Man Shed Events

Well I’m actually working on the boat again. I got side tracked some watching some of the Tybee 500, side projects, and business trips. During one of my trips to the Washington DC area I pick-up a 31’ carbon mast for the TMS-20. I also met with Kevin Cook to talk about vacuum bagging / carbon fiber and ended up relieving him of 34’ ama / hull mold used to build his boat. His wife and daughters said the mold had to go about the time I happened along. Knowing how much work goes into making a mold I hated to see a good mold put down, I asked my wife if I could bring it home and keep it. Right now it is in storage in the Man Shed.

I have Mark Herendeen's A-cat mast in the shed. It has a nasty break that need some Man Shed mojo done to it. Here is a tip to all Carbon Fiber fans - paint it. Carbon fiber breaks down in the sun. I should have Mark's mast back in one peice in a couple of weeks.


TMS-20 update

The fact that I have been sailing a G-Cat for 25 years and have been swinging an aluminum spare around I was amazed by 31’ Carbon Fiber mast that weighs all of about 30 lbs. So I decided to build the TMS-20 out of Carbon Fiber and of course I’m going to vacuum bag it to the foam. I’m using 198gram cloth (5.7oz) unidirectional plain weave cloth. I‘m having Kurt Hughes my Designer draw up a laminate schedule for the carbon fiber so the cloth will be “tapered” to the stress to make it light, that is more cloth where it is needed and less where it is not.

Additionally I had 4 more inches of freeboard designed into the ama’s and the new lines are on the way. The idea here is increase the buoyancy less chance of tripping on the ama when driving the tri hard and of course for all of catamaraner’s at heart to hike from the ama, I'm also keeping the seats maybe they will fold - dual purpose. In the original design the crossbeams sit up above the ama and I’m hoping to mold the crossbeams into the ama deck, at least some with the extra 4 inches.

I’m updating the website, help Craig, and I’ve added a few pictures working with the foam. I have the mold all foamed in now. This morning was very exciting I pulled the foam out of the mold, a no-no, well I slid it up so I could (for the first time) see the out-side of the hull. You can look at line drawings, make the mold, lay the foam, but how exciting is it when you actually see the outside of the shape. Yahoooooo. That’s my girl nice shape. Ok calm down dude.

The lines looked nice still a lot of work to do. I found the baster a great way to deliver the West System Epoxy to the cove cut in the foam and I do not have to add any powder to thicken it.

Later,

Mike


Pages 6-11 will bring you up to as far as I've posted on the website:
http://www.themanshed.net/tms-20-trimaran/foam/?g2_page=6