Team Seacats

I vacuum bagged the first hull half today and it was a moderate success.  I just couldn’t leave well enough alone and after it had been sitting for a while, I removed the vacuum to attempt to remove a stubborn bubble in the rounded hull/deck lip.  I think that the problem was that there was no loose plastic right on that corner allowing it to press the glass into it.  I was able to make the situation better by removing the vacuum and repositioning the bag, but it looks like I re-introduced a lot of air into areas that had already started to firm up.  The net result was that there are a lot of tiny air bubbles in the lamination.

I tried a modified resin infusion method that I dreamed up in my head – it actually “mostly” worked.  After carefully placing the fiberglass, laying in poly-stuffing around the perimeter, and attaching 1/2 of the vacuum bag, I started with 4oz of resin and poured it in the center of the mold laying a thick stripe from stern to bow.  Then I attached the rest of the vacuum bag and pulled a vacuum on the layup.  The resin did exceptionally well to saturate all but a 1/2 fingernail size bit on the stern – I can correct that by putting a little more resin on that end next time.  The advantage of this method is that it saves some elbow grease in having to wetout the layup and it saves some materials by not having to put a layer of peel-ply over the entire mold followed by a complete layer of stuffing.  The drawback of this method (the same as resin-infusion) is that you are more susceptible failure of the part if there is a vacuum problem.

The picture below is the hull half after I started to remove it from the mold.   The outside finish is actually quite good.