Graduation for non-graduated measuring cups

Express composite sold me some nice PET graduated mixing cups. I severely underestimated how many i needed so about half way in i was forced to use non graduated cups that I filled using my last graduated cup. Way messier than I liked... On a trip to Wallyworld last night i found that they sold Solo cups made from PET also so i bought a bag thinking i could measure with the fancy graduated cups but mix in the reusable one. The regular white/red ones does not work since the styrene melts them PET seems to hold up well..

SOLO cups from Wal-Mart.

Made from PETE. 

What struck me was how well they nested so then i came up with the idea that i could use a graduated outer cup as a scale and reuse that.

I put a strip of masking tape on the outer cup and then i dropped an empty cup inside. Using a graduated cylinder i filled the inner cup to 50, 100, 150 and 200ml and marked each level with a permanent marker

I like to use ml since the syringe I use for the MEKP is also graduated in ml.

When mixing resin i drop a fresh cup inside the template cup and fill to the mark before lifting it out and adding catalyst.

150ml fresh resin...

After using most of it i left about 30 ml to harden in the cup and it seems totally unaffected

General hull repairs.

I have been altering between structural reconstructions of the bow, the bow eye and now the gunwale with general patches of the hull. I'm getting pretty close to done underneath. (or at least done with the repairs, I still need to glass over the bottom. The laminate is to thin and I need to be able to handle some rock interaction while crabbing.

Most of the ideas on how to work the mat and resin I got from Andy Miller and his blog/youtube channel  Boatworks Today. http://boatworkstoday.com/

I also got a lot of good advice and suggestions from the guys at Mertons fiberglass. http://www.mertons.com/  Most of the material I got from them and from Express composites.

As shown in the picture there were quite a few patches done over the last 52 years..

Bottom is getting close to be ready for a coat of glass.

Most of the repairs were not undercut as whaler instructs but simply cut out using a abrasive saw and then patched and covered with weave

This is what one find after peeling of a few layers of glass.. I wish the dude could at least have tried to put the cutting blade on the side and at least tried to blend the repairs..

Typical hack repair.

About 2 minutes with the multi tool and the orbital sander, 15 minutes of messing with mat and resin and then sanding and filling with some more mat and glass and it looks like it is going to hold up.

Finished repair of the repair.

Most patches I digged out the foam and filled with new 2 lb foam that I got form Merton.  The vinyl resin does not cure against moist foam and if there has been any ingress of water it is hard to be sure that it is dry. It is also very fun to play with the foam.

Fresh foam sanded down with 36 grit on dewalt orbital sander with vacuum hose attached.

After I get the foam flush I sand it down a little and then I undercut with the carbide sanding blade on the multi tool.

The edges are undercut with the carbide tip on the multi tool. (this is actually an area where I did not re-foam.)

Laminate laid up, as you can see there are some voids, Those are ground out using a small disc sander and filled with Merton's Deck and Hull putty (milled glass and vinyl resin). http://www.mertons.com/Epoxy/polyester_Resins/putty.html
After i started to use this putty  as filler i realized how well it works filling under the glass lip when fixing holes . Its much better than trying to make mash of csm fibers.

After sanding and possibly a few more layers the patches blend in very well. 

Gunwale repair

A section of the gunwale did not have the groove and was obviously repaired. I thought that someone had just repaired a crack by filling the groove under the gunwale but boy, were I wrong..

Port side gunwale after initial sanding.

My game plan was to grind down the groove and recreate the shape using deck and hull putty but as soon as I put the grinder to it I again found wood...  

It is basically a piece of pine bridging a section of the gunwale.

 To remove it I used my trusty multi tool from Harbor Freight and after cutting into it in multiple locations I was able to remove the wood. Under the wood there was a layer of what can be filler or possible the stuff whaler join the hull and deck with. Not really sure.

Wood, moist foam and grime removed. Now I will put the heat lamp and fan on it for a day to make sure it is very dry. Then i need to test bond against the gray stuff.

After chipping off a piece of the gray stuff I learned that the "gray stuff" is not Whaler matter but a rather soft filler that is not that well adhered to the glass under it. It also became evident that the to of the gunwale had a layer of weave on top.

It seems like the repair was made by sticking the wood to the side, filling with gray stuff and put weave over it..

Teh old filler was possible to remove it by slipping a knife under it.

Who would have guessed.  More Weave...

After removing it i sanded the inside and cleaned the foam. One thing i learned is that a multi tool is great for sanding backsides of laminates.

Sanding of backside of glass. 

This removes all old foam and gives a better substrate. The triangular carbide tip is the tool i like best. Its very aggressive and it works very good in undercutting the foam and cleaning the backside.

Carbide sanding tip from Harbor Freight

Junk removed, now it time to figure how to build the structure back up.

All cleaned out and ready to build on. I don't care about the outer part that is a poorly adhered layer of glass weave.. That will be ripped out and glassed once i flip her over.

To build up the perimeter i took a piece aluminum angle of the silly-putty material home depot sell. I flipped it upside down and formed it to the starboard side.

Aluminum angle flipped over and formed to the gunwale on the port side.

Once i put this on the port side i will have a matching shape. I will paint the inside with PVA and fill the gap with fairing compound before laying the glass.

After the PVA dried i clamped the aluminum angle to the gunwale and filleted the inside corner with Merton's Hull and Deck putty. This hopefully prevent eggshellling when i lay up the glass and makes it easier to sand. Its non waxed so in a way, its like fiber filled gelcoat.

Merton's hull and deck putty is a fibrius filler that seem to stick better than the stuff i tried to make from CSM rippings recommended in the old whaler repair instructions that are floating around.

Here is the aluminum angle in place.

Here is the filleted corner. I also smoothed the underside of the weave. I will be sanding into this later but laying the glass on a smooth surface will reduce the risk of sanding through

After the Hull and Deck putty had hardened some i laid in three layers of 1-1/2 oz mat. I let the mat go slightly above the mold rail. Thanks to the fillet i made from the putty it was quite easy to wet the mat even in that tight spot.

After i got the glass done i created a dam with tape. I use 3M's outdoor masking tape, its fantastic to work with.

My first foam test was with 2 lb foam but that wad not hard enough so i ripped that out an bought some 6 lb foam from Merton's fiberglass and tried again.

I first poured a thinner layer of foam and while it was expanding i was managing it so i had some holes where i could inject a second batch so it could expand up under the glass of the side.

 

After it was fully hard i formed it to match the old gunwale.

The new fresh foam ready for undercutting and glass.

In this location and with the hard 6 lb foam under I did a lesser undercut. For this I used a sharpened bent screwdriver that I removed about 3/8 wide, 1/8 thick layer. I then sanded it with a folded 40 grit paper.

The sculpted foam undercut for the Morton's Hull and Deck Putty.,

Before adding glass I filled the undercut with the Hull and Deck putty. It would been terrible hard to work with the SCM strands in this place. Maybe a mash made from 1/4" chops could work but this stuff is very strong and is easy to work with.

Undercut filled with Merton's Hull and Deck Putty.

As soon as I filled the undercut I mixed up a batch of Vinyl ester and laminated 2 layers of 1-1/2 CSM over it. My plan is to sand this and then put two more layers over it.

Repair covered with the first layer of CSM.

After wetting out the mat I used a regular roller to compact the CSM. I wish I had a corner roller at this point.

Rolling down the CSM around the edge.

The Bow Repair

The bow looked a bit suspicious with a bit of a droop on the port side and some unevenness. I thought that they might have banged in to something and filled the cracs with some filler but it was a bit more involved...

The bow has been repaired by someone pinning a piece of wood using long dowels and then glassing over it with weave.  

First step was to dig the old slightly moist foam out and pour fresh 2 lb foam in its place.

After sanding the foam I taped the wood with thin duct tape 

and laid a single layer of 1-1/2 mat over it.

Since it is only one layer it was quite easy to wrap it under the lip

After the fist layer had set I added three more layers to get some rigidity to it.

I was thinking a bit on what to do next, I needed some sort of mold release. I had PVA but I had no experience with it as mold release agent. I used it to cover laminating resin to reduce tackiness when cured. What I came to think of is that resin basically sticks very poorly to about everything but well prepped resin but since my mold was a fresh piece of Resin I was a bit worried. What I di then was to basically give it two coats of regular red spray paint and after that cured I sprayed it with a few layers of PVA.

After the resin cured I pryed the mold of the tape, I painted it inside with Krylon and then a layer of PVA as mold release

After the mold was finished I pryed the old wood out of there leaving the top glass layer so I had something to build from.

After cleaning it up it is easy to see that the guy repairing it had simply cut the bow and put the wood right against the cut line.

As you can see here there is a bit of a droop towards the front. I was trying to flatten it but it was to stiff so I will need to deal with that later when I do the top of the boat.

The glass was tapered on all the edges so that the new and old glass is able to form a good joint.

Mold is held in place with a few clams and by a soft pad from the bottom.

As you can see here there is a gap between the mold and the old glass.

The old glass was sealed to the mold with fairing compound, If I did it over I would use the Hull and Deck putty I been using lately.

After the fairing compound was starting to set I laminated up 4 layers of 1-1/2oz csm  mat
and let that cure before popping off the mold.

Some very small sheets of spray paint flaked off but that has no implications since this will be sanded.

Excess glass sanded down and it looks pretty reasonable.

After sanding the raw edge and filling the corner with deck putty and glas+resin it is ready for the foam.

Before pouring the foam i looked closer at the other side before i stopped myself i tore that side and rebuild that also..,

I cut the lower flange off the old mold, flipped it over and used 3M outdoor masking tape on the bottom. I used the hull and deck putty to make a fillet in the tape-mold corner and when was that set i laminated it with csm an vinyl ester. 

Here I got both sides glassed and it is ready for foam.

Initially I used 2 lb foam but after working on the gunwale I concluded that the 2 lb stuff is to soft and is hard to work with so I got a 6lb foam kit that gives a harder, easily shaped foam that also provide better strength.

I poured the foam in three rounds waiting about 15 min between each layer. I use a disposable brush to make sure I wet all surfaces. The foam does not stick well against surfaces later in the expansion process when it starts to skin.

Three rounds of foam, 100ml first, followed by a 200ml batch and then a 100ml batch that I injected with a syringe in the voids under the lip. That is why you see balls of foam in a few locations.

To shape the foam i used the Harbor freight multi tool with a knife blade. It allows for relatively easy shaving of the foam and creates less mess than cutting with a hack saw blade.

After shaping with the multi tool I quickly sanded with the orbital sander and vacuumed it.

Overall it was pretty good but there was one area where the foam had pushed the old glass up a little that had to be sanded down and also a few voids that has to be topped up.

Initial sanding of the foam.

To fill the voids I simply mixed up about 40 ml of foam and brushed that on the depressions in the foam. The 6 lb foam gives a pretty decient work time before it takes off. I typically stir it very hard for about 10-15 seconds and then if I act quick I can even suck it up in a syringe before it take off and expands.. 

Filling of voids in the foam using a disposable brush.

Even if it feels like one just brushes on a thin layer, it never fail to surprise in how much it expands... 

All voids and low spots remaining after initial shaping and sanding filled with fresh foam brushed on.

Next step is to finalize the shape using flexible sanding blocks and then undercut the edges and apply glass.

The finished foam ready for undercutting.  I might sand down little more. One can allways fill back up bit if I am to high I will have issues.

As one can see here the edge is not perfectly fair but It looks like it is within about 1/16" so I should be able to work with that. I might use CSM to fill the voids before putting on fairing compound at the end.

Before building the structure I undercut the foam all the way around with the Multi-Tool. I only cut about 1/4" to 3/8" deep and about 1/8" thick. 

The edge undercut with the MultiTool

In the beginning I had a lot of problem wetting the glass around the edges of the old glass. The glass is to stiff and there is to much volume to fill so it is very easy to get voids that are hard to clear without overfilling with resin. Recently I been refining a method where I first glass over the foam and make sure it goes under the lip of the glass. Then I add the Hull and deck putty followed by two or more layers of CSM and glass.

The multi tool makes a cut that is about 1/8 thick and 1/4-3/8" deep gives enough to grip on for the patch.

This is the overall structure before the repair showing the build up process to that point.

The first step is to lay 2 layers of glass over the foam and make sure it goes in under the old glass.

The groove is then filled up with Merton's Hull and Deck putty so that it is easy to glass over the repair without creating voids.

After the cut is filled the whole patch is covered with two layers of CSM.

 

Finished lamination showing the hull and deck putty along the edge (gray)

I did half the bow on one shot. This used about 100 ml hull and deck putty and 200ml Resin. 

Next day i finished the other side. After sanding i think it will be pretty good.

Second side finished. 

No more crummy wood. Just foam and glass. Just like a Whaler!

 

Sanded and glassed one more layer and also the area around the bow eye is filled up.