Custom/Hybrid Taking a swing at a custom hull.

gold408fox

gold408fox

Ride or Die.
Location
Lansing, MI
I see alot of you guys doing alot of custom work and I wanted to jump on the band wagon! So I started sanding my square nose... tearing it down to nothing. But after reading every build thread ever I came to the conclusion if i do serious mods to my square, I'll end up with a tank. So I went back to the drawing board and decided to try my hand at building a hull from scratch. I want to thank everyone who actively participates on the x, you guys have saved me alot of headaches so far. I bought my first ski last feb., and have been furiously wrenching since.
So I eyeballed every kick ass ski I could find from every which angle (ski porn!), compiled what I think would best suit my style, and put it down on paper. I am not by any means an engineer, so I made a crude drawing, laid a grid over it, made it life sized and started shaving foam.
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todc207

todc207

Drama diffuser
Location
Metamora MI
So are you gonna lay it up with fiberglass or carbon and resin? Very interesting thread can't wait to see it progress. My hat is off to ya. We have done a ton of modifications and I am currently doing a bunch to a B1 hull but never from scratch. Good luck
 
gold408fox

gold408fox

Ride or Die.
Location
Lansing, MI
I of course want to have a finished product in carbon, but for right now I'm going to shoot for making a mold and I'll go from there. I have never done anything like this before so I am really just kind of flying by the seat of my pants here. I feel like by the time I do all of these hull mods I should have a whole new hull.
 
gold408fox

gold408fox

Ride or Die.
Location
Lansing, MI
I have a friend with a machine shop, I am thinking maybe machine stainless or aluminum hardware and glass it in.
i was going to try to cast the inlet to the pump from my square, but after i started sanding out the hull i think ill just make one. It is quick work really, the hardest part is waiting for the glue to dry! I'll burn these bridges when i get there! Back to the shop! I'll post more pics when I make a little more progress.
 
Vumad

Vumad

Super Hero, with a cape!
Location
St. Pete, FL
I'm not trying to counter what you are doing. Just throwing out another option...

Making a hull from scratch is going to be a pain in the ass. It's going to take godaweful sums of times to build it. You are going to have to make a basic shape, then spend insane amounts of time working on symmetry and truing the shape. If you are an artist and a scuplter, this is no big deal, but us average guys, holy crap. You are going to need a lot of foam and bondo, etc. The materials really add up. Then, once you make your deck, it's 1/4" larger than you made your design (due to putting the thickness of the glass over it). You are going to then spend a bunch of time using body filler and sanding to get a clean finish, and that filler adds a bunch of weight. At least if you go this route, you save the money on a mold, but you plenty make up for it in time and weight.

I would encourage you to reconsider what you are doing. Not do discourage you from a custom build, only to consider another method. If you start with the SN SJ, and work from there, making a plug then a mold, you will have a lighter boat, with less finishing. You can use all the bondo you want on your plug, and end up with an exact copy, unlike the layup you are currently doing, which leads to a larger final product and a lot of filler. Chop up the SJ, make a shape out of foam and bondo, make it nice, wax, PVA, Gelcoat, pop off the mold. Wax, PVA, gelcoat, pop out the part.

I think in the end, you will have done a lot less work, and have a better final product, that you can replicate for sale, or maybe one day duplicate for youself in carbon.

I mean this to help you. Not be negative. I've been working a lot with composites recently. I feel that the work I have done with my X2 would have been much easier if I would have just made the plug and mold, and gone to work in the time I saved to pay for the extra. Granted, I did all mine by adding to my ski, so it is heavy. Making a trued ski from scratch would have been much much more time.
 
yldsix

yldsix

Location
australia
Wow, big job... But like anything you can do it and if you like the hull that you build , you will have skis for life at minimal cost and at the weights that you want. Brave idea! I wouldn't do it but hats off to ya.
 
Mobile Chernobyl

Mobile Chernobyl

Location
1 Mile High in Colorado
Very cool dude! I will definitely be taking this approach next time. I am planning on laying the hull up in SolidWorks however - and having the final thing CNC router'd from a laminated block of pink foam like you are doing. This will allow me to perform some analysis like flow optimization of pump tunnels - and composite layup optimization using hyperworks (hopefully ;) )

From my brief experience in composite work - INVEST IN A VACUUM SETUP!!! you will be 100000% happy you did in the end.

I am on my school's formula race car team and have the chance to sit passenger in some of their design work as a team to design, analyze and finally construct a split tub carbon fiber chassis. It's been an eye opening experience in composite work - we've even had the chance to work with a chief composite fabrication engineer at Boeing to discuss layup techniques for optimum strength (You can believe I asked him a lot about stuff that would perhaps pertain to jet ski hulls lol!)

I have no doubt you'll pull this off if you keep you eye's on the goal. It might take a while but you will have a kick ass ski and a handful of "told you so" cards to hand out in the end as you're ripping around... or sinking to the bottom of the ocean depending on how the build goes lol - jk.
 
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