Was doing a dry run on the big mould last night with my foam to check to make sure my contours were right, and to see what problems I might run into. Well, everything went well and I'm confident that my process is good. (I only have enough foam for one hull, so I can't be too careful.) Anyway, about 10 minutes in. (I was just starting to do some overbag heat gunning to get the Final bits of foam to seat right.) My pump makes a loud bang, then goes quiet. F@@Ked. I try to fire it back up. No go. the motor just goes wer wer wer. so I take off the motor, run it . its fine. Try to spin the rotary spindle. Seized. I spent until the wee hours this morning taking it apart. I did get the spindle to spin again and the pump put back together, but it clicks really loud now, and doesn't pull very much vac. I'm not sending it in for a rebuild ($$$$) and I cant trust it so....
Instead of laying up the hull today, I'm fixing up my backup pump ("The Dinosaur", an Edwards Supervac 250, built in the late 60's) maybe I can get something going again tomorrow.
