Team Seacats

I was supposed to be away on a business trip starting this afternoon but the customer couldn’t get all the details together so I cancelled at the last minute. When I got home from work, it was almost 60 degrees. A quick check of the weather revealed that it was going to stay warm and the temperature would only start to drop off sharply after 9pm. It will be raining for days after today. I quickly changed clothes and darted outside to get some composite work put in on the underbelly of the boat at the daggerboard wells. Shown here is the repair after I’ve laid up several layers of 7oz woven cloth. I used woven cloth because without a large time investment (which I didn’t have because of the time left in the day) I couldn’t seal off and setup a full on vacuum bagging operation. The woven cloth does not require pressure like the Knytex cloth because it doesn’t ‘balloon’ up absorbing resin almost endlessly. I started with small squares in the center of the repair area alternating between 90 degree and 45 degree weave patterns on each layer and growing each layer outward in the repair. I built it up a bit past the original height so I can sand it back to shape later. It wastes a bit of cloth when you’re trimming out the 45 degree batches but it really helps the strength of the repair. At any rate, the light is keeping the layup warm and it’s nearly reached a full cure – it looks great. As usual there’s more detail and a series of photos on this repair – click on the photo below to go there.

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.