And so it begins
- Thread starter 25yearslater
- Start date
While I'm waiting for pour three to gel let's try these photos. Thanks Ruidh and cal for mentioning the macro settings. I had to read the book on the camera and do some experimenting along with some auto fix before I put it in the album. It still isn't great photography but it does give some better idea of how well this is turning out. I might even try some backlighting once it is dark to see if the image quality improves. Here goes. Rats, too much detail the site rejected the pixel alotment.
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Recipe for crow. One medium sized crow flavored with chili powder. For desert a giant slice of humble pie. So just when I was feeling cocky the foredeck turned to yuck. The 29" X 72" triangular piece is the beast I thought it would be. Gaps lumps and a few other nasties are about to be sanded and tried again. This stuff looks like corduroy when viewing along the deck. If the thread pattern varies from parallel along a known straight line it shows up like a sore thumb. So after dark while trying some backlighting for photos every lump and bump showed itself. When sighting along the deck you would never see it during daylight or even feel them but the Maglight reveals all. I may or may not start over as the imperfections just aren't noticeable without the flashlight. Or I could just throw the flashlight away.
Dear 25 going on 26.
Don't be so hard on yourself. Just a suggestion, If you rotated your molds about 45 degrees from the axis of the boat then the straight lines would not be noticeable when sighting down the length of the boat. Also they would be much shorter so any defects would be less visible. Just a suggestion.
Don't be so hard on yourself. Just a suggestion, If you rotated your molds about 45 degrees from the axis of the boat then the straight lines would not be noticeable when sighting down the length of the boat. Also they would be much shorter so any defects would be less visible. Just a suggestion.
Damn flashlight! Number three is done and I took super care to iron out bumps using a roller. But there they are in all their glory all five of 'em. Taunting me, some thinking , reasoning thing tears my soul. Come closer Starbuck that I might gaze into a human face. After that Ahab moment, it really is pretty good except for 4 flaws about the size of a quarter. Now I'm interested in trying the repair method Gibco has in their brochure and 'how to guide' on line. I'll be sharing those results soon as I respray and renonskid the foredeck which is all sanded back down and ready to go. I took the foredeck mold to my basement and layed it out to see the lines and their orientation. It is now trimmed using a straight piece of steel I had and a razor knife so the lines will be easy to orient along the foredeck centerline. So things are looking good and I will just have to keep people from shining a Maglight along the deck after dark. That's a very good suggestion jibes. It might have to be something other than the 45 due to the crosshatch nature of the pattern which would orient the other lines fore and aft. Something in between 45 and 90 would be a very cool look with the lines running radially outward. That would be a fantastic approach for anyone interested in duplicating their nonskid but isn't quite as obsessive as me.
Excellent suggestion Jibes particularly the water runoff reasoning.
BTW, 25 after your picts, my decks really, really suck now.
BTW, 25 after your picts, my decks really, really suck now.
Hey Guys I got the photo. Unfortunately it is about 5000 gungabites so I would have to e-mail it. I tried to download here and probably gave the poor server a nervous breakdown. If you have e-mail listed here I can send it to give a better idea of what is achievable. Sorry Cal, when your ready you can do this too with the same results. Remember I don't have any special boat repairing skills beyond the average guy. I'm just tenacious about getting the information that makes me look like I do.
Hey 25.
Try pasting the picture into a blank page in powerpoint. Then save the powerpoint page as a JPG format picture. The new size will be grossly smaller and well under a megabyte. I do this all the time and it works well. Might lose a little resolution but worth a try.
Try pasting the picture into a blank page in powerpoint. Then save the powerpoint page as a JPG format picture. The new size will be grossly smaller and well under a megabyte. I do this all the time and it works well. Might lose a little resolution but worth a try.
Thanks jibes. The powerpoint didn't work but the cropped picture gives a small amount with higher detail. The basic photo was 5.35 MB. It does indicate how crazy small this pattern is. I also included the Gibco patern as it appears on the deck. This is the pattern I am making the female molds from.
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Cheese and rice, finally! So with the foredamndeck done all that remains is to patch the few flaws and on to the starboard side. This was the nightmare piece that the third try yielded some nice results. All it took was a decent day that wasn't cold and raining along with a shopvac some leftover foam and some plastic sheeting. Viola a half vast vacuum bagging gadget that actually worked. This was the third try so about $10.00 worth of gelcoat and duratec got sanded off on two different occasions. The foam is placed on top of the mold and covered with the plastic. All sides are taped down with duct tape and a small hole is left in which a crevice tool from the house vacuum is inserted. A huge vacuum isn't necessary as the volume a shopvac draws is quite sufficient to draw everything down. Have everything cut and ready and slightly undercatalize to allow enough time to get everything gelcoated and the plastic down and taped. Fire up the vac and let it draw for an hour after which turn it off and wait for everything to fully cure. Once cured peel off everything and enjoy the results. Soon as the touchups are done I'll pop a picture of the whole shebang and some of the patching. Heck there are even fewer bumps this way, and the orientation of those lines, well la tee dah they are all running straight fore and aft. That was more luck than skill but I'll take it. Here it is with even a few of the flaws visible that will be corrected with the patch technique. Two are done on the foredeck edge that are only noticable at very close range. Once I have that worked out to my satisfaction I'll get those pictures up.
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STOP! I have discovered a major systemic problem with reprinting gelcoat non skid decks. SHRINK! Gelcoat shrinks to a remarkable degree which explains the washboard effect and tears I am seeing and pattern distortion. For a small area the flex mold or my type of mold will be unaffected by the shrinkage. When working with large areas the chemical bonding will overcome even the most extreme clamping method and will only result in the pattern distortion which is the mold skidding. See the photos on how much this shrink is pronounced on an off boat pour at .012 inch thick. Notice how the edge curl is obvious. This explains everything. What I will be trying is bonding this flawless sheet to the deck by rolling a layer of gelcoat down and applying this gelcoat over it. I didn't go to extreme lengths to insure a fair deck to have the cosmetics look like a washboard. Let's hope this solves the problem.
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Can you do the deck in small sections at a time linking them together as you go? In other words can you print a small section, let it cure, then do an adjacent section, etc? It will probably leave the equivalent of seams if you do that but it might work. This is probably why they spray the molds first with gelcoat before laying up the glass.
Hey there jibes! Believe it or not that was suggested by a friend of mine. What I did was enlist the aid of a polymer chemist. Here's what's going on. The Cook Composites gelcoat sold by US Composites is an extremely hard gelcoat. The chemical cross linking that occurs forms very tight bonds. This is fantastic for super high gloss applications but comes at the cost of elasticity. As the bonds are formed they draw the molecules tighter and what I was seeing was the symptoms being wrinkle and pattern distortion. So armed with that knowledge it was a matter of finding out what was available that was a softer gelcoat and the resultant lower shrinkage. Hardness being the Barcol hardness scale? which I don't understand but the chemist guy does. Cook is at 38 to 40 with the gelcoat he suggested being in the 32 to 34 range. This results in better elasticity which is more appropriate to the temperature extremes and as an added benefit it adheres better to the epoxy substrate without a vinyl ester tie coat that Cook suggested as a possible remedy. I promptly ordered a gallon of the 10214 neutral from Advance Coatings in Massachusetts. The owner/chemist dude Russell is a very helpful guy. In my conversation with him he said they can even custom make softer gelcoats should this not work. Needless to say I now know more about polyester gelcoats than I thought possible but I am pursuing a workable solution that I hope will offer insight for others contemplating this type of restoration. Advance Coatings was the prime gelcoat supplier to Boston Whaler for many years who had rigorous testing to insure impact and adhesion tests. So the trade off of some gloss for a deck that shouldn't fail due to adhesion or subject to shrink cracking is a good trade I think. I'll post the results as soon as I have it applied. On a big plus side the molds continue to work well even after four pulls.
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Oh yeah, almost forgot. Advance Coatings comes with UV protection which slows the oxidation we all cringe at resulting in a longer lasting finish.
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UV Protection? What you are trying to do is protect against solar radiation or the resultant radiation of a hydrogen fusion reaction. Maybe you could sell some of this to the Japanese for their damaged nuclear plants? I think like the coatings we put on wood it lasts for a little while and then doesn't work any more. It may not break down from UV but will still react with airborn contaminants and oxygen. So it will be a little better for a while and then look rotten like the rest of the stuff. Kind of like the skin on us old guys.
If you want a good deal on materials contact Merton's in Springfield Ma. He is an old friend from high school and has very low overhead and thus prices. He advertises in Soundings.
If you want a good deal on materials contact Merton's in Springfield Ma. He is an old friend from high school and has very low overhead and thus prices. He advertises in Soundings.
Hey jibes, I resemble that old wrinkly skin comment. You can bet after all this work this boat will sport a 1/4 inch wax job to protect against everything else. I suppose a good deal of the new and improved stuff will reveal it's weakness after 34 years. So tonights episode is about saving your time money and energy trying to salvage a rotted core. Since I have all the patterns layed out I went ahead and opened the starboard side. This was the side that had the holes drilled in it in a misguided attempt to infuse some stuff (a more course word can be inserted in place of stuff) in an attempt to rebond the core. Newsflash, it don't work. First unless you have access to a large industrial type oven the core is still soaked. After 6 months being heated and under cover the core is still wringing wet. A 1 inch square piece yields about 1 teaspoon of water. Here's the pics showing what these 'repairs' look like. Once that water is in there it's there pretty much for good and it will migrate same as dipping a sponge tip in water. Pretty quickly the entire sponge is soaked. So with the gelcoat a few days out it's time to move on with this project in other ways while I'm waiting. By the way Merton's looks like a great source of material from what I've seen on their website.
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Boat builders
After millions of boats having core problems like this you would think these chuckleheads would get it that cores absorb water and rot. Then they say to seal the holes for fittings and it will solve the problem, and in the next breath they tell you how gelcoat and fiberglass is porous and wicks moisture to gove you blister. So if it is porous and wicks how do you keep the core dry. Answer, drum roll, you can't. Only way in my mind not to have this problem is don't use wood in the core. if you go on the island packet website they are now using an epoxy foam type material for the core. Only builder I've seen advertise this. Makes sense but might be heavy. For those of us who don't care about a tenth of a knot faster i'd prefer the no hassle method.
After millions of boats having core problems like this you would think these chuckleheads would get it that cores absorb water and rot. Then they say to seal the holes for fittings and it will solve the problem, and in the next breath they tell you how gelcoat and fiberglass is porous and wicks moisture to gove you blister. So if it is porous and wicks how do you keep the core dry. Answer, drum roll, you can't. Only way in my mind not to have this problem is don't use wood in the core. if you go on the island packet website they are now using an epoxy foam type material for the core. Only builder I've seen advertise this. Makes sense but might be heavy. For those of us who don't care about a tenth of a knot faster i'd prefer the no hassle method.