Infusion Plan

Discussion in 'Fiberglass and Composite Boat Building' started by jorgepease, Jun 4, 2012.

  1. khaos
    Joined: Feb 2013
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    Location: Virginia, USA

    khaos Infusion Padawan

    Groper, when you said mix a 55gal drum I was brought back to when I was hand laying a small cockpit and mixed 1.5 gallons inside "because I work quickly" I think it was at about minute 5 in the sunshine it gelled and at about minute 6 it burst into flames. :eek: I know these are my mistakes and large mixes are common place. But all I saw in my mind was a drum with fire shooting out like a crucible. LOL
     

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  2. Tungsten
    Joined: Nov 2011
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    Location: Canada

    Tungsten Senior Member

    After I applied vacuum the panels shifted a little.The perf film also wasn't quite lined up as I had drilled.Bridgeing around the edges also seamed to aid flow quit a bit.

    This was the second test that I've done with perimeter feed and both times I;ve waited too long to stop the flow.Smaller pieces go quite quickly with that amount of feed hose.I could have also done less holes by the vac port. I was kicking my self as this would have been a good time to try the tyvek around the vac.Next time I guess.
     
  3. khaos
    Joined: Feb 2013
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    Location: Virginia, USA

    khaos Infusion Padawan

    I have been quite interested in the tyvek results too. While it seems that it is the perfect dream the MTI hose is expensive.
     
  4. jorgepease
    Joined: Feb 2012
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    Location: Florida

    jorgepease Senior Member

    I splashed her and am working to get her balanced. This is a long post.

    ... back in this thread I mentioned I had added a little rocker to the boat, it's minimal and starts about 6' forward of the sponsons ... so in other words if you put an 8' straight edge on her from stern forward, the rocker starts at 6' and by eight foot you have about 3/8 to 1/2' daylight showing and it's even more gradual after that but who cares at that point, my breakwater is not that far forward.

    The planing area in that 6' is about 28 sq ft omitting the tunnel and the boat weighs about 1200 including the motor so I figured this should be pretty easy to plane off regardless but I was sweating it because I kept reading how a boat would start porpoising as it rose up and the planing area diminished.

    The boat is balanced almost perfectly in the middle, it tips to the back because of the motor but that long front end is balancing it out so if I walk to the front she will dip an inch or two in that direction and walk to the back and same thing. Once she dips and stops, it takes a lot more weight to get her to dip more, it's not like it's a round beach ball lol

    Here starts the fun. The motor is mounted really high, cavitation plate about an inch below the top of the tunnel. The prop is literally about 1 inch below the surface in static mode with me in the drivers position.

    When I throttle forward, the stern is kicking up because i have the motor tucked in all the way because if I did trim it up I would be in the air LOL!!!
    So what happens is the stern kicks up, the prop comes up, the tunnel is not compressing the water as it's angled up instead of down and I get a lot of slip in the prop.

    I didn't know this is what was happening as you don't feel it on the center console at all. So I changed props to an ultra cup 4 blade prop 13.5 dia by 12 in pitch which will lug this little Yamaha F70 according to other peoples findings 5400 to 5800 rpm when it's rated for 6300 rpm but I figured I had no choice.

    That prop worked much better but I still had to accelerate very slowly to keep her from slipping. I could still jack that motor up another 6 inches but with waves the tunnel would sneeze for lack of better word and the prop would spin in the turbulence. Not terrible but not working right. The tunnel is pretty good considering my water pressure is maxed out even jacked up 6 inches but it def needs to be compressed.

    Decided to take a break and took my neighbors for a ride. They sat in back to get out of the wind and that gave the extra weight I needed to keep the prop down. All of sudden I was riding through a sloppy chop and 1-2 rollers with no tunnel sneeze or prop slipping. I could accelerate aggressively with very little prop ventilation and bow rise...

    Back at the dock I had my neighbor watch the tunnel as I walked from front to back. When I was on the front of the boat you could see 2 or more inches of tunnel, when I was on the very back the tunnel was at the water line 6" draft.

    Running with the weight on the back my boat showed no indication that it would porpoise ... motor trimmed straight back. If I try to make it porpoise the prop will blow out. I attribute that in part to the sponsons which extend past the motor and the prop is already so high that it just ventilates. I think I should have even more weight back there so my plan is to run her again this weekend with buckets of water and keep adding buckets to see at what point she runs best. If she does run much better I am going to achieve the balance by moving the console back. The current console is only temporary the real one will be adjustable on a rail. Im really liking that idea because even though I already have immense front deck space, I would love to have even more!!

    If it works I think I might be able to switch back to the three blade prop which I am going to add a bit of cup to anyway. I also picked up a compression plate to hopefully help with preventing blowout in the turns. If cupping the 3 blade works I am going to see what happens if I have them grind the 4 blade down by 1/4 inch and keep working her till I get the rated rpm the way I would like to run her ... jack plate down trimmed straight.

    As she is I can get only 30 miles per hour out of her but she cruises really smooth through fairly rough water at 20. You can see how comfy the dog is on her, just walks around without a worry because this little barge is like a flying carpet. The downside is she doesn't maneuver very well, the after market cav plate is supposed to help with that too otherwise I might add bigger strakes.

    Here is a pic of me exiting the canal by my house
    [​IMG]

    and two crappy videos of the boat running unbalanced.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLUcFWWWvLo

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6aoEYzxCJw

    On the good side the boat runs really stable, no pounding and despite choppy windy days, no water whatsoever, this boat is dry as all get out so I am pretty happy with her. On one jaunt to picnic island a bunch of other boaters came over and said they loved her.

    Also, this is my first time driving a boat so far up in the air ... can't believe what I have been missing. I have seen so many more fish, turtles, dolphins and skates, it's geat!!

    I hope to post a better video soon. Cheers everyone!
     
  5. Tungsten
    Joined: Nov 2011
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    Location: Canada

    Tungsten Senior Member

    Awesome!! Congrats on the boat.

    I've always wondered, why not a jet prop?
     
  6. jorgepease
    Joined: Feb 2012
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    Location: Florida

    jorgepease Senior Member

    Thanks, almost there ))

    In my areas in the keys your not supposed to use jet skis but it was never clear to me if that was because of the jet or they don't want people agitating the wildlife pulling stunts and all. I know yamaha jet boats tell you not to operate in less than 3 feet of water because of sucking up sand and grass but I think a jet outboard would really be optimum for this boat .. just reduce tunnel to about 2 inch height.

    Also I know jets like some constant deadrise, I don't know how they behave with flat bottoms??
     
  7. groper
    Joined: Jun 2011
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    Location: australia

    groper Senior Member

    The obvious answer to me would be to use a surface piercing propeller.... I don't know anything about these types of boats so I probably shouldn't offer any advise. But the surface piercing props need to be run ventilated. It's seems you have a problem with ventilation with aerated water in the tunnel, so a surface piercer seems a logical choice. It would also allow you to jack the motor up a bit higher too for even shallower running and fix the issue with turning. I doubt you would have to alter the balance at all...
     
  8. jorgepease
    Joined: Feb 2012
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    Location: Florida

    jorgepease Senior Member

    Hey Groper, hope all is well. The prop I am using is a type of surface piercing prop. Not too many options for one off the shelf for this motor and boat combo. I should have gone with minimum a 115 hp so I could use larger props and have that extra weight built in.

    Running with the bow down will just dog the motor and pound a lot more. When I was able to get the bow up, I was traversing waves, felt great and the tunnel also performed great.

    Moving the console back is not going to be a big deal, I am going to have some rails fabricated so I can move it back and forth and get it perfect. Working on design for that now. The metal fabricator also has to add poling platform and casting platform rails and other grab rails and leaning post so maybe he will give me a good deal if I add this at same time.
     
  9. khaos
    Joined: Feb 2013
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    Location: Virginia, USA

    khaos Infusion Padawan

    I was just in Pennekamp Sunday. Shoulda given a holler.

    Sounds like you have it almost dialed in. Sounds like taller strakes would help too.
     
  10. jorgepease
    Joined: Feb 2012
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    Location: Florida

    jorgepease Senior Member

    I snorkled that reef, really pretty. Yeah, strakes should have been larger too
     
  11. jorgepease
    Joined: Feb 2012
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    Location: Florida

    jorgepease Senior Member

    Update - Winds are still 20-25 seas 2-3 feet, this was not what the boat was built for but good news. I took 3 friends out, 2 sitting behind me and one to the front of console. Weight agrees with her )) I think the weight helped add more pressure in the tunnel.

    Installed an aftermarket cavitation plate

    Went back to the Turbo 1 prop

    and we went fishing. Total round trip of about 35 miles and the boat performed amazingly well. Completely dry, no pounding at all or squirrelly behavior and I was cruising about 25 on the way back from wave top to wave top with no plowing, felt great!

    Here is a video we took after installing the cavitation plate. The tunnel is putting out a nice stream of water... the cav plate definitely helps but I wouldn't use it without a jackplate as it adds a lot of drag and backsplash if you don't get it out of the water once up.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsfL4UE41J0
     
  12. jorgepease
    Joined: Feb 2012
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    Location: Florida

    jorgepease Senior Member

    Finally a view of boat - Hole Shot ... it's nothing exciting, she gets on plane pretty easy. Cav Plate fixed most of the prop blowout issues, sharp turns can still be improved on, I have some ideas for that.

    For some reason I thought the skeg extended below the prop, don't know why I thought that but it's good news for me... my boat runs great, max water pressure, with only 3 inches of skeg below boat, that's as shallow as I should need to go!!

    Here it is
    http://youtu.be/i07w6g7eelM
     
  13. DallasAB
    Joined: Nov 2010
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    Location: US

    DallasAB ThirtyFour

    Somewhere back in this lengthy thread there was mention of an insulation product that could be used for sanding the fairing coats. What caught my attention was the reference to "Sands like 40-grit, leaves marks like 100-grit". A few of you mentioned the product was hard to find, so I took the opportunity to do some digging. I found the company that produces the product "FOAMGLAS" -> PGH Corning(www.pghcorning.com/products/foamglas/) and sent off an email to their sales reps.
    I received this in reply: "Our cellular glass product has been used for years as a sanding product and many people swear by it. The product mentioned in your forum is our industrial FOAMGLAS insulation block which is available through channel partners throughout the U.S. It is sold in 18” x 24” blocks in thicknesses from 2” to 6”. It can easily be cut to any other size."

    The account rep gave me two companies in my area:

    Specialty Products & Insulation
    1301 Laura Lane
    Lake Bluff, IL 60044
    847-362-0925

    Insulation Fabricators Inc.
    2501 E 165th Street
    Hammond IN 46320
    219-845-2008

    Also, they do produce the same product in a "brick" sized pre-cut piece called GRiLLBRiCK™ , more information available at www.grill-brick.com.
     
  14. jorgepease
    Joined: Feb 2012
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    Location: Florida

    jorgepease Senior Member

    That's excellent!!!! When I did a search I could only find high volume distributors!
     

  15. Steve W
    Joined: Jul 2004
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    Location: Duluth, Minnesota

    Steve W Senior Member

    That's great, im the guy who mentioned it way back in the thread. I have been using fartrock since 1980 but have not bought any for a few years, we used to get it from Seeman composites and then from a local building supply wholesaler but they no longer carry it. What we bought was 18" x 24" x 4" slabs 5 to a carton.

    Steve.
     
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