I should probably post this here as well as in the F-16 forum.

Frode, Omar and I have started a Blade F-16 strip plank project. We will document the process here: http://woodastic.blogspot.com/

Comments, tips and opinions are welcome!

Rolf,

I look forward to following your progress. I would love to do this sometime.

What are the "stations" you mention, bulkheads?

Thanks,

Fred

The stations are what gives the planks shape, the moulds we are building on.

Here is an illustration from a canoe building manual

They are molds that later come off? I was asking because I think you said they are particle board, and know that particle board and water do not get along very well. If these are left in, do they get coated?

Thanks again.

Hi Soma

Hope its alright if I answer, Rolf.

The particle board will not be any part of the finished product, its just there to make the shape of the hull during building. Then will be used to keep the shed warm.

Thanks,

That makes sense! Can't wait to see how this looks.

Hi Rolf,
I have been watchin' your efforts for some time, you and the other members who started home built projects. Great job, keep us informed.
Q: What thinckness of strips are you planning to use ? And why didn't you tried foam ? The Blade hasn't too much hull surface, so the cost is close to wood, I guess...Foam seems very simple to work with...and clean too!

I hope I can start soon my own home build Blade project, it's an inspiration to see you guys work on the Blade.
Had allready contacted Phill, I hope he agrees with my project, I'm planning for a female mold and foam but he said the plans are not suited to this.
Are there big differences from the tortured ply method to strip plank? I guess not, If you are using same ply thinckness, but if not...
Anyway, looking forward to see the first strips on the stations.

I am currently in the US so I dont get to read the forum daily, hence the late followup.

Matt is absolutely right, the particle board will be thrown away after the hulls are done.

We will begin with 5mm strips, which will be sanded down to something like 4mm to get a relatively fair and even surface.
We did not use ply as it is very expensive and relatively hard to get at home. Price of ply+transport made ply prohibitively expensive.
Foam was an option, but sourcing and price of having the materials delivered made it very expensive. In contrast, we can go to an hardware store to sort trough their lumber and handpick what spruce we want. Here in Norway spruce is very common and not expensive at all, compared to foam and epoxy. I dont know what the laminate schedule would be like for a foam boat, but I think there might be more epoxy in a glass/foam boat than in a timber boat? Besides, working with wood is more fun than working with foam <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I would say that building in ply and building in strip is quite different. So far I think that building in strip is more time consuming.

I hope the guys updates the building blog tomorrow evening. I dont know what they will get at while I am away so I am waiting in silent agony to see what they have done with the project.

Well, considering the prices I have received for foam, and the fact that I have to import it here, I think I will probably go your way -strip planking, but I have a few problems with that.
First I can't get quality wood here (Romania) or evenly dried wood, second I think wood planking will be heavier.
Corect me if I am wrong:
-spruce has a density of about 400-500 Kg per cubic meter, while suited foam for this will be 80-90 Kg per cubic meter
-total weight of wood core is about 11kg -4mm wood
-while total weight of foam core is about 4kg -6mm foam
-I think wood will soak up more resin then foam, because foam is closed-cell while wood has a natural tendency of soaking up liquids...
So, I think the strip planked hull will be considerably heavier then foam cored hull. But I'm not at all experienced with this, and there are things I might not considered...
I think in the end everything is reduced to the budget size.
Wood cored hull=heavier,stronger,cheaper
Foam cored hull=lighter,less dent resistance,more expensive

And what about wood behavior in long time ?
After all, I'm not such an experienced racer anyway, maybe 10-15kg plus won't make a huge difference unless you are a really serious racer. I think I might end up with wood cored hulls like your build, foam seems quite expensive...

Wood will probably be heavier than a light foam/glass boat. Until we have pulled off a test panel we will not know just how much more, so that is pretty high on the todo list.

I dont think wood will absorb more epoxy than foam. There are techniques we intend to use to minimize the amount of epoxy going into the wood. If you look at the surface area of the foam you are gluing the glass to, it is pretty large! To get a good bond between foam and glass you probably want to fill the surface with thickened epoxy before putting the glass on. This filler layer will add some weight. You will also need more glass than you do with a wood core. The theorethical numbers and the literature suggests that wood should be OK weight wise. Will be interesting to find out!
Life expectancy for a wood core boat is excellent. The wood carries most of the loads in a catamaran hull so it can bend for many more cycles than a foam/glass composite of comparable weight and thickness.

I suggest you wait and what comes out of our project, unless you are in a hurry.
If you are going to build a budget boat, I would rather start looking for used gear to go on the boat like beams, blocks, cleats, a rig etc. Those items costs more than the hulls are likely to do.

Well, after comparing prices,advantages and disadvantages
I will go with strip planking. I am in a hurry because of several reasons - first I'm overexcited and enthusiastic after reading and following all those home build projects, second - I have saved some cash and if I don't spend it now on the boat I'm afraid I will spend it on something else (car lease), third - it's almost winter now and it's a good time to start construction indoors because I can't get sailing now. I will follow closely your blog for sure, doing something that's allready been done is quite an advantage.
Anyway, thanks for the tips, when I'll get to start building I might bomb you with questions, I hope it's allright.
Best of luck !

Why do you want to build? That is the first and most important question. If you want to go sailing, seriously consider buying instead! If you have not built a boat before, you will not save much by building the hulls yourself. Most of the cost of a boat is in gear, fittings, rig, sails etc. not the hulls.

If you want to build a boat for the experience, then you have an adventure ahead of you. If you "just" want to save some money, you need contacts and skills you will not have until the end of the project at the earliest. We have done this before, sourced rigs (old Tornado rigs) and gear for free or very low prices, building our own sails and trampolines etc.

Well, of course you need a serious motivation...I don't think that anyone starts something like this only to save money. I study architecture (this is my 6th and final year) and I have done a lot of scale models and worked with so many different materials and so many type of shapes. I can say that I have a lot of experience in building stuff, but not boats. Workshop is pretty well equipped also...My job has teached me over the years that making something with your own hands is worth every drop of sweat...
So yeah, I'm mostly in it for experience, I think the end product is 10x rewarding if coming out of your own hands.
I read that the hulls represent 1/4 -1/3 of total cost, I have that in mind. I'm planning to buy some used or even wrecked cat for the gear. I can write a lot of reasons why I'm in for building but one thing is for sure -I'm dead locked on it.
Buying a cat here is also almost impossible - this is Romania I'm talking about, I have looked for cats in the area allready and there is no chance.
Cheers.

Rolf,

Will there be any wood showing in the final finish? Since I have been following these home build projects, I have been dreaming of a cat with really cool graphics on partially exposed wood hulls. Perhaps the decks, or the bows? Or will the glass completely obstruct the wood planking below?

As of now, plan is a clear finish above the waterline to save time sanding and fairing. One suggestion we got while researching was to not put on varnish with UV filter either. Just make a full cover for the boat and save some weight (paint/varnish do weight a little bit). Might not be a bad idea as UV radiation isn't that bad at 63deg North, as long as the boat is stored under full cover.. After some years, paint the boats.
As for graphics, they would have to be either painted on after glassing, or applied as vinyl stickers etc. Adding mahogny planks or similar in contrasting colors is not an option. Too heavy and expensive.
Dont think we will focus on things like this until the boats are buildt.

Hi Rolf,
I assume hollidays has got you guys slowing down on the build.
Any chance of new pics soon ? <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />
Anyway, happy hollidays and have a great Xmas.
Regards,
Florin

Florin,

things slowed down some weeks before christmas as we all got other things to do on our hands. I expect to pop down to the garage tonight sometime and do some testruns with our new saw. If you visit http://woodastic.blogspot.com/ we are usually quite good at updating the page with current status.

Rolf,

I think there may be something wrong with the woodtastic link. Everytime I click it it takes me there for a few seconds and then redirects me to an error page. This has happened for a few weeks already. Is anyone else having that problem?

I've been watching the blog for some time, no problems here.
I'm using Mozilla Firefox.

Funny, I have tested the site both with IE6.0 and Firefox2 without trouble. What browser are you using and do other blogspot.com sites work (i.e. http://multimani.blogspot.com
)?