Blue
Judging your cheapness
- Location
- St Cloud Florida
Your very dedicated... its the love of the sport that drives us so hard. I know how you feel. Good job and i look forward to seeing the finished product..
Making of the SNX Hull
- Thread starter Nate_D
- Start date
- Location
- Houston, TX
Ghetto Booth 2.0
Reinforced with 8 vertical PVC pipes. This one should hold up to at least a category 3 hurricane...
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Reinforced with 8 vertical PVC pipes. This one should hold up to at least a category 3 hurricane...
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- Location
- Pasadena, MD
Any update?
- Location
- Houston, TX
Should have one soon. This is the boring, time consuming part of things. I'm also taking my time through this part to make sure the finish is perfect, as it translates straight to the mold and subsequent parts.
The bottom deck is shaped, flanged, final sanded/pin hole filled, shot with surfacing primer, and almost full wet sanded down to 400 grit. I had a little issue with what was left of the first can of Duratec and the finish has some nasty orange peel. I test sanded a section down to 150 then back up to 2000 to speed the process up, but the 150 left some deeper gouges than I would like and the finish wasn't up to my standards. So I am having to wet sand all of the orange peel out starting at 400. I've also been in the process of finding a house, so that is adding to my already busy schedule and slowing the progress down some.
I have to meet my realtor after work to view a couple properties, then I'll finish the wet sanding tonight (hopefully) and I'll have wax/PVA done, gel coat shot, and the mold laid up by Friday/Saturday. Tuesday-Thursday I have some time off and I'll be back to putting in 15 hour days. So if everything goes as planned, I will have the visual carbon bottom deck popped out of the mold by next Thursday.
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The bottom deck is shaped, flanged, final sanded/pin hole filled, shot with surfacing primer, and almost full wet sanded down to 400 grit. I had a little issue with what was left of the first can of Duratec and the finish has some nasty orange peel. I test sanded a section down to 150 then back up to 2000 to speed the process up, but the 150 left some deeper gouges than I would like and the finish wasn't up to my standards. So I am having to wet sand all of the orange peel out starting at 400. I've also been in the process of finding a house, so that is adding to my already busy schedule and slowing the progress down some.
I have to meet my realtor after work to view a couple properties, then I'll finish the wet sanding tonight (hopefully) and I'll have wax/PVA done, gel coat shot, and the mold laid up by Friday/Saturday. Tuesday-Thursday I have some time off and I'll be back to putting in 15 hour days. So if everything goes as planned, I will have the visual carbon bottom deck popped out of the mold by next Thursday.
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- Location
- Houston, TX
Picture of the bottom deck as it sits. I'll have all of the pictures of the flanging process and mold once I get it all finished.
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Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
- Location
- Houston, TX
I guess I'll write up the flanging process real quick.
3/4" XPS panel traced around the deck, then measured 2" in and cut the inside out. Measured the outside to 6", then cut the excess off.
Gorilla glue and random piece of concrete, wood, and steel to create pressure on the XPS.
Misted the XPS with a rattle can primer. The primer dissolves the XPS slightly, but also creates a base to layer the bondo over. Without the primer, the bondo wouldn't adhere well to the XPS and would almost eat through it. I chose the primer over just epoxying the XPS because I didn't want to wait 24 hours to start laying the body filler. Epoxy would be a much better choice for this purpose though.
Pin holes filled with glazing putty and sanded down to 150.
So the first can of Duratec I bought wasn't mixed on a paint shaker prior to shipment. I didn't know this and only mixed the top portion of the can before spraying the hood plug. When I got down half way I realized that the solids had separated and I shot mainly the much less viscous portion of the product. In an attempt to salvage what was left, I mixed in a quarter of a new can and then thinned the mixture with 10% MEK and attempted to shoot it. It laid down OK, but it never really atomized the way it should have and created a nasty orange peel along with some chunks of solids. At this point I could either attempt to strip down what I shot with acetone, or let it cure and then sand down to 150 again, or continue shooting and deal with the textured finish later. I decided to finish shooting with the new can of Duratec. And as expected, a nice textured, matte finish.
Lesson learned, check the date on the Duratec and use a paint mixer.
Sanded down to 400, then 1000 tonight. Probably needs to be hit a little longer with 1000, but I can't tell in the dark where at.
I will get it molded over the weekend and a part out of it next week. Hopefully my carbon order arrives tomorrow.
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3/4" XPS panel traced around the deck, then measured 2" in and cut the inside out. Measured the outside to 6", then cut the excess off.
Gorilla glue and random piece of concrete, wood, and steel to create pressure on the XPS.
Misted the XPS with a rattle can primer. The primer dissolves the XPS slightly, but also creates a base to layer the bondo over. Without the primer, the bondo wouldn't adhere well to the XPS and would almost eat through it. I chose the primer over just epoxying the XPS because I didn't want to wait 24 hours to start laying the body filler. Epoxy would be a much better choice for this purpose though.
Pin holes filled with glazing putty and sanded down to 150.
So the first can of Duratec I bought wasn't mixed on a paint shaker prior to shipment. I didn't know this and only mixed the top portion of the can before spraying the hood plug. When I got down half way I realized that the solids had separated and I shot mainly the much less viscous portion of the product. In an attempt to salvage what was left, I mixed in a quarter of a new can and then thinned the mixture with 10% MEK and attempted to shoot it. It laid down OK, but it never really atomized the way it should have and created a nasty orange peel along with some chunks of solids. At this point I could either attempt to strip down what I shot with acetone, or let it cure and then sand down to 150 again, or continue shooting and deal with the textured finish later. I decided to finish shooting with the new can of Duratec. And as expected, a nice textured, matte finish.
Lesson learned, check the date on the Duratec and use a paint mixer.
Sanded down to 400, then 1000 tonight. Probably needs to be hit a little longer with 1000, but I can't tell in the dark where at.
I will get it molded over the weekend and a part out of it next week. Hopefully my carbon order arrives tomorrow.
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Last edited:
- Location
- Houston, TX
PVA
Gel coat sprayed
Started raining on me shortly after the gelcoat was sprayed. Had to move to the Solo cup work area to lay first two glass reinforcement layers. I'm becoming increasingly irritated with my work spaces. The products I am working with are finicky enough on their own, throw in high humidity, rain, and temperature fluctuation and it's amazing I can get anything done at all.
Anyway, hopefully the gel coat set correctly and reinforcement cured. I'll try to get the last 4 layers of mat and 5 roving on Monday night, weather permitting.
Carbon arrived on Friday. Layup schedule is looking like
Visual 4x4 Twill 8.6oz
Triaxial 15.6oz
Uni-dir (length wise) 20oz
2x2 19.7oz
A few areas will be reinforced with a layer of 19.7oz cut on the biax. This will be between the Uni and 19.7oz. I'm debating on finishing the engine compartment with a visual layer of 4x4 twill Vac bagged after the inserts are all in. Total oz/sqyd is going to be 63.9oz with high stress areas (about half of the bottom deck) at 83.6oz. Bottom deck averaged out will probably come to around 74oz/sqyd without the visual engine compartment layer. This should put the raw part weight ~17-20lbs. Which is probably somewhere in the middle weight wise for a carbon bottom deck, might even be on the high side.
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Gel coat sprayed
Started raining on me shortly after the gelcoat was sprayed. Had to move to the Solo cup work area to lay first two glass reinforcement layers. I'm becoming increasingly irritated with my work spaces. The products I am working with are finicky enough on their own, throw in high humidity, rain, and temperature fluctuation and it's amazing I can get anything done at all.
Anyway, hopefully the gel coat set correctly and reinforcement cured. I'll try to get the last 4 layers of mat and 5 roving on Monday night, weather permitting.
Carbon arrived on Friday. Layup schedule is looking like
Visual 4x4 Twill 8.6oz
Triaxial 15.6oz
Uni-dir (length wise) 20oz
2x2 19.7oz
A few areas will be reinforced with a layer of 19.7oz cut on the biax. This will be between the Uni and 19.7oz. I'm debating on finishing the engine compartment with a visual layer of 4x4 twill Vac bagged after the inserts are all in. Total oz/sqyd is going to be 63.9oz with high stress areas (about half of the bottom deck) at 83.6oz. Bottom deck averaged out will probably come to around 74oz/sqyd without the visual engine compartment layer. This should put the raw part weight ~17-20lbs. Which is probably somewhere in the middle weight wise for a carbon bottom deck, might even be on the high side.
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- Location
- Houston, TX
3/4 of a gallon probably. 4 dump cups worth, which are 32oz filled to the lip. So 24-28oz or so of gelcoat per cup.
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- Location
- Houston, TX
Took some prying, but she finally separated.
Still need to compound and polish.
Fabric patterned out. If the weather is good tomorrow, might have it all laid up and infused.
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Still need to compound and polish.
Fabric patterned out. If the weather is good tomorrow, might have it all laid up and infused.
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- Location
- Houston, TX
Compound and polished
Carbon
Polyurethane IMC down
Curing
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Carbon
Polyurethane IMC down
Curing
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- Location
- Houston, TX
Tooltopia.com $180 for that one.
N3vrSat1sfied
Military Member
- Location
- Fort Worth, TX
Awesome build, I have been lurking on this thread, but Now I can't wait to see the finished product. Thanks for sharing all the details as well!
- Location
- LaSalle, ON
I'm really enjoying this build! Keep the awesome updates coming and good luck with the rest of your build.
- Location
- Houston, TX
I took some video today of laying up the carbon. I thought it would be cool to do a time lapse of the entire thing, from layup to infusion, but it took over twice as long as I expected and my camera only caught about half of it. I will check out what all it captured and do some editing in a day or so.
I never really understood why it costs an extra $1k-$2k to upgrade to a visual carbon from a non visual carbon hull. I mean, how hard is it to shoot some clear coat right? Well this project has been enlightening... The amount of work just handling and laying up cosmetic weaves is ridiculous. Getting the 7.8oz 4x4 in place with as few defects as possible was exhausting.
Enough of my complaining, here's the pics.
7.8oz 4x4
15.6oz Triax (also not fun to work with)
20.0oz Unidirectional (easy to lay)
19.7oz 2x2 45* cut and the full length 19.7oz 2x2 going on top.
Didn't get any pictures of the bagging material going in. I went through 2 bags on this before I held a solid vacuum. I didn't mask off the flange where the sealant tape goes when I shot the IMC. There was just enough IMC on the flange to cause head aches with the tape and bag. In the end I just tossed the bag and started over. There's a good 3 hours of frustration over what would have been 5 minutes of work masking off the flange yesterday.
Bagged up and Vac held 29.9hg
Fancy new resin/Vac line clamps worked flawlessly. These are from GAC. GAC only stocks 4 products, but the 3 I've used are worth every penny.
Infusing
Ended up at ~48% resin this time. I could have got away with 45, as there was enough extra to be pulled into my Vac gauge again. That's the second vacuum gauge I've ruined in as many infusions. I even put several layer of bleeder cloth under it. I'm going to have to come up with a better plan next time.
You can see the resin in the line. The reading is faulty as the resin reached it at this point. Vac was holding at 29.9.
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I never really understood why it costs an extra $1k-$2k to upgrade to a visual carbon from a non visual carbon hull. I mean, how hard is it to shoot some clear coat right? Well this project has been enlightening... The amount of work just handling and laying up cosmetic weaves is ridiculous. Getting the 7.8oz 4x4 in place with as few defects as possible was exhausting.
Enough of my complaining, here's the pics.
7.8oz 4x4
15.6oz Triax (also not fun to work with)
20.0oz Unidirectional (easy to lay)
19.7oz 2x2 45* cut and the full length 19.7oz 2x2 going on top.
Didn't get any pictures of the bagging material going in. I went through 2 bags on this before I held a solid vacuum. I didn't mask off the flange where the sealant tape goes when I shot the IMC. There was just enough IMC on the flange to cause head aches with the tape and bag. In the end I just tossed the bag and started over. There's a good 3 hours of frustration over what would have been 5 minutes of work masking off the flange yesterday.
Bagged up and Vac held 29.9hg
Fancy new resin/Vac line clamps worked flawlessly. These are from GAC. GAC only stocks 4 products, but the 3 I've used are worth every penny.
Infusing
Ended up at ~48% resin this time. I could have got away with 45, as there was enough extra to be pulled into my Vac gauge again. That's the second vacuum gauge I've ruined in as many infusions. I even put several layer of bleeder cloth under it. I'm going to have to come up with a better plan next time.
You can see the resin in the line. The reading is faulty as the resin reached it at this point. Vac was holding at 29.9.
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Last edited:
- Location
- sask, canada
I know how you feel, visual is a lot of work, but I think it's worth it, it really shows the quality of your work I think.
Do you use a catch pot? Why not put a gauge down stream by the catch pot?
- Location
- Houston, TX
The line I use eliminates the need for a catch pot. The membrane doesn't allow resin through. I could run it in line with the Vac, but once the resin encapsulates the membrane the line is cut off. I might pick up another line clamp and run a longer line to the gauge.
By the way, your work looks fantastic! I've been lurking your thread. Good stuff. What carbon are you using for the visual? Looks like a 4x4 twill, but I couldn't tell for sure.
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By the way, your work looks fantastic! I've been lurking your thread. Good stuff. What carbon are you using for the visual? Looks like a 4x4 twill, but I couldn't tell for sure.
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- Location
- sask, canada
Thanks! I honestly can't remember, my supplier just sent me samples off all their different carbon and I just picked a couple that I like. Wait until you see the next hull I'm laying up, I'm using a couple different weaves 
Your stuff is looking good too!
Your stuff is looking good too!