Honeycomb - Dream or Nightmare

A customer came in today saying that he was building a boat.
Me being curios asked about how he was gonna build it.

He said that he'll be using fiberglass and honeycomb.

Me knowing that honeycomb is plastic has come to the question...

Can you build a safe boat using honeycomb for the hull ?
Won't the plastic melt because of the fiberglass and resin ?
What kind of weight can you even put on a boat that exists only of fiberglass and plastic ?

I assume the boat will be a 15 ft skiff that'll be used as a small engine powered fishing boat.

 

Fibreglass laminate is mostly plastic. So no problem there. Using "honeycomb" structures is a way of getting high stiffness with minimum weight, but you have a lot of voids that could become a home for water, when used in or around water.

 

A big hassle will be every item that needs to go thru the material.

Stanchon bases , fuel fill , windlass mounts , everything will be a big PIA to not crush or allow water into the layup.

 

never saw a fishing skiff with stanchon bases, windlass mounts, using a outboard. hmm, must be a sailboat. what do I know, I am old an can't read right.

Outlaw

 

Let us hope that the builder is the consummate craftsman. Honeycomb has weight advantages along with the numerous pitfalls with which the builder will be obliged to address. May the force be with him. Sure, It can be done but why bother with such sophistication for a 15 foot fishing skiff?

Glass over ply is much less intimidating.

 

Honeycomb describes just the geometric properties, not the material.
Some plastics dissolve in polyester resin like a lump of sugar in hot coffee, others do not.

If the guy uses epoxy resin he has nothing to worry about.

 

A lot of industrial honeycombs are not "plastic", and a few are; there are honeycombs in aluminum, stainless steel, exotic metals, cellulose paper, aramid paper, phenolic paper, low density thermoplastics, high density thermoplastics etc etc I have surely forgotten some. Of what honeycomb are you talking about? The ordinary one in high density polyethylene? known as Nidacore?

To struggle with honeycomb on a 15 ft fishing boat is truly for a complicated mind, or a not experienced guy...on 15 feet there is not hope of great savings of weight compared to a plywood epoxy one, or even monolithic polyester. That I'm sure it is that will cost 2 to three times more, and at least twice the job.

Some people pay girls in black leather boots to be whipped... so I understand the masochistic needs of some boatbuilders.

A 15ft fishing skiff is a thing of little value, so simplicity and cheapness are the main qualities. I'm sure the the Craig is full of ads of small fishing boats with 10 to 25 hp outboards for ridiculously low prices in these hard times.

 

Alright, thanks for the advice's guys.
The builder will be using the ordinary polyethylene one.