hull design / furniture design

Hi There,

I am new at this so excuse the dumb questions.

I am trying to educate myself on the manufacturing process of boat hulls so that I can figure out how to produce a furniture prototype. I thought this was a great place to start. I am looking for a flexible material that I can bend to put in a jig that creates a variety of radiuses. With the material in place, I want to freeze it in a position created by the jig with some sort of epoxy. Being a stool, it must be able to support the weight of someone sitting on it ! Is this possible ?

Hope someone can help me out.
Thanks, Heidi

 

Heidi,

The toda's interior builders and furniture makers use so called "mock-ups" to prepare their interior parts for later installation the hull. You use the off sets of the waterlines to determine the shape of the hull.
A bit of practise in this particular case is necessary.

 

i was getting the impression bogey in the keys wants a end product that is still flexable like forexample glued layers of wood in a stool.
for non flexing boat interior honeycomb paper, sandwiched, can be used.
yet both applications can be done with a variety of materials
why posted under software and not boatbuilding?

 

On the TouchCAD site you will find demo movies showing both hull fairing, furniture design and how to convert it into something that you can build physically. www.touchcad.com -> Click on Tutorials.

 

hull/furniture design

Thanks for the reply.

I think that is what I need to watch to understand the process. I don't want to make my stool out of wood though, more like aluminum or extruded aluminum, but the mock-up could be made from foam maybe coated with epoxy resin ?

 

furniture design

Thanks.

I ended up posting in the materials thread also. I was reading up on some posts about taking the polyurethane foam and soaking it with epoxy, wringing it out and then letting it harden in the shape I want.

I was thinking this foam might be like the uphostery foam I have to pad out furniture seats. Maybe I can use that to experiment with. How long does epoxy take to dry ?

Heidi

 

It all depends on the type of hardner added to the resin. For what you are doing, I'll suggest you use the cheapest epoxy you can find. (try uscomposits.com) There are three hardners. The fast kicks off quite fast and will exotherm easily. (exotherm means it gets skin burning hot) The slow will take a day or two to fully harden. The medium speed hardner is quite manageable.

Get a gallon kit with pumps. This way you will not have to mess around with measuring it. (less mess)

I work steel a bit. If you are mocking up something that you want to make in steel, then use steel to do your prototype. This way you can see if it will be strong enough, too heavy, etc. Steel works easily with a few cheap tools and a cheap welder. Then again ... in key largo steel will rust quickly.

If you just want to make forms of stuff. Use extruded polysteren. (blue, pink foam). Or flour, water, and newspaper; or newspaper and wall paper glue.

The foam soaked in epoxy idea will take up to 12 hours to harden. So you would have to support the shape during this time. You will have about 20 minutes to work with it. Do not forget to wear plastic gloves! If it starts getting hot, and smelling strong, leave it and come back in an hour when the fumes have thinned out.

 

furniture design

Hi again,

Thanks for the reply. Yeah, I was thinking originally of the final design to be out of an aluminum sheet rather than steel but I had posted in the material thread and someone told me about this flexible metal honeycomb product from nida-core. I could maybe skin the honeycomb in sheet metal to look like a solid metal sheet that has been warped (a la eames bent plywood furniture). I know that trying to build my design out of plywood/resin won't give me the strength of supporting a person's weight, so I had to look for alternatives.

The nida core company is sending me a sample so I can play with it.

Thanks, Heidi

 

I'm not sure how thin you are looking to go on the material thickness, but using veneers of something like Western Red Cedar alternating with layers of Carbon Fiber would probably give you the stiffness you need. This type of construction can easily be set up in a jig, using Epoxy to bind the layers together.

You can also use this type of construction in a vacuum form to make all sorts of Eames-like shapes, and beyond. The panels will be quite stiff for the weight, and the black CF layers between the cedar is actually a very cool look.

You can start the design process with SolidWorks to see what the item will look like after build. With the full package you can even add loads to determine the stability of the part.

 

furniture design

thanks so much for the reply, you and I think alike.

Heidi

 

Nice chair