Making of the SNX Hull

[Nate_D]

Sprayed the tubby plugs with a high gloss enamel and made some progress on the top deck today.

You can really see how much shorter the bottom deck is here.

I like the sano sticker on this pile of poo.

Measured and marked off the gunwales to lower them down to 5.5" from the rails. That's about 2" lower by the bulkhead and 3-4" at the tail.

The triangle marked off in the front corner is gone and that area is going to be nearly 90* in relation to the bond rail. The line where the gunwales are cut off extends almost all the way to the nose. The area above the line will be cut off/sanded out and glassed/bondo to be at a small angle to the side below it. Where the latch/reserve switch area is, the top of gunwale line is going to curve and blend into that.

Bonded some XPS together today, hopefully I can get some of the nose shaped up tomorrow while the tubby molds cure.

Speaking of the top deck nose, I need the measurements from a freak for the pole mounting bracket. I need the distance from the outside of the brackets (the inside width of where the brackets mount), the length of the brackets, and the height from the side of the bracket and the center. If one of you happen to have a freak laying around and could get those measurements I would really appreciate it.


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[Nate_D]

Glassed in the new tray today.

Filled the bottom deck with chunks of foam.

Pour foam

Sanded and taped off with 2mil plastic to release.

Built out the gunwales and front of the tray out of XPS.

Precut 2 layers of 1708 and 1 woven roving. Roving is between the 1708.

Wetted out.

Starting to look like a boat again.


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[yamahanut]

This is one of the best explained builds so far thank you for helping the less experienced. In the middle of a sn rocker flat deck build myself and this is all very helpful

 

[Nate_D]

Glued foam into the hood.

Added the line that blends into the front of the tray.

XPS taped in and clay formed.

2 layers of 3" 8oz tape
1 layer of 6" 8oz tape

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[j0hnny]

this is an amazing build man. a lot of the same stuff I want to do to my 650sx. will be following closely as you finish it.

 

[Nate_D]

Tubby time! (Or not...)

Well the Tubby molds are done and the first part is out. Unfortunately the method I used to get to a finished part is, well... not finished. I decided to try a sleeve over polyurethane core and Vac bag. The carbon sleeve picks up all of the Vac bag and perforated release film lines (last pic), and the Vac bag slightly deforms the polyurethane casting. This results in a part that looks cool, was fun to make, but is ultimately unusable.

I debated even posting this, since the finished part isn't usable. I learned a lot from the process and I still think its pretty cool to see the transformation, so I am going to do the write up anyway.

Started with 4 pieces of 2'x2'x1" thick XPS. Cut them down to 5"x24" and glued them together with gorilla glue making a 5" x 48" x 2" thick blank.

From there, I measured out on the hull where I would want the Tubbies to begin and end.

After that I marked out the starting points for where they would narrow in the front, and curve down in the back.

Super glued paper to the hull and made a template of the rough shape.

Cut the tubby blanks to the paper template with a hack saw.

To form the compound curves at the end of the tubby, I took 2 1/8" steel rods and bent them to shape. The first rod follows the curve made in the last step and is attached to the bottom of the tubby. The second rod forms the trailing edge of the tubby.

The rods act as a guide for the hot foam cutter.

To mirror the shape for the other side, I flipped the rod over. After some sanding I ended up with two nearly identically mirrored tubby plugs.

I then used a hacksaw to cut the outer face of the Tubbies.

After some sanding...

Now that the Tubbies are finally looking like Tubbies, I could add the bends necessary for them to match up with the hull. For this I used whatever random contraption I could come up with and a heat gun very conservatively.

Once they conformed to the hull, I sprayed them with epoxy so I could use bondo body filler (the XPS is dissolved somewhat by bondo). They then went into another bending contraption to cure.

Once cured, catastrophe happened - one of the Tubbies snapped in half like a twig. Had to repair the tubby with fiberglass.

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[Nate_D]

Once the tubby was repaired, I taped the bottom deck plug off with metallic HVAC tape where the Tubbies would sit. I then taped the Tubbies to the hull and spread the body filler over them to get the final shape. Once the first layer of bondo cured I was able to remove the tape holding the Tubbies to the hull and finish the bondo work.

Tubby pulled off of hull...

I like to use a sharpie to identify where body filler is needed.

Ready for primer after hours of body filler and sanding.

Painted...

Attached waxed poster board to back of the Tubbies and sprayed with PVA.

I ran out of gelcoat so I wasn't able to lay it as thick as I wanted.

Also ran out of tooling resin and I was being lazy and didn't prep my cloth ahead of time. This resulted in a lot of air pockets and areas that didn't lay right.

Tubbies after removing the foam board.

Sadly my tubby plugs didn't survive the demolding process. Which after making the part I wish they had... Anyway, here is the mold all cleaned up.

Tubby casting...

Tubby casting prepped and 3" braided carbon sleeve.

Slid the tubby into the sleeve and then wetted out. Used a perforated release film instead of peel ply to get a smooth finish. After that is a layer of bleeder/breather cloth, then the bag.

And finally the finished part after 8 hours on the vacuum.

The part is surprisingly strong due to the foam core. After only 8 hours of cure time, I hit it with a sledge hammer and it only dented the carbon slightly.

The bad news here, besides the part not working out, is that my plugs are ruined and the molds aren't good enough to pull parts directly out of. The silver lining, other than learning a lot, is the molds still produce decent enough castings that I can use to build new plugs and make real molds out of. But that will wait until I have the hull molds finished and a top and bottom deck pulled.


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[Nate_D]

More progress on the top deck...

Went from...

To...

Sanded down the foam block and sanded out the lines I want. They somewhat follow the nose on the bottom deck. I have been very worried about this part of the build. It actually went very fast (4 hours) and came out better than I had visioned.

Moved the pole mounting forward 3".

Pics

I am not 100% happy with the hood lines. I need some feedback on the nose and the hood. Like it how it sits or should I change something? Should the hood have sharper lines rather than the soft curves?


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[Dutchie]

Love the work man !

You are busy !!

 

[AdzUK]

The hood doesn't flow with the nose i think, i would have it lower if possible. Great work as always tho!

 

[j0hnny]

i agree with adzuk.... i think the hood line almost flat. without the extra foam would look awesome.

 

[bonsy17]

Subscribed!

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[Yami-Rider]

You have made most of the ski have sharp angles, your hood top is rounded, it needs to have sharp angles like the rest of the ski IMO.

Keep up the good work. I have reshaped a couple SJ, but have never come close to what your doing haha.

Once you get done, will you be making and plug of the hull and sale them?

 

[j0hnny]

i wish more of these amazing rockered hulls would be plugged.

 

[Nate_D]

Thanks guys. That's exactly what I was thinking, flatter hood without the curves. I want to be able to run breather tubes in the hood, so I still need some raised area on the sides. Should I angle it up on either side, kind of like a triangle, or have more of a square look?

As for selling them, one step at a time. If there is some demand for them I would love to sell a few and see other people enjoy something I built. But first I need to finish the plug and molds, then make myself one to get some testing done on. I have over 325 hours into the plugs so far and I would estimate another 150-200 before they are ready to pull molds off of. Probably looking like mid to late October before I can get a hull on the water.


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[Nate_D]

Next item I invest in will be a trash can... Picked up 3 bags worth of trash that was scattered around my work area the other day. Amazing how much is generated doing this work.

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[Nate_D]

Little more progress on the top deck. Removed the lip around the hood lip on the top deck.

Cut the added foam on the hood off and changed the side line on the hood. Made it straight instead of two angles.

Cut a 1.5" section out of the front of the hood and lowered the center line back to 7" from the rear of the hood.

Removed the weird little stylings that Yamaha did on the hood.

Body filler to fix the gap on the sides of the hood where it meets the hull.

Added two new pieces of XPS to the hood to make the rough lines for the top. Cut and sanded them down to match the lines on the nose.

Finally glassed in the nose and sides to the top deck, and coated the XPS on the hood with thickened epoxy.

Thoughts on the new hood lines? I think they flow much better with the nose now. It's hard to see in the pictures, but the center of the nose is rounded. I was debating flattening it, but I think I am going to keep it round and even build it up a little more so it will flow with a round style pole.

Oh yeah, also trimmed the rear bond line on the top deck, removed the glass from the outsides of the tray, and started working on the body filler in the tray area.


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[Dutchie]

So Much Work .....

Looks good, Nose looks a bit Revolver style

 

[j0hnny]

love the hood and nose now. looks fast.

 

[Nate_D]

So Much Work .....

Looks good, Nose looks a bit Revolver style

Thanks man! It is a ton of work. It's all starting to come together though.

I wasn't really going for a revolver look. I do see some similarities. My inspiration for some of design came from the krash hulls. It's not an exact copy of anything, but rather has ideas from several hulls incorporated into the design.


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