No Name Scull Boat Build......update........ We named her the Double Nickel.........

The next step is to put a protective film over the mold. We will be using polyester resin for the project. Polyester resin will attack and dissolve the Styrofoam. We both work in the glass industry. There is a product that we use to cover a broken car window. It is self adhesive plastic sheeting that comes in a roll. Here is where we came upon our first problem....... At first it went on easy, but toward the rear of the boat there are compound curves. That made the plastic want to pucker, and cause wrinkles. We weren’t really worried about the appearance because, since it is a male mold, it would only show on the inside. No big deal. Well........... the next morning I pushed it outside to prep for the layup, when it sat outside in the sun, the plastic started to separate from the mold. It would not stick back down. So........... I took it all off. I’m still not sure why it came loose. Foam off gassing in the sun? Adhesive not sticking to the oil base paint? So, then I thought about putting a coat of carpet adhesive on the mold. That seemed to work. It stuck tight... so we thought. Same problem. Over night it let go again. I scratched my head for a good long while. Then I remembered about a similar product. Protective plastic, for flooring. They use it during construction, and seemed quite sticky. Now this will be our third attempt......... We got it all down, and used clear packing tape to seal off the overlaps. By the day came to do the layup, it was stuck down tight. After the layup, we noticed several places that the resin penetrated the plastic, pinholes? It wasn’t a real big deal, but it meant repairing the mold. We sprayed pva on the mold before the layup as a mold release. I tell you this, to maybe save someone the same problems, if they should use this method in the future. If I was to try this again I would cover the entire mold, with the clear packing tape only. It stuck to the mold really well, not expensive, and held up for both boats. (that’s what we used for the deck, and worked perfect) The next update I will go over our layup schedule, and my... if I do this again thoughts.... In the pics you see the film installed, and a couple sculling oars I was building. Dale

 
Getting prepared for the layup. This is my first attempt at building a boat out of just glass. I asked many people, what layup schedule that they recommend. Lou Tisch was very helpful. I went down to my local Tap Plastics store, and bought a little 1.5 oz. chopped strand mat, 3/4 oz. chopped strand mat, and some 8.5 oz. 7725 modified twill. I did some test layups with 6”x 6” square pieces. I did various combinations of the cloth & mat. I wanted something that would be as strong as possible, but still remain light weight. Lou told me that I should use mat on the top & bottom layers, and to use a layer of mat between layers of cloth to get the best bond. This was great advice and helped a lot. I settled on 1.5 mat / 7725 twill / 1.5 mat / 7725 twill / 1.5 mat . Making five layers. The boats came out a tad heavy. If I had it to do over, I would substitute the 1.5 mat for the 3/4 mat. I really like the 7725 twill. It is designed to conform to compound curves, and it does perfectly. We purchased our supplies from US Composites. I was pleased with the quality, BUT.... We bought a 5 gallon pail of resin. We noticed that it wasn’t filled to the top. We thought it was odd, but we trusted it was correct. We later bought 5 gallons from Tap Plastics. We decided to pour the resin from Tap, into the US Composites pail, and sure enough, we were shorted at least a gallon from US Composites! We started off with a couple coats of pva mold release. Then we laid up the first layer of 1.5 oz. mat. Waited till it kicked off, then used a course file to knock off any stray fibers sticking up. We are not fast enough to do more than one layer at a time. Then the twill, same process, till we had all five layers done. We really took great pains to make sure we used the minimum amount of resin. And to fix any air bubbles between layers. I think it turned out great. We let it set up a couple days before the de molding. I’m not sure why, but when I make a post on this site, it smashes all the text together, and gets rid of any spaces, and paragraphs. I’m not sure if my settings are all correct. It makes my posts very hard to read. More to come........... Dale [URL=http://s1258.photobucket.com/user/dcducker/media/scull%20build/009_zps41fdd029.jpg.html][URL=http://s1258.photobucket.com/user/dcducker/media/scull%20build/006_zps16612d59.jpg.html][URL=http://s1258.photobucket.com/user/dcducker/media/scull%20build/008_zps41eca6b4.jpg.html][URL=http://s1258.photobucket.com/user/dcducker/media/scull%20build/011_zps56115f0b.jpg.html]
 
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Dale, nice work, love following this post.

Best - Paul

Thanks Paul, This project was very rewarding for me. This was something, that I have never seen done before. Also, it was my own design. Not just a build from a set of plans. Not to mention, building it with my best friend.
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"Thanks Paul, This project was very rewarding for me. This was something, that I have never seen done before. Also, it was my own design. Not just a build from a set of plans. Not to mention, building it with my best friend."
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Dale, there's three great reasons to be proud of your accomplishment! I am constantly in awe by you, "Old Leonard" and others on this site that tackle different projects and their beautiful results. Please keep posting the pics.

Best - Paul
 
Dale,
Great job. I love the lines of the hull...very cool.
One thing you can do to extend your laminating window is to use a different/slower MEKP/catalyst i.e. 30%. It's less reactive at the beginning so it will extend your window but fully cures within the proper time frame. It allows us to do a complete lamination so everything goes on wet to wet. We typically do a 3 oz. CSM (chopped strand mat) against the gel coat (female mold) and follow that with a layer of Knytex 1708 (17 oz. cloth with 3/4 oz. CSM on the back...csm layer against the CSM layer-cloth on the inside of the hull. We then squeegee the whole thing to remove excess resin and smooth it down.

We also use wide brushes (4" & wider) and paint rollers (4" to 6") to spread the resin for faster wet-out. That gives you more time for bubble rolling.
Take care, looking great, holler with any questions.
Lou
 
Dale,
Great job. I love the lines of the hull...very cool.
One thing you can do to extend your laminating window is to use a different/slower MEKP/catalyst i.e. 30%. It's less reactive at the beginning so it will extend your window but fully cures within the proper time frame. It allows us to do a complete lamination so everything goes on wet to wet. We typically do a 3 oz. CSM (chopped strand mat) against the gel coat (female mold) and follow that with a layer of Knytex 1708 (17 oz. cloth with 3/4 oz. CSM on the back...csm layer against the CSM layer-cloth on the inside of the hull. We then squeegee the whole thing to remove excess resin and smooth it down.

We also use wide brushes (4" & wider) and paint rollers (4" to 6") to spread the resin for faster wet-out. That gives you more time for bubble rolling.
Take care, looking great, holler with any questions.
Lou


Thanks Lou.
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Before the de molding. I thought, that I had better make a cradle to hold the boat in position. The boat will be very bendy when it has been de molded. As you can see in the pics, I made the cradle to support the hull, and keep it strait and true, while I make the mold for the deck. I had to make another cart also. To de mold the hull, we went all around the perimeter, pulling the hull away from the mold. I then tried using an air hose, and spraying air between the hull and the mold. That helped a little. But it was stuck pretty good. We then used a furniture pad. I lifted the hull up in the front as high as I could, and OLD Leonard started stuffing the pad in between. With the pad giving steady even pressure, it slowly started coming apart. I would lift, then slide the pad further back. We kept this up, then it just popped off. There was a fair amount of friction in the keel area. We had the cradle all ready, flipped the hull over, and she laid in perfect. One hull down! The mold held up great..... We had to do some repairs where the resin had seeped through the plastic sheeting. I’m pretty sure the plastic has small pinholes, since it is really designed to just keep dirt off of carpeting. Also, we had to kind of massage it down, to make it stick. We could have inadvertently, caused some holes doing that. Since this will be the last boat, this time we were not concerned if the mold gets ruined. The second layup went off without a hitch....... More to come............

This shot shows both hulls.....

 
We used two part foam to fill in the void in the keel. We then, sanded the foam flat to conform to the shape of the hull. Then laid down a couple layers of glass. While we have been laying up the hulls, I have been going over options on the deck design in my head. There were several things that I was sure, that I wanted to incorporate into the deck. Number one, was that I wanted to move forward in the boat. With the shape of the hull sloping down. Moving forward will lower my body. And possibly gain more leverage on the oar. My old Lyn Lee combing, was to low to hide me, so we increased the height of this boat by one inch. So with moving forward one foot, and raising the height an inch, we gained two inches of hide ability. You can see in the pics, that I’m fitting the transom. Also you can see the final shape of the transom. I had left over wood from my Bluebill build. So that’s what I will use. I laminated a 3/4” and a 1/4” to make a 1” thick okoume plywood transom. I’ll go over my other ideas on the deck as I post more pics. ............ More to come............



 
Should of made three! One for me!!! Want to find one so I can scull for brant up here. Best bets probably south of me for sure.
 
Should of made three! One for me!!! Want to find one so I can scull for brant up here. Best bets probably south of me for sure.




Yea Adam, brant are awesome little geese.
Sometimes I take for granted, having so many scull boats available down here. There are almost always one or two on
Craig’s List. Dale
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