FRP mold cost

[gonzo]

Most molds are one off in boatbuilding. A few production boat reach high enough numbers and justify taking more than one mold off the plug. If you use CNC, the only thing that makes sense is to have the whole plug cut. Otherwise, you are paying the computer nerds and the boatbuilders for a collaboration project.

[rwatson]

We must be talking about totally different things,

"The time to build a 50 foot mold is a few days, a few guys, for a male or female mold. "

This is absolutely wrong. The fairing and finishing alone on a 16 foot kayak is over three days - let alone a mould for creating a huge 60 footer.

Business budget in the tens of thousands of dollars for a production mould - this is not a 'few days'

have you done any hull prep work in your life ??

[waikikin]

Originally Posted by rwatson

We must be talking about totally different things,

"The time to build a 50 foot mold is a few days, a few guys, for a male or female mold. "

This is absolutely wrong. The fairing and finishing alone on a 16 foot kayak is over three days - let alone a mould for creating a huge 60 footer.

Business budget in the tens of thousands of dollars for a production mould - this is not a 'few days'

have you done any hull prep work in your life ??

One off tooling still costs some thing, especially when time come for paint.
I visited xxxxxxxx Yachts a couple months back, they had some quick contact female molds for a 56'(still a lot of material & work), this was for commercial reason only for cash flow- the sooner they lay "boat glass" the cash flow comes. They had sweet deck tooling & would prefer matching hull tooling but you must do whatever make business sense.
My tooling cost about $1000 per M2 for rent materials etc etc, but using mostly my own labour, as a contracted job would have been about $24-2600 per M2. Regards from Jeff.

[rwatson]

Originally Posted by u4ea32

....
Consider that a one-off mold is built of CNC cut particle board covered with door skins, bondo, a layer of glass. Its really only the fairness of the shape that matters (and thats handled by the CNC cutting from your Rhino or whatever CAD files), its not dependent on woodworking skill and workmanship. Its all just too easy, FAR easier than building a wooden structure, or the very heavy and massively reinforced structures of high rate production tooling.

Yes, and this doesnt make sense either. All the Rhino cad files in the world cant go and fair a fifty foot hull. Its all hard manual labour.

You dont get particle board, fairing compound and 4 guys for 3 weeks for nothing.

It might be small bickies on the overall cost of the boat, but it aint free in any sense of the word.