D.O.A

Well that doesn't happen too often, but the electronic stethoscope I ordered from Amazon arrived  "Dead on Arrival". It was well packaged and I can see no damage to the box at all.

That's unfortunate, because it'll set me back at least a week and I'm not even sure if it'll provide any value whatsoever.

And to make matters worse, Amazon says this item can't be returned the "normal" way because it requires "special handling". I had to send them an email and will have to wait 12-24 hours for a response.

I guess I'll be shifting my attention to the other float until we get this sorted out.

Note: I spent another hour last night listening for leaks - No dice...

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Update:
Less than twenty minutes after filling out the return email, I received a reply from Amazon that they were shipping out a replacement at No Charge.

So how's THAT for customer service!?
:)
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Chasing Leaks

Most of Friday was spent taping on the vacuum film after finishing up the infusion stack.
I fired up the pump and started pulling it down to get an idea of what I might be up against this time around.

I was able to quickly isolate and rub out a few leaks around the sealant tape area, but that didn't do much for me as I was still sitting at near 135mb. I then located a pretty big leak below the foam along a seam and simply cut away a piece of the batten to get to it and plug it with some putty.

That one leak brought be down to 75mb, but I was done for the day and it was high time to clean the shop! I've been putting that off for a couple of weeks now because I didn't want to kick up a lot of dust that would contaminate the fabrics. But now that I had a layer of vacuum film over the float it was safe to do some cleaning. I got all my tools put away and the floors swept up before shutting off the lights for the evening.

The next morning I had set a goal of locating and fixing one leak before hitting the swimming pool with the family. With that in mind, I rigged the pump for "silent running" (I pushed it outside and closed the door) and then brought my 8yo Austen into the shop to help me find a leak. We found and fixed one which brought me down to 51mb and then quickly found another one which brought me down to 31mb. Both of these leaks were below the foam along a seam.

With that done, I hit the pool for a few hours before spending the next five hours over two days going over the entire hull with no further success. The remaining leak(s) are pretty big since I lose vacuum really fast, but I'm guessing it must be a nice clean hole or something because I cannot hear any turbulence whatsoever.

I did some research on my options and I'm taking a chance on an "electronic mechanics stethoscope".
It's not an Ultrasonic Noise Detector (which only works on the very small leaks that are inaudible to humans), but rather it simply amplifies sound across all frequencies using a directional microphone. If that doesn't help, I guess I can just return it...

My idea is:
 - Normal Hearing (my ears)
 - Enhanced Hearing (the electronic stethoscope)
 - Super Hearing (the Ultrasonic Detector)

I plan on spending the rest of this week looking for the leak(s), but in the end I may have to just shoot the float and patch the leaks along the way by locating the bubble trail. I do have the ability to insert a localized vacuum source to pull resin back into those areas and I can use a syringe filled with epoxy to insert resin if necessary. However, I'd like to avoid that if at all possible.

In the absolute worse case scenario - i.e the whole float is a foaming bubbly mess, I guess I can just shut it down and rip everything off. Then squeegee down the float surface and go to bed cursing.

:/

Last of the stack in place before adding the lines and vacuum film

Lines and Vacuum film in place - pulling it down and checking for leaks

My daughter Leanna found a leak behind this batten

Removed a section of batten before cutting in a V-Notch and packing with putty to seal it up.
This area actually had another leak down further which resulted in three battens being cut out of the way to allow room for patching.
(Sorry for the blurry pic)

Some Fabric - Finally!

Well, that took a lot longer than expected!

Last week I took a shop light and placed it in the hull to throw some light across the surface of the float making it easier to see the little dents and seam areas that needed some extra fill.
Overall, not much to report there, I added a few extra grams of filler to fix a few spots and was cleaning up within an hour.

So this weekend started early Saturday morning with a final sanding and surface preparation with an air nozzle and vacuum cleaner. Once that was done, I left the shop for brunch and let the dust settle down before going back for one final cleanup. Once that was done I pushed the fabric rack over and was finally getting things ready to pull the first layer of fabric down the length of the float hull.

I was a bit concerned that the material might snag on something and get some runs, so I almost ran down the length of the float to keep it high in the air and moving quickly. That was probably not necessary, but it worked well enough!

:)

So the job itself was enjoyable and a milestone of sorts and it made me so happy to finally see some fabric on the float! But for whatever reason I assumed this job would take no more than two to three hours. So when eight hours had passed and I was finally turning off the lights for the day I was a bit discouraged but pleased with how well it was turning out.

The more I work on this project, the more respect I gain for others that have gone before me and built these beautiful boats with their own hands. I realize more and more how much time, care and dedication is actually involved in a project of this scale.

Anyway, the next day was spent working on placing the vacuum infusion materials.
At this point, I have the peel-ply, perforated film and one full width of resin flow media in place and taped down. Tonight or tomorrow I'll start working on getting the other two pieces of resin flow laid down and secured. Then comes the Enka-Fusion and finally the tacky tape and vacuum bag.

All this work is being done with a big "unknown" in the back of myhead regarding the vacuum integrity of the structure. Every time you put in a staple you question whether or not you just hit a screw from the other side which will result in a leak...Then you start wondering how you plan to fix that leak once it's detected.

I guess I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

Final sanding and inspection.
This is the last chance to make sure the foam is right before laying on the fabrics.

The first layer of glass.
Pretty exciting if you ask me.

At this point I realized that I had forgotten to lay in a 13oz. section of Carbon to tie in with the other half of the float to reinforce the flat topped walking area.
This addition didn't really take too long.

The first layer is all smoothed in and stapled into position along the side.
It takes a LONG time to smooth down the fabric and make sure the fibers run true.

Second layer is in place with a 4" (100mm) overlap to ensure a good bond and some additional strength near the waterline.

Reinforcements applied at beam intersections and along the middle of the float.

The thinner section calls for a layer of 45/45 (DBX) 18oz.
I didn't have that, so I used two layers of 12oz.

More Stronger  :)
More Heavy :(

Base layers all done for now

The Stringer is now laid in place and pushed back from frame one by 6" (150mm)

The aft end of the stringer is located by the bulkhead itself.
In this case, I don't actually have the bulkheads built yet, so I made a cardboard cut-out from the Full-Sized Plans for both the fore and aft bulkheads.
You'll notice that the bulkhead is a bit smaller than the float, that's because the float is built a bit over-sized at the moment to accommodate the Resin-Infusion process.
It will be cut down to size later on.

Many staples in place to secure the stringer and fabric down to the surface of the float.
I rounded off the free corners of the fabric

This area is where the center bulkhead will be positioned.
Again, the plans call for 18oz DBX.
I used two layers of 12oz DBX

All fabrics now laid into place.
After consulting the plans a few more times to ensure everything was in place I was ready for a break and then start on the layer of peel-ply

Peel-ply laid into position.
This material can be difficult to work with due to the curves and angles that must be accommodated.

Perforated film pulled into position and ready to be secured in place.
I did end up getting this done, but no pictures yet.

A little bit of work to report.

I was hoping to get more done this past weekend, but for whatever reason it just didn't happen.
I did get the large radius filet plus a 5" (125mm) wide piece of 12oz DBX fabric laid up on the inside corner of the flat topped area and float side. I also got the first lo-density top coat applied, but I ended up with a set back that needs to be fixed before moving on.

So backtracking a little bit, the last time I ordered a batch of laminating epoxy I made a mistake on the last digit of the hardener formulation which resulted in some 9226B arriving instead of the intended 9227B. And why did I do that you ask? Because my very own "Vendor Notes" page had the incorrect information.. (Doh!)
At any rate, the epoxy blend itself is actually a bit stronger than what I intended to order, but the gel time is eight hours instead of two. I also had to change the mix ratio a bit (100:27 instead of 100:28). What I didn't take into account was the filler ratio adjustments that were required and ended up with some draining on the vertical fills. That drainage resulted in some pooling at the bottom of the float.
I was lucky to catch it the first time and since the resin was starting to set up I was able to remove the excess by scraping with a drywall knife. That cleaned up most of the pooling and I assumed the rest of the fill was stiff enough to stay put. Well, I was wrong and ended up with a few areas that pooled up again (but not nearly as bad as the first time). Those areas will need some sanding before I can proceed with the second skim coat. I think what happened was the longer cure time combined with all those micro-balloon "ball bearings" just allowed the mix to slump more than expected.

The good news is that I'm almost done with that batch of epoxy.
I contacted the distributor this morning to order up another shipment of laminating and infusion resin.

Moving on to infusing the float halves, I plan on getting the final interior sanding/smoothing done this weekend so I can start working on laying up the fabrics and getting the infusion lines in place. My biggest concern at the moment is chasing leaks. I've been very fortunate so far in fixing the small leaks on table top infusions. The hull will be a whole new challenge and depending on how the first infusion goes I'm sure I'll need to make some adjustments to the infusion layout for the second half.

Once that's all done I'll start building out the bulkheads.

For the infusion itself, I plan to use the "Serial Infusion" process shown here.
It seems to be really simple with the only real variable being the distance between the parallel feed lines, but even that seems to be fairly intuitive. The big advantage I can see (in my novice opinion) is the ability to simply scrap the whole process right in the middle of the job. So, say if something catastrophic happened, you could literally shut off the pump, cut out the wet fabric and clean up the foam while leaving the other half of the layup undisturbed and in place for a second try.

I also tried to cut the beam anchors, but even with a replacement diamond blade on my table saw it just simply wasn't doing the job. If I had access to a large wet/tile saw, I'm sure that would work just fine, but since I don't have that, those will go to the machine shop instead for some water-jet cutting.

The large radius filet joining the inside edge of the float with the inside edge of the "flat topped" walking surface.
The exterior corner of this angle is where the lashing tube is located and where the nets will eventually be installed.

Still covered in peel-ply

Starboard Float Inner half foam installed

Fourth of July weekend!

We finally got the fence all stained and after one more walk-through with a touch up brush I'll be able to mark that project off the list. The pool is now installed and filled, but is a bit too cool to enjoy - plus the water color is a bit yellow due to high iron content in our water supply. Another learning curve for me as I figure out what chemicals are needed to clear it up.

We did get to see three fireworks shows around the area, so that was a lot of fun!

And I finally got the rest of the foam laid down on the inner half of the starboard float.
I really like working with the foam, it's labor intensive, but you can see so much progress. It feels as if you are actually accomplishing something. After securing it all in place from the backside, I run an air-file across the surface with some 32-grit which does a quick job of smoothing out the edges and getting things in line. Afterwards, I follow up with some 80-grit to clean it up before cutting in the bevels between the sheets for the first pass of Hi-Density fill. This first layer is just to glue the planks together and provide a solid base for the Lo-Density top coat. When that is cured, it all gets sanded over with 80-grit in preparation for the fabric layup.

Unfortunately, it appears that so far I've been out-working my project budget. I need another shipment of epoxy to continue so while I wait around for those funds to be available, I guess I'll start working on putting the beam molds together.

Final plank temporarily held in position to mark the lower sheets for trimming

Marked for cutting

The foam is very easy to work with
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Note to self:
Next time, don't put so many batten butt joints in one place as it makes it difficult to secure from the backside

All ready for securing on the backside and trimming the excess

All done except for the trimming of that step piece

Step piece trimmed (far side)

I have built in an extra 3" (75mm) on the edges to accommodate the Resin Infusion lines.
The upper edge of the Carbon Fiber layer is the actual cut line of the float

Edges milled to receive the first layer of Hi-Density fill.

Hi-Density (4% Glass - 9% Cabosil) mixture is laid up between the planks and tooled out before leaving to cure.
In this picture you can see the color differences between the two boxes of foam I received.
The lighter colored piece was from the first shipment, while the darker colored ones are from the second shipment.
(Both shipments were CoreCell M-80)

Once the Hi-Density is cured, I'll make a light pass with the air file before applying the Lo-Density top coat.