Home built single hander project

[wind_apparent]

Paint is Awlgrip primer with Imron finish

did you paint it yourself? spray or roller? $$$$$$?, why did you use the Imron instead of Awlgrip? What did you use for fairing compound?

(if you wouldn't mind posting your answer in my thread as well, just so I can keep all this stuff together)

thanks

Sam

[bistros]

Originally Posted by wind_apparent

did you paint it yourself? spray or roller? $$$$$$?, why did you use the Imron instead of Awlgrip? What did you use for fairing compound?

(if you wouldn't mind posting your answer in my thread as well, just so I can keep all this stuff together)

thanks

Sam

I used the Imron because of faster cure time and the eventual hardness it reaches. Imron doesn't use reducer like most paints for spray application - just their own hardener.

Some folks I really respect at Phil's Foils swear by it for finish paint.

Imron is pretty evil in terms of the chemical content. You've got to have a positive pressure air system, paint booth and a good mask as well as 100% skin coverage. I didn't go near it during painting - a lot of automotive painters won't use it, even though it produces unquestionably good results.

Eric painted the boat in his paint booth using a good spray gun and compressor.

I'm very happy with the finish. No detectable orange peel and no runs.

Fairing compound? West System. I kind of have a bad memory of this as you put it on and remove 99% of it sanding, but you have to do it. After fairing and sanding we used a fair amount of Awlgrip primer to build it up again for wet sanding at 220, then 400. There were two colors of Awlgrip primer used - first grey and then white to help gauge final sanding. Almost all of the white was sanded off, and it provided a very visible indication of surface problems - you could see sanding scratches easily because of the white on grey. After sanding there was a final finishing filler pass which was used to fill any remaining problems, re-sanding at 600 wet and then the final Imron.

Eric is really good at this - I learned a lot. Eric spent a couple weeks interning with Larry Tuttle of Waterrat fame this year learning about finishing technique.If you don't know who Larry is, ask a 505 guy.

[bistros]

Just an update on the project ....

The boat is at the shop right now for a bunch of reasons:

1) Final cockpit painting with anti-slip.
2) Fixing a friend's trap hook scar from a righting attempt problem
3) Fixing chine damage found probably due to unexpected loading of the hull on the dolly/trolley. This will require a epoxy/glass repair and repainting the area of the hull.
4) Adding more foot loop positions.
5) Adding a forestay tensioning system that will allow for consistent and measurable rig tensioning and de-tensioning on the water.

Design things to note:

I'm amazed at how much of the issues with the boat have nothing to do with sailing it under normal conditions - most of the issues are directly related to operator problems and things that happen outside of the water. To designers and builders out there it is critical to design for operator error and storage/transport. Strength enough for the design job in the design environment is not enough!

We're going to experiment with a rotating mast implementation to help with upwind performance. The cat rig as it is right now performs well and easily planes upwind in over 8-10 knots of wind or up, but it doesn't perform as well as a comparable sloop rig. Sailing the boat with 505s it become apparent that the 505s with gybing boards hold their lanes better, point better and generally perform better upwind in sub planing conditions. The Falco planes earlier, but doesn't blow the 505s away in low wind conditions upwind. Eric guesstimates we should find some serious gains (10-15%) upwind by allowing the mast to rotate upwind.

I'm doing some serious thinking about t-foil design for this upcoming winter, and also the possibility of incorporating racks of some type to increase righting moment. Eric has done some drawings of racks as well. I've put a post in the monofoiler thread regarding some design thoughts on t-foil controls.

On the water notes:

I've added spinnaker sheet retrieval lines to the boat to keep the sheets from dragging when the kite is in the sock. They work quite well and do their job automatically as the kite drops.

I changed out the Harken carbo ti-light blocks on the spinnaker sheets for carbo rachets and they've reduced sheet loads a lot. Much better!

I finally received the new spinnaker from the sail maker. I looked at buying a 29er spinnaker (as the blue one was borrowed from a friend). The 29er kite was $1000, and I really didn't care about class legality. I talked with a 29er coach at a regatta and he pointed me to a sail maker who made lots of 29er "training" kites for teams at about half the price. The training kites don't pay class fees and licensing, but are identical in every other respect. I wasn't concerned about color, just timing, quality and price. When I opened the box, it was almost exactly the same orange as the boat - talk about luck.

The boat is far faster and better behaved on the water than I ever could have hoped. It isn't launch/retrieval friendly and it really is nice to have someone around to help when you get to the dock.

Things to do / notes:

1) Add lines to the dolly to tie down the hull firmly when it is out of the water. The boat is so light and the mast is so tall that a good wind can move the boat on the dolly with no sail up if it isn't tied down. The I-14s locally all do this and it greatly increases stability and reduces the potential for damage out of the water.

2) Remember to pad the bunks on the trailer for transport and pad the areas where the straps cross the decks.

--
Bill

[wind_apparent]

hey Bill

check out this movie at 32 seconds, what do you think?: you where right, rubber hose may be the answer.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKNYmacedDM&eurl