building a new deck-wood or foam

[euro scott]

hello guys ,i've been reading this forum and im still not sure what to make a mold out of,i want to build a new deck for an existing bottom and heres my concept picture as well as one of my existing deck. so do i make a plug from wood, foam, combination of the two
thanks for any suggestions..

[StealthAssassin]

Nice change to the STV euro. How did you do the photo? Photoshop?

Personally, IMHO... If you could build a negitive mold without a plug then great (sounds hard) but, It seems wise to build It out of wood and alot of filler and maybe foam where needed or can be used.

I would build a plug first of the deck and make sure It fits nicely to the hull. Then make a thick mold from tooling gel and glass.

My 2 cents for what It's worth...

Derrick

Any differant angle photos?

[rwatson]

For a "one off", making a plug, then making a mould, then taking a cast is three times the work of making and shaping the deck alone.
The basic shape could be made of materials that could be discarded, or you could use materials that could be left in the finished deck.
All the work is in finishing and shaping accurately, and if it is only a 'plug' then you still have a lot of hard work ahead of you, instead of a finished product.
My feeling is that foam would end up being the most efficient and useful base, and could safely be left in the finished deck. If you glass both sides, you get a waterproof, really light and strong deck with no old plugs and moulds to cart down to the dump.
You also end up with a little bit of additional bouyancy in case of an unlikely swamping, or lots of floating debris to cling to after you hit that submerged log :-)