Infusion Plan

Most likely ok, but I'd imagine its way harder to sand the stuff...

Jorge, I trowel on epoxy fairing mixture, then comb through it using a notched adhesive trowel which leaves the lines behind. You can get many different depths of notches. Works well for me but you do need to do about 3 overfills after this to get rid of all the lines showing through...

 

I figure it would be hard to sand as well but it falls between fairing compound and a wood flour type mix.

I like the trowel idea, those points should make for easy sanding as well ... How long you wait between coats when you are overfilling?

 

I used beads of the Plexus, took me 2 tubes but only 1 hour, worth it, if the sanding pans out!!!

Tomorrow I will check that, I missed a couple of places, ran out so I will use a notched trowel to lay down a thin strip in those areas. Will post my experience with sanding.

 

... it's going to require a few plates of beans to get through this job but looks like it will work.

 

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Next time you could use recessed seams, as in the bottom right hand corner of the first picture, and you will not have to use anywhere near as much filler.





How are you going to attach the deck to the hull around the perimeter? Will it have a rub rail also?

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Yep, I should have sanded the foam panels down before infusing. Actually I should have just infused the entire deck in one shot. All my judgement calls have been hindered by - inexperience, tired from my regular job, working alone and limited budget ... had it not been for this forum, no way in the world would I have made it this far. Good thing this is my personal boat ... actually it seems like a good boat, can't wait to give her a try.

I am either going to bolt or spot tape the deck around the edges, probably every foot, in between the guide lines. Yes it's getting a rubrail

Next time around, I will build this same boat in less than a week lol!

 

Minor progress update:

Decided to tape all the way around the edge so went ahead and put a radius on it and sanded all the fairing guides.

The guide beads are spaced at 6" .. I was using a 18" board with 50 grit and it was not long enough so I switched to a 24" sanding board and that let me get for the most part a nice continuous flat surface. I think I will be ok, especially since I'm probably going to use some seadek and am also painting with monstaliner texture ... Il save my energy for the hull

Though it wasn't that bad, I come to the conclusion that if you are vacuum infusing, then there should be no need for fairing. Next time I will plan this much better and it should def be part of the strategy to incorporate structures such as lips and dips whenever you absolutely need to fair so that it's quick and easy.

 

Finished fairing, I did a bit of an overkill job with the floor sander considering I am going to paint textured monstaliner on it. I actually hit it first with a board to make sure there were no dipsydoos.

Flipped the boat to prep for infusing other side of transom and tunnel and also threw another layer of glass across the entire bottom. Here also is a pic of the wrap job around the tunnel and strakes. I went slow to make sure there will be no bridging or overlap of pert medium. The flow media will go over the hoses so that is not in pic yet.

The infusion will be inward but divided on the length into 3 segments, I will post the infusion layout once the bag is in place .. I actually purchased some extra bag so I can double bag it, sick of those pinholes that are in the plastic!

 

Last Infusion

Infusing the tunnel and outside of transom plus another layer of glass on entire hull. Not shown are some 1.5 in high strakes that run on either side of the tunnel.

Red is my infusion line
Blue are my outlet points

I am infusing inward. I don't think there will be any problems with the exception of the area around transom. It's going to be really hard to keep the laminate and other mediums from bridging, I will try to work them tight against strakes at half vacuum. If I get any racetracking and dry spots I am going to have a vac hose with needle handy. I was just checking out my previous infusions lol, infusing inward is so much more simple and you don't have tons of hoses wrinkling your laminate!!

 

Hi Jorge - Yeh another inwards convert, we wil take over the infusion world soon.... Peter S

 

For sure on that, it's def the way to go!! I wish I had done console this way, I have hose marks all over that thing that I have to fair!! )

 

Ok so to help with the runner marks, next time your doing a small part (practice then do on bigger scale )place the runner (I presume you are using spiral tube?) in some media and in a pleat so the runner is about 25mm up from the job but connected to the job via the media. No more runner marks and easier to strip. eg your transverse runners could be done like this, just organise a pleat at the runner spot, premake the spiral and media assembly, pull down the bag slowly and lift up the runner into the pleat then pull bag bag proper.

Cheers Peter S

 

Check my last updates in my build thread also, I solved the hose marks a different way...

 

And be careful infusing inwards... it works great when setup perfectly, but if you have leaks- which always happens in these types of jobs without proper molds etc. Then you loose all the vacuum once the job has filled and the vac line is full of resin... infusing outwards, even with leaks, the pump can keep the bag tight and keep pressure on the laminate to stop it relaxing...

 

Peter - I have seen that on a video, in truth, with a little bit of flow media under hose and if it is only two hoses, I don't mind the little imprint, it's quickly faired, it's when I have fishbone or multiple full length hoses that it gets to be a pain.

Groper - I am looking at your pictures with the strip moulding. Can you elaborate what kind of moulding that is ... also why are you using flow media, I thought you switched to cut core.

As for the problems of infusing inwards, yes, I know I have to be careful but after doing those panels I am sold on how well the resin flows. In my next infusion, I have almost perfect squares and except for around the transom, not much going on so I think it should be pretty predictable.

I do expect trouble around transom with those strakes and tunnel but I am going to have the mobile vac hose ready ) Mostly I am going to really work hard on the bag, even use two layers to get rid of these pinholes which magically appear as the resin moves in.