Tuesday 11 May 2010

It looks like a boat, almost



With bow and stern shaped it is time to turn the hull over . So I took it of the skinning frame and put it on the table.
I contrast to the pictures by Tom my hull does not keep shape without the sponsoons inflated. Another problem is that I made the hull material slightly on the short side, so I tried to use clamps at the bow and stern tubes. These do not hold, so the bow and stern tube slide out of the hull. I finally solved this by using small screw clamps.
The loss of shape probably is due to the fact that I use the sewn sleeve method. The hull now essentially is a flat piece of PVC. With PVC sleeves the sleeves are more rigid and keep the hull in shape. Next step is putting in the sponsons. I use masking tape to tape the sponson to a side stringer.

And then I fold the sponson and insert it into the sleeve:

After some fiddling all sponsons are at the correct locations.
And this is a horrible image of what it looks like with the sponsons inflated and the hull taped.
Taping is another subject of importance. I tried two brands of duct tape, two types of masking tape and packing tape to keep the hull in shape. I wanted to avoid glueing straps over the hull.
To no avail: ALL tape lost its bond with the hull after some time, exept the packing tape. Instead, the packing tape just broke, and left a horrible glue residue.
In the end I used so brandless masking tape (P&P, says the roll) that has the best bond without leaving much residue. But the glued strips are required.

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