First Tiki 8m Hull Connected

After the gelcoat, mat skin and an outer layer of biaxial fabric we fit 3/8" Divinycell foam for a core. This core is vacuum bagged on into a polyester putty.Here are several photos of the bag being made ready and the vacuum being pulled.

Below you can see the vacuum pump turned on and doing its thing. The white tubes are perforated pvc pipe to help the vacuum move around under the bag film.

This shot shows the foam core after the bag has been removed. You can see all the little blobs of putty that have been pulled through the bleeder holes in the foam. These holes ensure that no air pockets are trapped between the foam and the glass underneath it.

Next we sand all of those little blobs off and fillet a little putty around the edges of the foam and smooth everything off for the application of the inner biaxial skin.

Above we have laminated on the inner skin and below we are cutting off the ragged extra fabric along the edges of the part that will mate to the other halve of the hull.

Below we have maneuvered one halve of the hull mold into position to bolt it up to the other halve.

Here we have bolted the two halves together in preparation for glassing them together.

Here we have joined the two halves together with 5 layers of 1708 biaxial fabric

Monday morning we will pull the molds off and begin the other hull for this catamaran.

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While we have been working on the hulls we have also been fairing the inside of the hatches and filling the ends of the companionway hatches which will be drilled out for the hatch slide tube.In the hatch that is being sanded here you can see one of our "kilos". These are 25 lb bags of lead shot. We use them primarily to hold down teak deck panels but find them very useful for holding and clamping all sorts of things. 

 

 Here you can see the 2nd fwd compartment floor with the foam core bonded to it. The foam allows us to build a lightweight piece that is stiff enough without excessive weight.

Above we have gelcoated and skinned one of the liner pans. This part stiffens the center span of the hull and serves as the bunk tops and the floor in the main cabin in each hull.

 Here we are bolting in plywood pieces that form the flanges for the portlights. These will then be filleted in with modeling clay.They are bolted in because they  trap the part in the mold and have to be separated form the mold after the part is laminated and removed with the part.Below is the deck mold gelcoated.

Below we are starting to fit the mat to the deck mold.

This photo shows the second deck gelcoated and skinned. The photo below is the end of our first week on this boat. One hull built, both decks skinned and all of the small parts built. Nice week.