Has anyone tried 3d printing a hull?

Location
dfw
"Has anyone made their own oil blend"
Yes, I have tested a few different types of bases over the years. Lubrication is the easy part, keeping everything clean requires either a very heavy mix ratio or a good additive package. At the end of the day I run my engines well in the safe zone and use whatever TCW3 I can get the cheapest. Sitdowns may need a higher temp detergent but for standups TCW3 is fine.
 
Yes, I have tested a few different types of bases over the years. Lubrication is the easy part, keeping everything clean requires either a very heavy mix ratio or a good additive package. At the end of the day I run my engines well in the safe zone and use whatever TCW3 I can get the cheapest. Sitdowns may need a higher temp detergent but for standups TCW3 is fine.
Project farm ran a 2 stroke on 1030 for like 3 hours. With no added wear vs other oils.

He also determined that while all oils offer decent protection. A standard set by the feds. That certain oil GREATLY exceeded that standard in both corrosion and wear resistance. Especially at the extreme end of performance.

We can prob get this thread to eventually do a full 360 back to pipe dreams hull building.
 

Quinc

Buy a Superjet
Location
California
Project farm ran a 2 stroke on 1030 for like 3 hours. With no added wear vs other oils.

He also determined that while all oils offer decent protection. A standard set by the feds. That certain oil GREATLY exceeded that standard in both corrosion and wear resistance. Especially at the extreme end of performance.

We can prob get this thread to eventually do a full 360 back to pipe dreams hull building.
My dad ran 40wt in his big boy chainsaws for years when he was logging.
 
Location
dfw
My dad ran 40wt in his big boy chainsaws for years when he was logging.
Yes, as long as you use enough of it everything stays clean, at 50:1 it becomes a big mess. For the fledgling ski designers, measure a Superjet hull from the rear edge to the center of gravity with the rider on it. Add 25% and that is the planing area. You can shorten the rear in order to make it easier to pitch up, or down if you like to sub. The only problem is it becomes harder to plane so handle poles need to be shortened. You can build as much grip into the bottom as you want. Tubbies suck down the inside edge whenever they are in the water so its easier to turn. Narrow skis (440-550s) are 20.5" wide, Superjets are over 21" . I have measured some aftermarket hulls at 22". My Wavejammer is 27" wide and feels more like its 4 feet wide.
 
Thats pretty messed up....

Anyways back on topic. Just got done chopping the tail off a clapped out bottle of yamalube. Almost done with the plug. Goal is to get sudden loss of power on the wave lip to get that elusive front flip.
 

Vumad

Super Hero, with a cape!
Location
St. Pete, FL
I’m currently working on my own plug, using tried and true hand methods as seen on this wonderful forum. It’s work.

I keep thinking, I could probably build tooling or a system to make test hulls faster.

I was drinking with the boys tonight and shared my thoughts. I’m convinced after seeing designs and taking measurements I’ll want to try a bunch of different design options. I have no issue throwing away test hulls. I have a bunch of different thoughts on the underside and rear deck. Plus the width where the decks meet, that flare is interesting.

One friend said injection moldings, another friend said cnc cut the hull. An acquaintance said his ski was built on a cnc’d plug.

I was thinking, 3d print maybe?
I don’t know dick about material strength but I saw they 3d print boats.

I wonder if anyone has done it. If you were printing hulls you could test designs much faster.

There’s a college near by that prints boat, I might call them

I'm a hack and I'm going to answer you as a hack. I'm not sure about your budget situation since you have no problem throwing away hulls. It would be easy to drop $1-2k in materials to build 1 hull so the idea of that being disposable is a bit outside of the realm of the methods I am willing to invest in but it will be from the perspective of top notch hack work.

There are a lot of factors to 3D printing. The most common method is FDM printing. The first thing to note about 3D printing is that it isn't really 3D. Its better described as 2.5D printing. It is 2D layers stacked to make a 3D object. Why is this an important distinction? Because 3D printing is pretty strong on the 2D X/y Axis, but it is pretty weak in the Z axis. Parts are very likely to delaminate under any amount of force and fail. I couldn't imagine printing a real working hull with FDM printing.

There are ways to manage delamination failures. I commonly use assemblies to keep my hobby parts together. For example, if making an airbox, they usually fail from delamination. The print can usually handle compressive loads but not tensile loads. However, look at a Superjet motor with a Girlded head. It changes the cylinder from tensile to compressive loads. This same thing applied to an airbox saves the 3D print. 3D print a patten for a top and bottom girdle (cut from lexan or aluminum), then compress your desired flow path between these pieces, which creates strength in an assembly, if that makes sense.

This method works because the part has a flat top and bottom. A hull is much more complexed in design, so this method is harder to use. You could 3D print a shell, then fiberglass reinforce it. Bote Gatorshell paddleboards are just ABS coated fiberglass. However, the layup process is highly likely to result in significant heat warp and damage to the 3D print. I have never tried this, so I can't say that it wont work. I would imagine that the process could work, but would likely require a prohibitively thick print.

There are some additional considerations for 3D printing. The Creality CR10S5 has a 500^3 build volume and isn't inexpensive for a hobbyist despite being the cheapest large format printer available. A single part in this volume can take 3-4 Kg ($100) worth of filament and take a week to print. That's 20in^3. A hull could easily take a minimum of 8 prints, adding up to nearly $1000 and 2 continuous months of printing. The printer has filament run out detection, but I will point out the letting the filament run out has always resulted in a failed (misaligned or delaminated) print when it attempt to continue. This might be worth dealing with for a production quality plug where I am looking for perfection, but I can build a test plug (where perfection is not required) every bit this fast for much less cost using drywall and foam. I believe that a CNC Router cutting foam would be a better investment, and don't forget, you can cut the foam short, coat it something hard and run it again, for a harder finish than foam. This is how some of the the big boys build boats.

Now, that's not to say that 3D printing is not a viable option for hull building, and I have dabbled in some of these methods.

The BabyJet was hand built and any tools I used were hand made. This was quite the cumbersome process. It's all documented here...


Wooden tooling sucks....

img_3154-jpg.325220

IMG_7693.JPG
Since then, i have began using my 3D printer for these jobs which much faster are more precise results....

1693070634085.jpeg
1693070757175.jpeg
1693070713801.jpeg

This radius used to take days for me to shape by hand, but with the 3-printed tool, I completed this plug shape in an hour.

3D printing can be taken a step further and be used for plugs and molds. I have done neither, because my surface modeling skills are insufficient. However, I have practiced with the methods, just not with fiberglass composites.

I did however 3D print a mold for paper machete to teach my daughter about how her BabyJet was built.

1693070959886.jpeg

1693070987338.jpeg

1693070996752.jpeg

So I do know these are viable methods for building boats. 3D printing the mold saves the work and materials of building a plug and building a composite mold. What I do not know however is the impact of heat on the mold, as I haven't use this method on a larger scale or with exothermic materials.

I have not yet reached the CAD skills to move to the next step, but I do want to share something about resources. I started this post by saying I am a hack because I am resource limited. However, the greatest resource to a hack is ingenuity and what we think we need vs what what we can achieve for less can be shocking...

This here is a 3D scan of my Kawasaki X2. The price? $25, using a gifted Xbox kinect sensor, a $25 USB adapter and free software.

1693071253908.png

Imported into Fusion 360

1693071341126.jpeg

This is my end point for Surface modeling. I probably have the skills after the modeling is done, but I can't move forward until I can learn to model better. Fusion 360 is free for hobby use. It is incredibly powerful. I use it for all my modeling for 3D printing, but it also includes G-code outputs for 3-axis CNC machining if you go the router route.

1693071418289.jpeg

The hardest part of all this is figuring out the steps from start to finish (evolution of skills and equipment) and I got stuck on surface modeling. However, since then, I have realized that the solution is a hybrid plug process, where I print complexed parts of the plug, such as the hood seal and hinge assembly, while leaving the rest of the boat for more traditional methods, such as pump tunnel splashes and printed tools for chines / bondline shaping, until i am ready to move to the final step of fully 3-d printed (probably CNC routered, actually) plugs.

I hope this post answers most of your questions. Best of luck.
 
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E350

Site Supporter
Location
Sacramento Delta
Ok @Vumad mad skills!

All sports that I am familiar with (snow skiing, wind surfing and even jet skiing) went from long and narrow for straight line racing speed through chop to short and wide for freestyle carve, tight turns and flat spin.

I like the width and the concave bow of the bottom hull of the X2 for my ~200 lbs. and ~5' 11".

I still have a desire to build a pole ski with that bottom hull.

I still fantasize about cleaning up the hull of my wife's '88 X2, truing it, and making a female mold off of it . . .

Musical interlude:

 
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I'm a hack and I'm going to answer you as a hack. I'm not sure about your budget situation since you have no problem throwing away hulls. It would be easy to drop $1-2k in materials to build 1 hull so the idea of that being disposable is a bit outside of the realm of the methods I am willing to invest in but it will be from the perspective of top notch hack work.

There are a lot of factors to 3D printing. The most common method is FDM printing. The first thing to note about 3D printing is that it isn't really 3D. Its better described as 2.5D printing. It is 2D layers stacked to make a 3D object. Why is this an important distinction? Because 3D printing is pretty strong on the 2D X/y Axis, but it is pretty weak in the Z axis. Parts are very likely to delaminate under any amount of force and fail. I couldn't imagine printing a real working hull with FDM printing.

There are ways to manage delamination failures. I commonly use assemblies to keep my hobby parts together. For example, if making an airbox, they usually fail from delamination. The print can usually handle compressive loads but not tensile loads. However, look at a Superjet motor with a Girlded head. It changes the cylinder from tensile to compressive loads. This same thing applied to an airbox saves the 3D print. 3D print a patten for a top and bottom girdle (cut from lexan or aluminum), then compress your desired flow path between these pieces, which creates strength in an assembly, if that makes sense.

This method works because the part has a flat top and bottom. A hull is much more complexed in design, so this method is harder to use. You could 3D print a shell, then fiberglass reinforce it. Bote Gatorshell paddleboards are just ABS coated fiberglass. However, the layup process is highly likely to result in significant heat warp and damage to the 3D print. I have never tried this, so I can't say that it wont work. I would imagine that the process could work, but would likely require a prohibitively thick print.

There are some additional considerations for 3D printing. The Creality CR10S5 has a 500^3 build volume and isn't inexpensive for a hobbyist despite being the cheapest large format printer available. A single part in this volume can take 3-4 Kg ($100) worth of filament and take a week to print. That's 20in^3. A hull could easily take a minimum of 8 prints, adding up to nearly $1000 and 2 continuous months of printing. The printer has filament run out detection, but I will point out the letting the filament run out has always resulted in a failed (misaligned or delaminated) print when it attempt to continue. This might be worth dealing with for a production quality plug where I am looking for perfection, but I can build a test plug (where perfection is not required) every bit this fast for much less cost using drywall and foam. I believe that a CNC Router cutting foam would be a better investment, and don't forget, you can cut the foam short, coat it something hard and run it again, for a harder finish than foam. This is how some of the the big boys build boats.

Now, that's not to say that 3D printing is not a viable option for hull building, and I have dabbled in some of these methods.

The BabyJet was hand built and any tools I used were hand made. This was quite the cumbersome process. It's all documented here...


Wooden tooling sucks....

img_3154-jpg.325220

View attachment 440422
Since then, i have began using my 3D printer for these jobs which much faster are more precise results....

View attachment 440423
View attachment 440425
View attachment 440424

This radius used to take days for me to shape by hand, but with the 3-printed tool, I completed this plug shape in an hour.

3D printing can be taken a step further and be used for plugs and molds. I have done neither, because my surface modeling skills are insufficient. However, I have practiced with the methods, just not with fiberglass composites.

I did however 3D print a mold for paper machete to teach my daughter about how her BabyJet was built.

View attachment 440426

View attachment 440427

View attachment 440428

So I do know these are viable methods for building boats. 3D printing the mold saves the work and materials of building a plug and building a composite mold. What I do not know however is the impact of heat on the mold, as I haven't use this method on a larger scale or with exothermic materials.

I have not yet reached the CAD skills to move to the next step, but I do want to share something about resources. I started this post by saying I am a hack because I am resource limited. However, the greatest resource to a hack is ingenuity and what we think we need vs what what we can achieve for less can be shocking...

This here is a 3D scan of my Kawasaki X2. The price? $25, using a gifted Xbox kinect sensor, a $25 USB adapter and free software.

View attachment 440429

Imported into Fusion 360

View attachment 440430

This is my end point for Surface modeling. I probably have the skills after the modeling is done, but I can't move forward until I can learn to model better. Fusion 360 is free for hobby use. It is incredibly powerful. I use it for all my modeling for 3D printing, but it also includes G-code outputs for 3-axis CNC machining if you go the router route.

View attachment 440431

The hardest part of all this is figuring out the steps from start to finish (evolution of skills and equipment) and I got stuck on surface modeling. However, since then, I have realized that the solution is a hybrid plug process, where I print complexed parts of the plug, such as the hood seal and hinge assembly, while leaving the rest of the boat for more traditional methods, such as pump tunnel splashes and printed tools for chines / bondline shaping, until i am ready to move to the final step of fully 3-d printed (probably CNC routered, actually) plugs.

I hope this post answers most of your questions. Best of luck.
Thank you for your post

Specifically the 3d scan deal. I’ve been measuring skis I go to look at for purchase. I’ve been turned onto 3d scanning from a friend who builds houses and has a 3d scanning system. His scanner is made for counter tops and we tried but it did not work.

I’ve currently been researching cheap alternatives to scanning. Maybe the most important thing I’ve learned is I can’t seem to map the front of the hull with just measurements alone.

I actually just talked to a photographer who could scan in 3d at scale but he wanted $1200.

You’ve inspired me to scan on my own
 
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E350

Site Supporter
Location
Sacramento Delta
This seems like a realist price:

 

Vumad

Super Hero, with a cape!
Location
St. Pete, FL
Thank you for your post

Specifically the 3d scan deal. I’ve been measuring skis I go to look at for purchase. I’ve been turned onto 3d scanning from a friend who builds houses and has a 3d scanning system. His scanner is made for counter tops and we tried but it did not work.

I’ve currently been researching cheap alternatives to scanning. Maybe the most important thing I’ve learned is I can’t seem to map the front of the hull with just measurements alone.

I actually just talked to a photographer who could scan in 3d at scale but he wanted $1200.

You’ve inspired me to scan on my own

The Kinect is not really supported by Xbox in new games despite Microsoft pushing them very hard for a while. That means there are still plenty around with no real use. I got mine for free.

You only need a USB adapter which is about $25.

I used the Microsoft scan app for free. https://apps.microsoft.com/store/de...ilentAuth=1&f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396&rtc=1

I have a MacBook, boot camped a unactivated version of windows, so I didn't even pay for Windows.
 
what do you mean by this?
Hey man. I'm not gonna say fact when I don't know firs hand. But word is. This dude put a bigger engine in his son's hull than was allowed by competition. Lied about it. And tried yo hide it. Got caufht. And swept it under the rug. That's what many people have said anyways.

I dealt with him getting a hull. Sadly. From friends recommendation. And it was a total salesman pitch the whole way. Never would deal with him. Or anyone in Arizona with jet skis. Ever again. There is a reason all those guys moved there despite the God awful heat and dismal scenery.

We can start a new shady ass vendors thread if necessary. Like the vendor that bought a bunch of last yr superjets and marked them up 50 percent stircly for profit. You all stl buy their poop
 
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