In hindsight, it wasn't THAT bad. I had a lot of frustration with my laminator and spent about four hours just trying to get it to run true. I kept getting a "boat wake" when I would do a dry run with the vinyl (or any vinyl film that wide) after a few feet of running. I had just about given up when Ted came over and convinced me to take it apart and reverse engineer it. We finally figured out that the pinch rollers didn't have enough pressure on them so we adjusted the tension springs and got it working. That amount of annoyance really shortened my fuse and while I knew I need a mental break before getting into the wrap, the uncertainty of what was to come would have impacted by sleep that night. So, I figured we should push through. My irritation was offset with a couple of beers and good company but when it was done, I was DONE.

Here is the laminator before I changed it over to the 54" wide films. I've only ever run 30" wide material through it and, even then, it was a periodic source of some frustration.


DSC_3852 by Team Seacats, on Flickr



By about 8:30 we had it laminated and started installation of the starboard hull. We finished at about 10:30. With a little practice, I think I can get this to just a little over an hour per hull.

Application wasn't too bad. I'm planning some more tricks today and am convinced that a third pair of hands will make this go very quickly. The vinyl itself is low tack/removable for about 48 hours, shrinks under heat, and has a tiny matrix carved into the adhesive to help allow air to escape. It also turns to butter with a little heat. It is pretty incredible stuff (and I'm use the economy film for this test wrap since I was pretty sure I was going to destroy a bunch of it...I'll upgrade to a higher quality film on the next round). It is pretty incredible with what it will endure. The fact that there is no flat surface and everything is convex on the boat shape makes it a little tricky. You can't attach too much of the vinyl down any part of the hull and have to go little by little down the entire hull. I'll be cleaning out a little more space in the garage for the application to the port hull too.


DSC_3856 by Team Seacats, on Flickr


DSC_3857 by Team Seacats, on Flickr


DSC_3863 by Team Seacats, on Flickr


DSC_3861 by Team Seacats, on Flickr

[img]http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5454/9647128916_bacf4a30f2.jpg[/img]
DSC_3870 by Team Seacats, on Flickr