Friday, January 21, 2011

Restarting mast build

After a few days of cleaning up in the workshop (everything was covered in dust of course) I restarted the mast build.  The lay up is modified, about 40% lighter than in the disastrous previous infusion.

I have re-waxed the mould, cut carbon and foam, made up the tube for the sail track (they come in 4m lengths and require an air tight join) and placed these pieces in the mould under a layer of peel ply.  I will continue with release film, resin distribution material, spiral tubes and hosing and then, very meticulously, place a new bag over it all.  And then....


The pain guys have been really busy, and I'm not about to launch anyway, so the floats have been down prioritized.  But they might get their colour tomorrow.  Pictures to be published as soon as there are any.

4 comments:

MartinF said...

What kind of releasefilm to use with infusion? I did the mainhull outside with infusion, went really well but I did not use a releasefilm so a real struggle to get the net removed, had to tear of the peelply to remove it.

Great color for the boat!!

Tor Rabe said...

Martin!

I don't know a name other than release film, it's a thin cellophane like perforated plastic that makes removing the net a charm. No stretch though, and tears really easy, so it's a bit of a struggle to work with. I buy by rolls 1 x 100 m

MartinF said...

It sounds like the same as I am using for normal vacuum bagging, I just thought that the resin would be difficult to get through the (small)holes the other way so to speak (from the net into the cloth). Maybe I should just do a test before infusion the other half of the main hull. And they do not use release film at my workplace, Mathis Værft in Aalborg where we build offshore RIBS in carbon and foam. I just presumed that was the way to do it.
My blog is not doing to well sorry to say but I am still building, will try to do some update soon. You write your blog all the time thanks!!

Tor Rabe said...

Yes I use the same for vacuum bagging. I do not use it with infusion with routed foam, where the distribution is within the foam core. No problem with resin penetration provided you are using a low viscosity epoxy. I have tried a couple of systems and prefer SP Prime 20LV for infusion.

Would love to see an update on your blog!