June » 2012 » Scout blog

There has been alot of work on the front end of the boat in the last few days. We’ve constructed foremost section of the bow separate from the main hull to act as a crumple zone in case of an impact at sea. Starting with a block of foam the bow is now fully laminated and it won’t be long until it can go out for painting.

Max fitting the nose blank

Ricky shaping the bow

Bow filled and faired, ready to be covered in carbon.

Fresh out of the bag, the bow is ready for final fairing before the boat gets painted.

Additionally most of the flanges have been mounted, meaning the deck is almost ready to be fitted, and the process of casting the keels bulb has started. More on that very soon.

Bow segment

June 18, 2012 Other

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Dylan and Dan sanded and refinished the bow section, because the vacuum pump was unable to keep up with leaks during the hull lamination and the carbon formed radii at the corners instead of flattening to the shape of the corners. It’s under vacuum and heat now, and will be cured in three or four hours.

There’s never a bad time to discuss Scout.

June 14, 2012 Pictures

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Keel, Rudder, Puzzle Completion…..

June 13, 2012 Composites / Hull / Other / Pictures / Work

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This update covers the last three nights.

Sunday

Max measures keel laminates. The keel is made with 80 layers of carbon. The outermost unidirectional layers of carbon fiber are oriented longitudinally for increased stiffness and strength.

While Max oversees the operation, Brendan mixes epoxy and Mike and Dan simultaneously build opposing sides of the keel

Pealply is applied to the keel laminates.

We put breather on top of the laminates to let the vacuum pump pull an even vacuum. Note the bridge of breather near Brendan. Dan and Brendan prepare the bag.

Vacuum bag applied with vacuum sealing tape. The vacuum will decrease voids in the laminates and increase fiber volume fraction, thus increasing specific modulus and strength.

Max, Dan, and Brendan check for leaks.

Monday

Max drilled the hole for the motor shaft to go through, and begins building the motor mount with Divinycell and carbon.

Max builds part of the motor mount with Corecell

Dan uses a pneumatic cutting wheel to cut extra material from the motor shaft

The motor mount. The blue tape is used to protect the rest of the carbon when putting in fillets. The fillet material that we're using is epoxy mixed with a high density filler.

Max begins to shape the rudder. Built with a birch plywood core, it's laminated with three layers of carbon fiber and has unidirectional carbon reinforcements.

Tuesday

Max cuts carbon for the rudder. The rudder, like the keel, hull, and deck, will be vacuum bagged.

The keel comes out of the vacuum bag. Max is mixing epoxy with high density filler which he'll apply to both halves of the keel.

Max applies the epoxy to one side of the keel

Brendan mixes the epoxy for the keel

Weights are used to secure the keel. We don't clamp it because we don't want to displace all of the epoxy. Not seen here are stabilizing clamps that keep the assembly from sliding on the epoxy.

Matt and Max prepare carbon to reinforce the motor mounts.

Dan prepares the motor mount fillets for carbon strips.

Lucy, our professional puzzle maker, puts the finishing touches on her latest puzzle.

Girl Scouts

June 12, 2012 Other / Pictures

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It’s been a bit more than a year since we started the Scout project, and we’ve all learned a lot from it so far. Of course, Scout takes up a bunch of our time. And since it’s the summer, we’d usually have a bit more free time to do things besides Scout. Our friends had become used to a certain level of neighborhood activities, whether they be late night sailing, meals together, hiking, or fires on the beach.

Some of these friends are working on Scout with us. The ones that aren’t, however, have become less excited about Scout because we spend so much time on it. They call themselves “The Girl Scouts”.

SCOUT Open House

June 10, 2012 Other

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This Wednesday, come join us at 7:00 PM (June 13th) , for an open house to view our progress on SCOUT. The crew will be here to answer any of your questions. The headquarters are located at 60 Nonquit Lane in Tiverton, RI.

Carbon on the hull

June 6, 2012 Composites / Hull / Pictures / Work

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First, a note about low picture quality- we did this to minimize filesize for those whom get these blog posts delivered to their email. Full res photos at blog.gotransat.com

Last night, we started and finished the process of applying carbon fiber to the exterior of the hull.

First, Max got the crew together to go over some of the details of the process. Because we vacuum bagged the hull, some steps needed to be changed from what we’d usually do. Brendan made some stands for the hull to secure it during the process.

Max and Matt mix epoxy with 407 low density filler to fill gaps and cracks between the foam strips- increasing strength of the joints while maintaining a low density structure.

The filling compound, fully mixed, has the consistency of ketchup.

Max, Dan, Teresa, Brendan, and Nate apply filling compound.

Max, bred to eliminate weight at every opportunity, follows after everyone else to make sure that they didn’t leave any extra filler on the foam.

Left to right: Teresa and Lucy (the only two girls in the neighborhood whom haven’t joined the TransCat resistance group)

After the gaps have been filled, Dan, Max, and Dylan begin rolling epoxy onto the foam. We do this to fill the pores of the foam so that the carbon will take less time to saturate and will stick to the surface easily.

The process of laminating 5.8oz carbon fiber to the hull begins

Max and Dylan use foam rollers to apply epoxy to the carbon in order to saturate the fabric and prepare it for the next layer of carbon.

After two layers of carbon, we applied pealply; a fabric designed to, upon application of a vacuum, flatten fibers and prepare the surface for the application of paint.

After applying a breather material to maintain an even vacuum, Mike, Dan, and Matt prepare the vacuum bag.

The vacuum bag will allow for a 13 PSI vacuum to be pulled on the hull, which pulls excess resin into the pealply and breather.

Tacky Tape is used to seal the bag to the hull.

Because of the size of the bag relative to the size of the vacuum pump, it’s important to minimize leaks- a drop of even a few PSI can compromise the process. It is the job of the vacuum not only to reduce excess resin, but to pull the carbon to the foam and ensure that the carbon forms corners well.