What have you done this weekend...?

That's cheating, it doesn't count as boating ok

 

I found a car ? just like ....

and also the boats will be racing today (Sunday) offshore near Redcliffe, a bayside suburb of Brisbane...

 

a bit of boating

 

Rick, I like the red beer trailer !

Nice prop there Mas.

Ain't water great eh guys !!!!!!

 

Fanie, which prop are you talking about, the "zebra striped car" of the surface piercing shaving device? - - I think the former escaped from a "back-yard movie lot", and the other drew blood when one spectator touched it to feel its fineness

 

You're right about the zebra car. You get them here too, only the stripes would be horizontal (more streamline for extra speed) and in red. Fitted with a brutal 1600 ford engine, 0 to 60 in under 250 seconds.

 

Just run an 8kms charity race.... I'm completely knackered.

 

By your avatar, RHP, you are still laughing so you are only joking? and not literally ready to be turned into horse meat for a loooong time yet I hope everyone's efforts raised lots for a good cause...

 

Hi Mas, we help run a charity that takes kids off the street of Sao Paulo and trains them in life skills, boys reading, writing and maths, plus brick laying style practical skills, the girls learn cooking etc.. and they get free dentistry etc... Its a drop in the ocean but every little bit helps.

 

Good on you... "You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to RHP again." is a message that seems to thwart my every attempt at praise

 

Took a drive up to Clayton NY to see the Antique Boat Museum. Definitely worth a visit if you're in the area....

 

The answer is no!

The answer is no! The question is: Can you make your own power (AC/DC) distribution panel cheaper than you can buy one? NO! But I'm doing it anyways. Why? Because I can and now that boating season has wrapped up I have a need to tinker. So a custom power distribution panel seems like a good project.

I found a material that is basically dyed carbon fiber, Texalium. It comes in a number of colors and is used primarily as an overlay in various applications. It's not like carbon fiber, it's stiff and will not drape over odd shaped objects but it's perfect for flat panels.



The primary color for the boat is blue so this'll add a nice custom touch. Next step was to plan the panel. Hmmm? A quick Google search turns up "Front Panel Designer". Great lil' app perfectly suited to the task. Here's what the output looks like.



Front Panel is designed for people to have them manufacture their panels for you. It'll even cost out the project. They can't engrave on Texalium so we'll use adhesive backed laser engraved labels. Switches are all Carling marine, breakers are all Blue Sea, LED's are Blue Sea as well as the battery switch and analog meters. AC Selector source is Kraus & Naimer.

I got started on this project today creating the panel. Texalium is only 0.015" thick so I had to lay up some fiberglass & core mat to get to the 1/8" thickness req'd for a panel. Took about half an hour to cut and lay up the various materials. One layer of 1708 biaxial & 2mm core mat for the substrate then the Texalium. This gets overlayed with a very fine peel ply (makes peeling everything apart easy hence the name and leaves a nice fine matt finish) (nylon sheet) and the flow media. This gets covered by a special vacuum bagging (infusion) film. Vacuum is applied and the entire stack gets compressed.

Started infusing the panel at 1500 hrs and it was fully infused 40 mins later.



The reddish color comes from the plastic flow media (plastic screen). Resin is fed in the bottom and migrates across the layup to the vacuum at the top. This is done under high vacuum 29" HG. Here's the fully infused panel.



It'll take at least 24 hrs before I can start to pull it apart. The epoxy resin is very thin and has a very long pot life (4 hrs). Because it's such a thin panel I might leave it for 48 hrs for it to stiffen up a bit more before handling it.

Just a rough estimate but this panel cost approx. $50 in materials counting the 4 oz. of epoxy I spilled on the basement floor (which is now waterproofed). There's enough material there to make 3 panels 8" wide x 18" high. Will post pics when I part it from the tooling surface.

This is one of the aspects of the process I totally haven't come to grips with yet, the waste. A lot of material goes in the gash.



I couldn't wait and pulled it off the tooling surface (malamine). Results were not quite what I expected, little rough in some areas and the layup looks a little dry. Too much vacuum maybe. I would have gotten a better surface on the Texalium if I had layed it up upside down on glass. Might try that next.



Sorry about the crappy close up. Cheapo camera, this was the best I could get.



Obviously I haven't perfected my technique yet but I'll get there eventually. The process as a whole has a lot of advantages, too many to go into here and a few drawbacks such as the waste mentioned earlier. Controlling the vacuum is key. I use an automated setup if anyone's interested I'll document that if you like.

I don't know if this piece will work. I read the instructions for the core mat "after" I infused the part. It said "Not Compatible with Epoxy"! Duh! It likely won't bond or won't bond well enough. I did get the thickness I was looking for, well pretty close, was looking for 0.125" and got 0.133".

Oh well lessons learned onto the next one.

 

mix epoxy putty - fill joints

mix epoxy putty - fill joints

mix epoxy putty - fill joints

boooooring



gonna blow over to Mas's to see how real men do a really good job
now ya talkin

 

Sorry Manie. I'll eventually feel your pain too!

This was actually last week..... Look at the cannons on that baby!!!