246 rebuild live from Delmarva!

[fishinonthebrain]

U do this between layers or after youve layed it all?

At each layer of glass.

[dburr]

Late in.. Option 2, big to small, on a patch lay up will be less likely to give you trouble with air pockets at the edges of the glass patches, I found that out the hard way. Fairing small patches like that is also easier with a sharp cabinet scraper.

Off gassing can be slowed down if you get the sub straight you're glassing to as warm as it is going to get before you lay the glass down.  If you glass in the morning prior to the part heating up you will have considerably more chance for entrained air expanding and causing bubbles then if you waited until the day started to cool down..  A wood skiff builder down south (Robb White) was known for heating his shop to over 100 and letting it sit for a while then laying down epoxy as the shop cooled down.  He swore that the process produced better penetration and adhesion..

Used gift cards (iTunes etc.) make great scrapers/spreaders as well..

Good luck!

[4shore]

The patching has been completed and I did notice some bubbling on the edges for sure. Ground them out when I faired the patches into the existing substrate. The next step is 4 layers. 2 that are the size of the skin I removed (1 layer 1708, 1 layer 1808) and then 2 layers that stretch the width of the transom ( same fabrics) I'm pretty sure this will be more than strong enough for the outside skin. Wouldn't you? Would you still go big to small on laminations of this size?

[dburr]

That will be plenty strong unless you over HP the boat but that is another discussion.. Yes I would go big to small wedding cake style on the lam..

Reasoning: The strength of the lam is the system as a unit. The resin is strong as Heculies but very brittle. The uncut glass fiber is fuggetaboutit strong and together,well,  you get the picture.  So, to make us all happy when the goop has cured, we instantly whip out a destructive device (sander) and start destroying (fairing) that psycho strong unit you just created. So, why take off the biggest load dispersing layer first? Never made sense to me.

Now, all that egghead stuff aside, there are probably an equal number of guys with supporting arguments that will swear to you it doesn't matter.  Around the shore up here, guys have been using the wedding cake technique for as long as they have had glass to use it with for strength and ease of faring..

[4shore]

http://i747.photobucket.com/albums/xx11 ... 30c26e.jpg

Alright i have run into a bit of a problem. I tried to lay up the first layer of 1808 "wedding cake" style and i was trying to lay wet on wet. Well the 1808 started drying on me prematurely. I did the best i could to get it laid down but have probably 15-20 bubbles to grind out. What happened?

I used vinylester at 1.5% catalyst. Rolled it out with a roller and it hardened waaay fast. I used a paint tray to hold the resin. Maybe just pour the whole thing out instead of a tray?

Should i be worried about the entire layer not holding or delaminating?

[Aquasport Commodore]

I resized it and posted it to help

[4shore]

Update: sorry haven't taken a pic yet but i ground out all the bubbles(ended up removing about 30-40% of the new glass. The rest of it seemed pretty strong. Laid patches down and ground the seams even,scuffed the rest. Everything looks pretty strong and we are moving forward with the lay up. We plan to do this work in the evenings because we are in direct sunlight in the afternoon. We are also using bondo squeegies now and that made a HUGE difference.

[4shore]

Ok sorry for the delay in posting. I have gotten the transom back on track and have laid a layer 0f 1808 and 1708. I will need to lay some CSM across it in spots to get it roughly leveled out but for the most part the outer glass is done. Running out of Vinyl so will have to make a 2 hour trip south to buy more soon. I can get poly locally so I think I will use that to repair the soft fuel tank hatch cover.

I need to make some "L" shaped boxes for seating/cooler and I am thinking about making them with the stich and glue method.
Any opinions or tips for doing this?

Also I was planning on keeping this boat relatively open but have been recently toying with the idea of building a sport cabin (think maycraft/parker style) with the roof extending back a bit.
Opinions? Photos of 246's with this seem to be rare.

[4shore]

Oh yeah one other thing. I need some opinions on what thickening agent to use for fairing compound? I use Aero -sil for my fillets but have been told its too hard for sanding and such.

Can I use poly for this to save a bit of $?

[gran398]

Re the cabin:

Those Parker style cabins are cool, lot of space and headroom. C Hawk out of Bailey, NC makes one too if you want to check it out. Heck, they'd probably sell you the part/door/windows etc.

Neat thing about a cabin, you can put an A/C/heater inside. Sit in there and watch the game until the fish hits

One thing to consider if you go that route....forward weight. You're probably going to want to move the tank back somewhat to compensate. Don't want the bow to dig if you can help it.

[dburr]

I need to make some "L" shaped boxes for seating/cooler and I am thinking about making them with the stich and glue method. Any opinions or tips for doing this?

S&G would be a slick fast way of putting together the box sides.  I have gone over it since last night and I can not come up with enough negatives to rule it out.. (I have built both skiffs and kayaks that way so I am a tad biased).. I would recommend spot ties/zip tie/tie wraps instead of copper wire because it will so less damage to shaping tool edges.

I am a fan of Aerosil, it is a great filler (thixotropic agent if you wanna be a dork about it) and fairs easily. Ease of sanding is a relative..

For cleaning up runs/sags a sharp cabinet scraper can not be beat.  An old hand saw blade can be cut up then resharpened to fit any shape/radius and the speed at which you can clean stuff up is startling.

For small areas "on the flat" a home built tool of stacked hacksaw blades with the teeth not all lined up is a vicious little bugger that cuts really fast. Think little Sure Form tool that you can custom make for your application. If you have access to a small welder the sky is the limit on the shapes and sizes you can make and the blades don't have to be the good ones either..

 

[4shore]

I was speaking to a fella at a supply house who told me that you absolutely cannot laminate wood substrates together with anything but epoxy. What say u?

As far as stitch and glue goes i think i will move forward with that to build the boxes. 1/2" all the way around or can i save weight and money and go with a door skin type material for the sides? I was on a friend of mine's maycrqft and i noticed that their similar structures are made with no wood at all, just chop gunned mat.

[dburr]

Door skin is fine for a form but has no strength so you will be doing multiple layers of glass to get some rigidity, something like 2 on the outside and one inside of the box. If you are going to use it as storage space I would go 2 layers each side with the corners filleted and taped inside and radiused and that should be fine.

As far as epoxy being the only thing to bond layers together, that is flat not true. It might be the best and strongest, but on new installation both poly and vynal ester as well as resorcinol have been used for years.  If you have epoxy, that will give the best result but there are other options.

Good luck!

[4shore]

Started building my stitch and glue fish boxes and quickly realized that the L shape would cause the seat to be too high even if i used a flush mount instead of a pedestal. So i'm going with a straight box. 48"L x 20" w x 18"H

Anybody know how to resize these from photobucket so i don't have to post thumbnails?

[RickK]

Have you ever taken a pic on your camera or phone and when you viewed it on something else (like a PC) you had to rotate it somehow to see it in the right orientation? I didn't realize the orientation of the pics I took with my phone when I just held my phone vertically to take the the pics, for a little while.  Then I started remembering to turn the phone.  A dedicated camera is easy, it's in the WxH orientation when you hold it horizontally.  You know you are going "portrait" when turn the camera 90 degrees.
Most forums have a width by height setting for pics, not height by width settings.  Most are 640Wx480H, not 480Wx640H. Some are larger but usually a WxH thing.

Photobucket has a 1024x768 orientation limit in any direction so when you rotate the pic and upload it they still size it to their limits even if the pic is "portrait" (HxW). (yours are 768Wx1024H). Most forums are still "landscape" oriented (WxH)

I reset our remote link settings to 1100x1100 so we can show your pics.  Try posting the original pics again. (Edit your post and remove the "thumb/") and they will appear ok)

Keep this in mind as you are taking pics in the future.  If you look at the pics you posted, there is a lot above the "subject" that you really don't need, so a "Landscape" pic might have been better.