Can Anyone Help??

[jammer]

On this page there is a fiberglass boat with a faux wood finish. Does anyone know what and where to get materials?

http://www.boatmoldtrader.com/Cruiser.jpg

Thanks, any help would be appreciated gentlemen
Dave

[Ssor]

In the kitchen cabinet refacing industry there exists a very nice pre-finished wood veneer mounted on kraft paper with a pressure sensitive adhesive back. I would suspect that what we were looking at was something of that nature overlain with epoxy and very thin, fine fiberglass cloth.

[jammer]

Thanks for the the input. But from what I've seen, the material is under the clear gel coat. Though veneer seems like a great idea, I don't think it can follow the compound curves on the boats I've seen it on.

[duluthboats]

About a year ago I saw a wood strip canoe that was made to look like it was made from birch bark. The encapsulating fabric had a birch bark pattern printed on it, the allusion worked until you were within a few feet. I haven’t looked but there must be someone printing wood grain also.

Gary

[jammer]

Thanks Gary,

That's more along the lines I was thinking, although I've had no luck finding the material or even if it's available. I use something similar on our canoes, but the print only comes in camo.



Dave

[D'ARTOIS]

There are people, profi's, who can paint that way. They can imitate any material, marble, woodgrain - name it.
Paint it and spray a clear coat of PU varnish/laquer over it and there you are.

[jammer]

I'm looking for something I can use on production boats. I know there are allot of talented people that can imitate a surface, but I don't think doing it that way would be cost effective

[T:Jacobsen]

Some of the Colombo boats built in Italy on the shore of Lago di Como have a mohogany look that is actually a film. On top of that film there is of course some kind of varnish. Dont remember whether it is polyurethane, epoxy or both, or some kind of gelcoat. The boats come out of a female mold. The same boat as the mahogany was offered with white gelcoat instead. The method has a name, and it isnt developed by Colombo alone, I think. I have visited the yard myself 10 years ago, and was surprised with what I saw there. They had used this for intricate details such as the swimming platform, a part with recesses. On the hull sides, that were flared, you could of course see the grain going up towards the deck, as you might expect. But you would think it was mahogany if no one told you it was not, it was that good. Hope this helps you. -T


The Colombo website and one of their boats:
http://www.colomboboats.it/english/m..._romance32.htm

[PAR]

I think what you're looking for is printed. It's not printed in the traditional since, but digitally generated from a scanned image. This film is applied then clear coated, just like a car finish would be. Repair can be made to the product as well, using the same file the image was first created from. The repair area would be cut in, using natural break is the surface, such as hatches, cabin sides, etc. so an exact match can be made, reproducing the grain patterns just as they were before the mishap.

Now, as to what they're printing these images on, making them stick to the surface, pre-clear coat and other techniques, I haven't a clue. This is where Eric is needed to chime in as I think he's been involved in this kind of work. If not, you surly can bet the manufacture isn't going to give the tricks up. A few of the retro builders have it on their products.

[Eric Sponberg]

My classic speedboat design, the Cherubini Classic 20 (www.cherubiniyachts.com) originally had a printed image of a wood pattern set behind clear gelcoat. Indeed, the images we used were scanned into a computer from real wood patterns, and then printed on a fabric that is very lightweight and slightly stretchable to conform to slight contours in the surface. The first boats we made looked fantastic and they made their debut at the 2002 Annapolis Boat Show. The original design called for both hull and deck wood patterns, but by the time of the show, we got as far as the transom and the deck, so the hulls were painted. The hull images had yet to be printed. The images we created were so good, we fooled professional boatbuilders who inspected tehm. From 12" away, you could not tell it was a computer-generated image. We even had scarf joints and bungs holes in the image. It was neat, and the boat show was a hoot!

Now for the bad news. The process is proprietary. Independence Classics, my original client, spent a lot of time and money developing their process. I know some of the details, but not all of them. They have leased the process to Cherubini Yachts, the new builder, but because of some technical problems we encountered, Cherubini Yachts is electing to use real wood in their new boats. That is, the hull and deck are still fiberglass, but they use a real wood overlay on the deck, transom, and all the interior wood trim. The hulls are gelcoated or painted. The problems with the printed image are too costly to solve at this time, and will require some more R&D money to solve. The Cherubini Classic 20 is now making the rounds of the boat shows, having just been in Washington DC last week. Next it will be in Philadelphia; then Hickory, North Carolina; Atlanta, Georgia; West Palm Beach, FL; and finally here in St. Augustine, FL on April 8-10.

Now, what are the problems? The biggest problem is getting good register of the image in the mold. The molds for the Classic 20 are prototype molds and not proper production molds. They will be good for a few more boats, but proper production molds must have register marks and lines built into the surface to align the images. This is done with contrasting colors of gelcoat in the mold itself. Aligning the "grain" and lines of the wood pattern are critical because if you screw them up, which is easy to do, the image looks terrible. It is harder to lay up the image on a female mold surface than on a male surface, such as an actual deck or hull. Our process allowed for doing the image both ways, and we had more success putting the deck image directly on a deck because it was much easier to align it. Then we would coat with clear gelcoat, then sand and polish. But you don't want to sand and polish every boat in a production situation because that really adds the hours. So if you want to do it in production, the tooling has to be marked accordingly with alignment lines, and the image laid into the mold behind the clear gelcoat.

The second problem we had was fading. After a few months exposure to ultraviolet sunlight, we found that some of our wood grain images were fading very badly, losing the red mahogany color and turning to a significant yellow that looked more like oak. We think we know the cause, but at this time I am not at liberty to say what it is, being bound by the confidentiality agreement I have with Independence Classics. When this problem appeared, Independence Classics ceased production for other financial reasons, and we were never able to systematically test and prove our theories about why the image was fading. That is work that remains to be done, and we may yet get a chance to do that.

I know some of the details regarding the materials that we used, but not all of them. I also know that you cannot rely upon the printed image alone come to its full color and depth in the final product. There are other techniques and things you have to do to enhance the image after it is in place. We spent a lot of time and effort to figure this out, and that is why our image, in the end, looked as good as it did.

I regret that I cannot be more forthcoming, but this is protected technology at the moment which may yet find the light of day if we get the opportunity to test our theories to solve the fading problem.

Eric

[jammer]

Thank you guys! And I undersand Eric, and I thank you for all the info you were able to let loose with. Though I just wanted to do a few of my canoes with someting different than the camo cloth I am using, (licenced thru Haas intl. advantage camo) I'll have to find an alernative. I just need some WOW factor for my product and I thought a wood look would be classy.

I can get some material in a "Spongebob" print, but I'm not thinking that would go over too well. lol!

Agian, Thanks for your time guys
Dave