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Hi Ray. Save the pictures anyway. Can't hurt. Florida OR B.C. would
be good. ( of course, one's a little warmer than the other.)
I'm still putting foam together for the body/fairing and I was looking at
some pictures of Cliff's R300 and the foam work he did on that. If I read it
right, he made the finished shape( mold plug ), then made a two piece mold of
the plug. Then used the mold to cast the body parts in fiberglass. Next was
attaching the body parts to the steel hull, and filling the void with the
syntactic foam. Is that how it was done?
I sure hope I get to meet him. I've got lots of questions.
My method is a little different. I'm making a foam body, then I'm going to
glass over it, and gut out the foam after it hardens. Probably take three layers
of glass to get the 1/4 inch thick I want.
I'll need to carve some grooves into the foam where stiffener ribs will be
built up with the glass. and some of the corners will need to be rounded so the
glass covering will be thicker at the corners. I think the biggest hassle will
be sanding it down to get a nice smooth finish on the last layer. That's where
Cliff's method really shines. He's casting into a smooth mold, so little sanding
is required to achieve that nice smooth finish. The only thing is, it's like
making three bodies. ie: the plug, the mold, and the finish panel. If you were
mass producing a part, that's good. But it seems like a lot of work for a
one-off piece. Can't argue with the finished product though, what a
beauty!
The body shape I'm using would be VERY difficult to make molds of. Way too
many curves and corners. It's starting to look pretty cool though. I'll try to
get a picture of it up tomorrow. It's been a real learning process, ( read that
as SLOW! )but that's just part of the fun. Frank
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