom to attach the tail end of rode to. Here is a pic of the plug showing the area without hatches.
2ntow, yea that was Ken Adams (our builder) and his family down in SC when they were a lot more involved in racing. You would have to ask him about what kind of race boats those were, we never had anything to do with that stuff, just some old repair work he still had around his shop.
Please do a lay out on the mold build. I'm thinking of doing a mold of a pirogue and any pointers that you show will help me along.
On a side note. That flair should hold down any wind blown spray. Maybe add some rails towards the stern for slow speed lift and knocking spray down on choppy windy days? Your boat looks good.
Thanks Parrott and Prock, we worked hard on the looks side of things once we got the running surface right. As far as spray rails, we have a style line (hard secondary chine) just above the waterline that will deflect any water running up the hull side.
I dont have a lot of pics of the mold building process, but it is pretty simple in theory, just have to be careful and take your time. Get the plug/part as glossy as you can, they are usually easier to work on than the mold itself. Use a good mold release wax, think paste is better for tooling work, and put between 6-8 coats of wax on. This is probably the most important part of the mold build, and the only reason to have that many coats is to make sure there is no chance you missed any area. Then you pick your tooling gelcoat and spray that overtop the waxed plug, here is a shot of us in that step.
After that, make sure you get that first layer of mat on in the same day as the gel and be careful not to put any pressure on the gel or it will slip off the waxed part. Once you have that first layer of mat on and cured, things get a lot easier. Simply add a layer or two of glass at a time and make sure to roll out any air bubbles or grind down any rough/high spots between layers. Once you have the mold almost as thick as you want it, build up some wood or steel tube framing and lay a heavy layer of glass to connect them to the outside of the mold in order to make sure it is firmed up. Also the framing should be built so that you can flip the mold if you need to, as well as sit level on a surface.
Pop the plug out with wedges, air or water and give the mold a light buffing or repair any areas that need it. Give it a good waxing and you are ready to go. Sorry for the long winded explanation, but please feel free to send me any questions that come up. We are about to make the mold for our console, I will take and post pics of the process for you.
As a side note, we got the pipework back from the welder and finished out our leaning post. Had to make one special as we wanted the legs to fit inside a 28" width.
Great info... Curious; So what happens to the plug? Trash? Is that going to be the plug for the console? How will the console be released from its mold?
What steps are you using to finish out your plug before spraying the tooling gelcoat? In another words,what type of flairing,paint or what every you are using?
On that console,it looks like ya'll will have to do a 2 part mold. Looking good!
In general, we keep our plugs tucked away or in storage. Lets us get up and running again if something were to happen to the molds, but other than that, they are not used for anything. Yes that is the plug for our console, we will make it as a two-part mold, as you guys suspected, because it would not come out of a one piece mold.
We generaly just buy plain old polyester fairing compound for working on our plugs, or sometimes we even make it using our normal resin and adding cabosil or other thickening agent. Let me know if you have any other questions Prock. Should have some more pics to post soon.
Couple of questions for you on the finished product, not the build aspect of it as I have absolutely no knowledge when it comes to that. I currently have an 18' cat and will be looking to buy a new boat within a year or so. Depending upon the available choices, I may stay with an 18' or move up to the 21-22' range.
Will your boats be slightly customizable or it is what it is and you get what is mass produced? Reason being, I don't like the anchor locker system, I would rather have one door that led to the most space possible. Being a diver, we don't do much anchoring and generally prefer to stuff that area with other gear into every nook and cranny we can. Also, on the center console, not much for the molded in from seat, we prefer the cooler seat that we can remove to give more room to suit up. We use the entire front deck, with the diver looking towards the rear of the boat....nice to be able to remove the cooler seat to lay your dive bag down and have room to put your fins on. Primary reason were looking at the 21-22' cat is for the twin engine set up, any chance of getting two 60's or 70's. Makes a nice place between the engines for a dive ladder, especially with a walk through transom door. The 18' does everything we want and it handles everything we throw at it. Only reasons for considering the 21-22' are the features that are usually standard on them, such as twin engine for easier entry into the boat and larger fuel tanks. Currently, I only have a 26 gallon tank in the center console and end up putting three 5 gallon fuel cans under the leaning post for trips of 20 or more miles offshore. Never needed them, but nice to have the back up.
Hey guys, just a quick check in as I am exhausted and still have one day left at the Miami show. Will try to answer some of these questions when I have a bit more time.
Want to say thanks to all the positive feedback we have been getting at the Miami show, even though we were not able to bring a fully finished boat to the show like we would have liked too, For those of you that have signed up with us and given us your contact info, we will be heading back down to Florida shortly to go on a brief circuit for test rides. We have been very happy with all the interest we have been getting.
Diverboy I will try to answer your questions soon, we try to accomadate our customers anyway we reasonably can if they are willing to pay for it, but being a boat build via molds, we can only do so much.
Everyone stay tuned and we will try to give a more detailed update soon.
