My foam showed up today, so thats pretty exciting, just waiting on carbon and resin.



Also been working on the mandrels for my rack tubes. in this pic they're all polished and buffed, but I've rethought just pulling parts off the big tube, because I don't thing they would ever come off. I'm taking it in on Friday to my buddy Robert's machine shop to machine an 1/8" taper.


Sanded/polished vs raw untouched, it takes a lot of work, but they shine up nice.

Back home

Brought the moulds home today, its nice to be able to walk out in the shop and see all the tools ready to go. My buddy and fellow carbon monkey Wade Cameron drove them over, we also brought his jeep hood tool (that's the other mould in the picture). His tool is a high temp prepreg/infusion tool made from moulding material, I'm so jealous. I'm going to help him pull hoods and he's going to help with the boat. It'll be nice to have someone to help with the build. We've fabricated a lot of sweet tools together down at EBS so I really trust his skill. He's one of the best composite guys I know, and a real stand up guy.
My Aluminum mandrels got shipped out yesterday, so hopefully I can start cooking some prepreg rack tube's next week. Still waiting for things to settle down and for other things to "materialize" before I start the hull lay up. I've been kicking around some idea's for the rack, but the more I think about it, the more I like the rack with tramps idea from a couple months ago, its by far the simplest and cheapest option. Part of me would still really like a tramp-less dual rail wing, we'll see how much tube I get laid up.
There's a lot of uncertainty for me work-wise right now which needs to be resolved before I can make the next big push, so doing a lot of little things till then. It feels like I'm back in the build groove now, so that's a really good thing.

funny

Down at the shop we constantly threaten the interns with a full body vacuum bagging. (we've never done it). I found this today on youtube, it was tucked in with all the resin infusion video's......crazy kids.

Vacuum is fun

Pics

I finally got the pictures out of the camera, its done, ready, released. Just waiting for materials and a good chunk of time to start layup. There are a couple green sandthroughs but I can live with that, its just the undercoat.

Nose job

Well its official, all the tools are done. Spent last night into this-morning sanding and polishing the hull tool, its finally done. No pics because of technical difficulties, but I'll have some tomorrow. Waiting on my supplies to get shipped, so not much I can do as far as layup right now.

I've been messing with the design some more.



Originally I was going to try to shape the reverse bow while the hull was still on the mould, but that would be a real pain so I'm going to lay the hull up about 15cm short and mount a seperate bow on after. It should make it easier to pop the part and also makes it possible for me to implement the rounder bow I've been thinking about.

Next is a new gantry to fit the new rudder strut, I'm thinking of shortening it by about 15cm as well. I also need to add the new L3 inspired trap rack (wider beam, with a mid step tube like the R-class).

"Core" issues resolved

I've got a new materials sponsor. SP High Modulus has agreed to supply the project with core materials. I'm really psyched that we get to use their M80 foam. After testing a ton of different samples from many different companies I found that it has the best overall qualities for hull construction.



I'd like to thank Jean Pierre Mouligne (a hydrofoil sailor himself) for taking interest in this project and making these materials available.

NICE.......

The Emonson/Flutter foil set design. Jon designed the Rudder, Nick designed the main foil, and I told them what I wanted/liked/didn't and here they are. Pretty slick I think. Just a few things to work out as far as strut cases. Nick is drawing up the moulds, then off to the CNC shop. More to come on this. The next set of foil's I'll design myself, but concerning how much free time I have (none), and how many hydrofoils I've built (none) I figured I'd leave it to some guys that have some experiance. Thanks so much fella's.