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basalt Innegra tandem tripper.

Even 1/8” would be enough
1/2” is crazy overkill
but wait. Didn’t you say you had some 1/2” foam?
your hull looks great and with the foam cored floor it will be much stiffer than any production boat
when you’re all done are you gonna tally up your material costs for us?
 
Great way to fix up the stems ! Only you will know it !

I'm about ready to glass my chambers. Pink foam is NOT the best choice, but it was handy. I glassed with one layer of 9 oz S-glass, to hold the shape. It was cut to fit. Then it will get covered with Kevlar, when installed in the hull.

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I'd agree with Stripperguy, the 1/8" foam in combination should be plenty strong !
 
Well I’m not a great accountant, but I’m coming up on a grand right now. I’ll try to tally at the end. One figure for the wife and one for you guys.
 

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It looks like the divinicell should follow the contour of your hull good.

Vacumm bagging ?

A grand is pretty close, with all the layers of expensive cloth and resin.

The carbon rods for thwarts ?

A good wife will understand, especially if you say, you could have spent the money in a bar ! Ha !

Coming along nicely ! Looks better than mine !

Jim
 
Even at $1,000 or so, you've still cut your costs compared to a production boat by what? Maybe $3,500? By my accounting (I'm a former toolmaker and design engineer) you could build nearly 4 boats for the cost of one similar production boat! I'd call that a win, win, win. One win for your cost savings, one win for the enjoyment of building, and one win for the rest of gaining the benefit of your experiments and techniques.

I'll bet you're itching to get it in the water...
 
Somehow I managed to delete most of my last post. Not sure what valuable information was forever lost there. Oh well.

My next challenge is to get this floor nailed down. I’ve got a couple questions on that. Should I try to heat shape the foam first then epoxy it down afterwards? Or just throw all the emergency rations of beans and rice on it cold and epoxy it down?
Also, should I thicken the epoxy a little to glue it down or just leave it normal thinness?

Vaccuuming? Nope. I haven’t evolved that far yet. Just ask that good wife we were talking about !
 

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OK ! Here is how I did my 1/8" strip bottom, and it has worked great.

I would do it the same way with your foam !

First tape (2") around the perimeter of your foam,as it lays in the hull., You want it to be put back the same place, when you epoxy it

Scuff the bottom of the hull lightly with course sand paper, within the the taped area.

Support the hull !!! I failed to do this Once ! Spent a lot of time repairing ! If your gunnels are on, this will help some too !

I mixed epoxy ( two 9 oz batches) and cabo o sil (The light fluffy stuff.) Spread it out, again inside the perimeter of the tape.

Lay your foam on top ! Cover with plastic ! I used 3 mil plastic. Make sure to use enough plastic to run up and over the sides of the hull.

Fill this plastic cover with sand. The weight of the sand will hold the foam against the epoxy. Poor Man's Vacumm bagging !

How much Sand ? 2 - 300 # is about what I used on my solos.

A day or two later (Later is better) scupe out the sand and lift out the plastic, and you are done, except feather the edge of your foam before adding your layer of carbon, or what ever !

Mix ? How much epoxy do you need ? I used 18 oz for my solos. Squeeze out wasn't a problem, but it seemed like enough epoxy to do the job. Divinicell should show better if you had enough ! It will soak up a lot more resin because of all the slits in it. For your hull I'd mix maybe 3, 9 oz batches.

It worked for me, and I'll do it again

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Jim
 
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Yes, if you can preform your Divinicel, go for it !

You probably won't need as much sand !

Jim
 
Could you lay the divinycell scrimed/scored side down to curve easier and have a flat top to lay cloth on? Also asking for a friend...
 
Ya. Its so flexible the scores stuff drapes either way easily. I’m only using it on the ends because I’m running out of the 1/2” flat stuf and I think the scores will soak up more resin. But the 1/2” is gonna need some sand or something like Jim said to get it down. I tried heating it up, but I do t have the btu to do it.
 
Maybe try to score a scrap piece of the 1/2" foam, a 1/4" deep, an inch apart, lengthwise. Then see if it will follow the shape of your mold ?

Just a thought.

If it works, at least one side of the foam wouldn't soak up as much resin. And that would be the topside.

Jim
 
My yoke. It’s made from 1/2” divinycell. I put an 8 oz,1 1/2” carbon sleeve on it and three layers of 5 oz carbon on both sides. It weight 9 oz and apparently holds 67 #.
 

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Well I’ve been a little busy for a good right up, but here’s where I’m at now. One thing for sure, that 1/2” floor was disagreeable to say the least. And the scored foam went down without any issues. I think I’m the future I’ll use the scored stuff regardless of extra resin it might soak up. Decks are capped. Thwarts and yoke temporarily in place. Now I’m waiting on angle carbon for mounts. Then I’ll put the inner carbon fabric layer.
 

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It’s looking really good you’re definitely in the homestretch
in what way was the 1/2” disagreeable?
and do you know which scoring was in the other stuff? There are several different scorings available.
i don’t remember if you’re doing any inwales from the looks of it, no?
 
The 1/2” foam is so stiff that in order to get it to conform to the hull, I ended up deforming the hull. In the end, it ended up good. The scored foam is scored on a 1” grid. It’s 1/4” thick. I do have small inwhales.

i had a lot of cosmetic defects close to the gunwales. And I sanded though my carbon on the gunwales in several spots. So I decided to try to wrap it all with a 6” carbon tape. I was able to get the first couple wraps ok, but unable to get it all the way around the curves of the inwhales. Hopefully, I can cover this with my inner layer of carbon. It’s sittting at 37# for now.
 

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