Here’s a great clip of a proper skipper / crew relationship….

Before you even ask, the answer is “because we can”. I played side-kick to fellow one-meter co-designer, Neville, last night as he start to weld up the aluminum pieces I fabricated on Friday. If you have been much of a mountain bike aficionado within the last 10 years or so, you might have heard of Neville Mountain Bikes. This is THAT Neville and he’s pretty handy with a TIG welder and a lathe. With the garage door open the house across the street was illuminated from the arc of the welder until about midnight last night. I’ll go into detail about the vacuum reservoir when we start to assemble the mechanicals – but it’s looking good so far.

We also milled the plug for the 4lb lead keel. I cut an aluminum template using a scale print of the CAD drawing I used to calculate the weight and get the proper NACA shape. Neville used that template to slowly shape a piece of PVC to fit. A box will be built and a substance similar to plaster of paris will be poured around it with an internal aluminum mesh to hopefully make it pretty durable. I’m working today more on the recreation of the hull plug.

Although, it does look like one, no, it’s not a bomb. This is an example of a vacuum pump with a home-built resovoir. We’re looking to improve our existing vacuum bagging capabilities and energy consumption and should be able to do it handily with something like this. Currently all our vacuum bagging is done with a venturi style vacuum generator that requires compressed air to operate. It pulls plenty of vacuum but even when the part being made is fully evacuated, the venturi vacuum generator continues to consume the same full amount of compressed air. The solution? Attach it to a vacuum reservoir through a check valve and an electronic vacuum sensing switch that connect to a pneumatic solenoid valve. This way the vacuum generator only “turns on” and consumes compressed air when the vacuum in the system drops below a set point. Even if I were to buy a very expensive mechanical vacuum pump, it would have to run constantly without such a resovoir. We’re fabricating our own reservoir from scrap aluminum and are a little concerned that it might not be beefy enough. If we were building a vessel designed for pressurization, I would have spent an extensive amount of time calculating the loads and putting in a whopping safety factor … but in this case, implosion is not quite as a harmful threat as explosion…so we’re going with the thumb and one eyeball principle. As is though, a quick run with the calculator shows that this thing will have about 18,000 lbs of force pressing inward. I’m going to work on the one meter plug some tomorrow morning and venture over to Neville’s house were we start welding tomorrow evening on the tube and endcaps I rolled this evening.

These guys have instructions, several kits, and/or pieces parts to build your own resevoir system at Veneer Supplies. Cool website.

Sorry for the lack of progress on the US One Meter mold…been busy keeping up the household for a few days. How about this one to pass some time? Have an old Hobie 16? Perhaps missing a mast or some sails? Here’s an idea for you (note: this comes from Michigan where the winters are cold and long). I hate to think what might happen to your hat if it blows off your head (or worse). It’s for sale too! (also note that I am in NO way affiliated with this craft)

Buy it now on EBAY!

Thanks to the folks at AdventureOnline.TV, we have a new video player with bonus items! Click the link below (or the obnoxious “CLICK FOR VIDEO” thing up top). After seeing the new Tybee 500 Promotional Video (it’s the default video that loads up), you must see the WWF Season 3 Ep 1 video (WWF = World Wave Federation) hosted by Neitz Boy who has coined modern sailing phrases such as “one-edging” it (flying a hull). There is everything there from skydiving, kiteboarding, surfing, and even Laser sailing right after a hurricane. Seriously – it’s good stuff and thanks to Brian Karr for his talent and effort in putting together all that incredible footage. If you click on the links to go to the AdventureOnline.TV site, you can buy full length, high quality, DVD’s of many of the videos, including the 2006 Tybee 500, you see there.

Hey, also note that there is a new “maximize” feature to see the videos in a larger format…Seacats say “cool” and keep “one-edging it” Brian.

This weekend was a good opportunity for several of us to get out the F18s and do some tuning and experimenting with setups. Four of us gathered at the Lake Keowee Sailing Club (my home club) and had some really nice breeze on Saturday. The breeze peaked at about 14 knots and gradually started to die by the end of the day. I single handed for the first two races because my crew wasn’t able to arrive on time. I found the boat to be pretty overpowered with just me on board in that breeze but I was able to hang in there with the fleet. After Tim Owens jumped on board with me, we were able to get competitive. Unfortunately, I was quite rusty with handling the boat around a closed course. My tacks were pretty bad, I wasn’t being terribly smooth, and I actually fell off the boat once by not quite hooking in the trapeze harness all the way. Fortunately, I was able to hang on to the mainsheet (which almost made the boat capsize as my ‘body surfing’ with the mainsheet, sheeted in the main sail even more) and Tim was quick to grab the tiller and I was able to climb back to the boat and get onboard without loosing too much.

We then spent an evening grilling and swimming at Rick Harper’s house and then went at it again on Sunday. We switched up some boats on Sunday to get a feel for what other people were doing. The air was pretty light and fluky but still was a good time. I felt like this weekend was really good to help me get back into course racing mode. Click on the following image to go to the flikr site where there are some more photos.

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.

Another late breaking bulletin from our Notably Nutty department. Kristofer J. “Harley” Harlson is going to sail non-stop around the world in a self built 8′ boat. I’m not making this up. On one hand you have to admire the ambition. His statement “I do not wish for anyone to risk his or her lives trying to save me from my own folly” is certainly admirable. If you follow the first link, I think you will agree that he looks pretty sane. On the other hand though, you have to wonder if galvanized hinges for rudder pintles, fire hose screwed in place to hinge a rudder trim tab, or galvanized steel mesh used in the hull construction are indicative of great planning. For that matter…can you store enough food for a 1.5 knot voyage around the globe inside such a thing? Click ‘em if you got ‘em

Kristofer J. “Harley” Harlson — Sea Biscuit Around the World 2006-2007

An interview at Duckworks Magazine

Some Construction Photos

I finally got out the sandpaper for the F18 bow (remember the repair I started a while back?). After a wetsanding with 600 grit and a couple of passes with the buffer, voila! Good as new. The timing is good to since I’m expecting to do some sailing this weekend.

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.

I got a ride around Woodruff, SC in a Boeing Stearman PT-17 this evening owned by my employer. As I didn’t have my camera handy I had to borrow this identical picture from the Coleta Air and Space Museum. I promise to get off this airplane kick and back to sailing soon.

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.

This just in from our “notably nutty” department (before anyone feels offended…I openly admit that I belong within that category). Here’s another composite/molding project that appears to be out of hand. How about a home built fiberglass 80% scale Corsair airplane … that you fly in. I particularly like his statement when talking about composites because I’ve been able to identify with it most recently; “…you have either spectacular results, or spectacular failures.” Stragely, I feel comfort in the fact that my composite failures won’t involve a deathly spiral into the ground.

Thanks to Jackie for the link. Click ‘em if you got ‘em.

Corsair 82

After about 16 hours of coaxing, soaking, coaxing a little more, soaking, trying air pressure, trying water pressure, letting it soak overnight, coaxing a lot more, etc. I finally was able to release the mold from the plug but not before the plug was in pieces. I made several blunders that ultimately led to pretty substantial damage to the plug and a less-than-perfect mold. After finally reaching the point where damage to the plug was an acceptable alternative, I drove wooden wedges between the mold and the plug. Amazingly, the wooden wedges did very little damage to the gelcoat on either the plug or the mold but it did result in the plug coming apart leaving the center section of the plug still firmly planted in the mold. Another hour and three bleeding knuckles later, the center of the plug finally separated from the mold. In hindsight, contrary to my usual style, I went into the layup of the mold without enough preparation. I’m going to write this detail so I can look back to it for the next go ‘round.

I first mixed up 4 ounces of orange tooling gel coat (which was plenty when I went to coat the plug with blue) and it managed to only cover about ½ of the plug. A second round of 4 ounces covered the rest of it – but it could have stood to be substantially thicker. More like 12 to 16 ounces total would have been about right. With my measuring syringe plunger melted from previous MEKP usage, I had to count out the 64 drops in each 4 ounce batch for a 2% mixture. With the ambient temperature at about 78 degrees in the shop, this worked out to about 45 minutes until the gel coat started to set (just right)…except that I got antsy after examining the gel coat in the cup that had solidified and was concerned that I would run out to time (in reality – I probably have hours before the gel coat cure would be affected). That brings us to the first blunder; I started to apply glass too early and ended up rubbing away some of the gel coat on the stern. Second blunder; I didn’t prepare / precut enough fiberglass and working with random mat was horribly messy once my gloves got resin on them. Third blunder, I underestimated the amount of resin required and just barely ran out of resin resulting in a couple of dry spots in the laminate. And the fourth and final blunder, which I think is due to the fact that I had to remove the wax from the plug (wrong type?), is that the plug was impossibly stuck inside the mold.

The good news is that the mold did come out with only one major blunder in one top edge where it was a bit dry and the gel coat was left unsupported. Due to some dry spots in the lamination I don’t think the mold is durable enough for vacuum bagging, but I should be able to repair it enough to pull out a new plug, do some light refinishing, build a second mold, and take a muligan.

Things I took away from this;
1) Don’t get impatient with the gel coat.
2) I’ll spray a test blob on something with equal thickness so I can test it with a finger and not worry about messing anything up.
3) Pre-lay all the fiberglass to reduce the handling.
4) Use a slurry of milled glass fibers and resin to fill in the sharp corners in the mold – the glass didn’t like to bend around the sharp corner and left the one spot unsupported.
5) I might even use the sprayer to lay down a coat of polyester resin on top of the gel coat and start laying glass on that before wetting it out to ensure a void-free layup.
6) Wax the ever-lovin’-crap out of the plug before the PVA goes down.
7) Maybe look at putting in a tiny air port somewhere on the bottom of the hull…like where the rudder post might emerge. This would allow me to pressurize the joint at the point where things stick the worst.

In hindsight, it’s painfully obvious that I have very little experience with wet hand layups … I can’t wait to get to the vacuum bagging part since I actually know what I’m doing there.

…check this website. After three attempts I finally got a good coat of PVA down on the mold. I’ve been trying all morning! After wet sanding the plug a couple of nights ago and finishing with 600 grit, I applied three coats of mold release wax – sounded like a good idea since the PVA is supposed to work with wax. I also made an assumption that the PVA would skim coat the 600 grit finish leaving it shiny. None of that worked at all. The PVA beaded up like water on oil. I took the plug outside and washed off the PVA and then back into the shop. I first took acetone and cleaned off the wax on a spot and brushed on some PVA. It looked like it took pretty well and laid down smoothly. I then rubbed down the entire plug twice with acetone cleaning off the wax. I hung the plug up and shot PVA again. This time it was definitely better – but there were still spots that beaded up. After washing off the plug again, I tried rubbing it down three times with MEK this time. PVA on again and it was still beading up in places and I had drips everywhere. I left it for a little while to vent my frustration and when I came back, the areas that did lay down well were really showing the sanding scratches – that wouldn’t do either.

Clearly the plug must be buffed and polished so I figured I would do that and then figure out what to do about the wax…just MAYBE the buffing would clean the plug up the rest of the way (the buffing compound is a 3M product that specifically does NOT have wax in it – but it does use vegetable oil). After spending 30 minutes buffing, I could have quit because the thing looked so good. I tested several spots with the PVA and it laid down perfectly! I washed the plug with soap and water and went back into the shop. I laid down several coats of PVA and it looks like it’s going to be good to go. I’m going to give it an hour to setup and start preparing to lay up the mold.

It was the smell of victory! Everything hardened nicely and the PVA was much easier to remove than I thought it would be – PVA over air-inhibited gel coat is the way to go for sure! I wetsanded the plug and base with 400 grit and within about 45 minutes had removed all the orange peel. I then went over everything with 600 grit. I’m debating a little about whether or not to polish the plug up with rubbing compound or if I should just wax it as it, PVA over it, and lay up the mold. I’ll have to think about that tomorrow. The plan is to tidy up the shop tomorrow evening and prepare to lay up the mold starting Saturday morning. Sorry – no pictures tonight…there’s only so much sanding you can capture with a camera.

Victory? I dunno. After working out some minor pin holes in the gel coat with more bondo, I shot another coat of gel coat on the plug. This time, instead of the surfacing agent, I used the raw gel coat and then surfaced it with PVA to seal it from the air. DID IT WORK? Well…that is the question huh. It sure is shiny. I’ll admit to being in a bit of a rush because Bonnie and I were slated to watch a movie (Pirates of the Caribbean – part I) with a friend this evening. I didn’t give much thought to the gel coat after I sprayed it – I quickly cleaned the gun and shot the PVA on the plug about 8 to 10 minutes later. Just now, I wondered if I had given the 40% MEK, that I used to thin the gel coat for spraying, enough time to flash off. I wonder what would happen if it didn’t escape before the PVA sealed everything up? I think we are about to find out, but with any luck things will be fine. With slightly less luck, I’ve made another mistake at the expense that you can hopefully avoid them in the future! We’ll find out tomorrow.

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.