Hows that song go?, oh yea....

Take a beer, pass it around.. says Barnacle Bill the phlebotomist!!!

haha.. i would never make such an assumption... (as i am usually to drunk to have clear thoughts)

. . . to set the record straight, as I was the one to brave the tornado as everyone else was knocking the bottoms out of all the rum bottles in the county, Brett's spin was flogging 30 feet in the air, attached only to the end of it's 85 foot halyard, over the pine trees, in the mother of all storms. It was I who gave up my position in the grog line to save the boats. :P

Brovo! My G-Cat went through a tornado once in St Pete on the bay during portsmith runs. It faced 90 degrees to the other boats and did not get touched. I remember one boat got hung on the fence. A SuperCat 20 tall rig got the spar bent but we reshaped it. I went out with Randy the next day and had a great sail on the SC20 the mast stayed together. That was quite a few years back.

Excellent Mike, I appreciate all the assistance you've offered. Harbor Freight is here too. I've got a nice DA pneumatic, and I've been laminating belt sander belts to plywood with contact cement for manual longboards. Where do you get the sandpaper in rolls? Width and grits? My painter recommends taking it to 320 before it goes to him, what's your finish grit? Thanks!

Dave

Dave,

That is not bad I usually go to 320 - 400 before I shoot primer. I get the roll sandpaper from Glue Products http://www.glueproducts.com in West Palm Beach. Here is the short cut looks like they have updated the website. I do not see the rolls but call them they are pretty good people. To save on shipping cost check out local professional auto paint, body, or fiberglass supply stores they usually carry a good assortment of sandpaper type products. You want to ask your painter he may know locally who has the best assortment of that type of product. I use to do a lot of car restoration work so I got to know most of the local shops and who has what.

I used 2 sanding belts cut open and glued to my long board. At Home Depot they are like 8-9 bucks for a package of belts. Last night I peeled off the old belts and attached two strips of the 40 grit strip sand paper, sticky backed, to the board and it worked great also it is cheaper overall. That is if you buy it by the roll and use that much. I may go back over it with 80-grit I'll see how it looks. The 40-grit will give good "teeth" so it may be my final sanding before I glass. The width is standard for In-Line air sanders something like 2.75 inches. I'll try to grab some pics.

Mike

Wow. I'm a cabinetmaker, so I use alot of sandpaper.

80grit is like the pulverizer of death when it comes to wood. Harsh. I never would have guessed you work from something more coarse than that doing fibreglass work. Then again one of my poorly repaired daggerboards, (previous owner filleted one), was thicker than the other and I went to town on it with a beltsander and 120g to get it back down to thickness. That was a massive pain in the rear. I only got to sail once this year with fixed daggerboards. One of my boards looked like death, the other was mauled by a mystery pile of rocks in 10ft of water. They both sucked. Scared the crap outta me when the boat started humming in some serious high pitches after they were all fixed up. Apparently I didn't have any decent flow over anything prior to fixing them. Man I hate being lazy.....

For Dave:

Check with your local cabinetmakers and see if they have any old widebelt sander belts they want to get rid of, or haven't thrown away yet. Most are cloth backed and durable, and even in the little sander I have the belts are 37" wide, and 60" long. I burn through quite a few when busy, they get knicked up, or a spot is bad and they're junk, but there's still plenty of abrasive left on them.
Lately my made in Tawain piece O' crap sander has been failing in the tracking duties and ramming the belts off the edge, destroying the edge of some brand new $50 belts.

Mike

After going thru the process to this point…is there anything you would do differently in the female jig/foam strips fabrication to further minimize the un-fairness of the foam hulls?
Would you reduce the distance between frames as John Lindahl did with the LR2/LR3 A cat? Did you have excessive deflection of the foam when glassing the inner surface that caused it to be unfair?

Would you spend more time fairing out the female frames themselves? Trying to get even fairer jig by adding and filling as dictated by an appropriate batten rather than going strictly to the stations as plotted by a computer generated template?

Your insight would be appreciated as I am building an F14 cat using basically the same process and I haven’t started the actual foam strips yet. Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Best Regards,
Robert

Robert,

Buy one! But if you insist:

On the next side I am going to spend more time in the set-up of the jig. One problem on this hull shape or benefit is the amount of curves concave and convex (compound). The curves are very tight and a bit radical. I cut the foam in what was a medium width for the average for the boat to allow fewer saw and router settings. The cove and bead cut help smooth the curve. But I am rounding square strips. There are several things to consider for the next side. One thing to note the bog in most spots is just a thin skim coat by the time it is sanded out.

Glue
I used West System to glue the strip together, which is very hard and does not sand at the same rate as the foam. I have read about gorilla glue (GG) that dries softer and sands about the same rate as the foam. I will make a test panel to make sure that GG and West System Epoxy play well together. Then I'll be able to do more shaping to bare foam.

Vertical Strips
The Farrier boys use this system now and they raked me over pretty good on Sailing Anarchy even Ian Farrier himself chimed in. Instead of using long horizontal strips (longitudinal) they use Vertical planks up to 24” wide. The station are actually spaced further apart but there are wooden longitudinal runners on the mold. You may have to heat the foam to get it to bend. This is not a bad idea if the curves in the boat are slow. I may use this method for the ama’s. The mold construction is more elaborate so it will take longer. Look at his website he has a small downloadable builders guide that has one page on this then a bunch stuff on his plans. It is like I told Ian my boat has curves in three plans not just two and the curves are tight so this method is not the best for me at this time.

Frame Station
My stations are 12 inches apart so I don’t think you could get much tighter. I used 3/8 inch Divinycel H-60. I’m going to use 3/8 H-80 on the ama’s for several reasons: stronger, stiffer, and the plans call for a mix of H-60 and H-80 so I’m just going with the H-80. Also you go thicker but 3/8 seems pretty good. Let me know if you are looking for a router bit there is a combo bit that makes both cuts.

Sanding
Because of all of the curves it is really hard to sand the frames. I’m going to spend more time faring out the frames before I start to foam it out. Especially now that I know from the first half where the highs and lows are.

CNC
If I had the money and better connections in CNC world I’d have the shapes cut out of wood or foam and make a simple mold. That is big bucks, so far I’m still working that idea out.

One Last Note
It is a ton of work! But if you like to that type of thing it is very rewarding. I think of myself as a sculpture but I work in composite instead of stone. Good Luck let me know if can help with anything. Look at my website my contact for Carbon Fiber also does Eglass, ect… she gets good prices.

Karl wood is much softer then Epoxy with powder mixed in to make a bog. Working with 40-80 grit works pretty good because it is like sanding rocks. Plus it does leave some grooves in the bog but give "teeth" for bonding the cloth. If it was too smooth you would not get a good bond. Bog drys much much harder then say bondo. I agree you never want to chase wood with my long board.

Some more on faring and long boarding….
I shaped the bog with the air in-line sander. Then took a shop pencil and scribbled all over the boat. It looks like I parked in New York City next to the subway. (If I was painting I'd shoot two different color primers to show me "layers" for sanding for highs and lows.) Then I start my long boarding. Some low spots are obvious as the shinny dimples, or slight as the scribbles left on the boat. In know some chemist will correct me but basically graphite and carbon are close enough to the same whereas I can bog over it and it does not matter. Then I start the process all over again. At some point I see all the scratches and dust are even on the surface and will be able to feel the farness with my hand. Personally I can feel surfaces better then sight when checking for farness, especially if there are color variances, but that’s me. Also is a pic of a roll of sanding paper for a in-line air sander 80 grit.

Mike

After long boarding...You can see low spots as the scribbles left. Some of the spots down to foam will be bogged as foam sand a bit faster, just a skim coat.

Mike,

Have you thought about thickening the epoxy with an additive to make it sand easier between the foam joints? I've not worked with it but talc, a primary ingredient in poly based filler / fairing compound, acts as both an adhesion promoter and makes sanding easier. Micro balloons certainly would be another option.

I thought talc was to absorbent for this purpose.

Mike I really appreciate you giving such a detailed response...you confirmed all my suspicions.
Without going thru all your past posts on the subject, did you add a liberal amount of glass bubbles to your epoxy to glue the foam strips together? I have had good luck in the past sanding the glue joints in H80 when you really load up heavy on the glass bubbles.

Thank you again for your generosity in sharing your experience.

Best Regards,
Robert

Mike,
I too would like to thank you for all your details, you're speeding up my learning curve substantially. I really like the scribble idea. Keep educating us!

Dave

Mike go to Wal-Mart and get some kids sidewalk chalk... lay it on its side and pull over the surface...Much faster than scribbling...

Regards,
Robert

I was thinking the same thing, but would that impede the bonding on the next bog?

Not anymore than the dust from sanding if you weren't to clean it with solvent before the next round.

Jay, never had a problem with it impeding the bond...that is how we use to board all the big sport fishing boats...only difference is we used a cake of blue carpenters chalk...the blue is darker and easier to see...any chalk left in the low spots you can wipe away, and you should be wiping the whole surface down with denatured alcohol anyway between coats to get rid of the alamine blush.

Regards,
Robert