Comments on: Ninjaville – Chapter 1

By: Cookie

Cookie — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 19:44:21 +0000

The bottom of a Ninja is very hard to make with sheet foam. Lots of rocker and lots of curvature…

By: Rob Fordyce

Rob Fordyce — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 16:35:32 +0000

Hi Phillipe,

Sounds like a great project, good luck.

Try to use as little of the Contour Scrim foam as you can, preferably none. It is nice and simple product to use, but also sucks up a lot of resin/core bonding material. With the curvature in the bottom of a moth hull, the 3mm corecell should suck down easily under vacuum. If you get any particularly tricky areas, just thermoform the foam with a hot air gun to get it to the approximate shape, the vacuum will do the rest.

If you do use the CS foam, make sure you flip it upside down over a drum/barrel, to open up the grooves, the fill these with a resin/microspheres mix, so that when the thing is placed into the hull you guarantee there are no voids which will be little Venitian canals for water to travel in later on…

The other problem, is that the resulting resin/glue/microsphere grid that you end up with means that if you do impact the hull, these regular hard spots will cause fracturing, so the damage from a small impact (e.g. heel of your foot) will be much greater then just plain corecell which has some give/bounce.

For bagging your foam on, try and get something a little lighter than the microfibres or colloidal silica, something like microsphres with a little bit of colloidal silica will be better. Some of the 12′s back home used microlite (fairing powder), but, i reckon that is going a little too far, you want a good core/skin join.

Have fun, wish I had a little vaccum pump, would be very handy!

Rob

By: Alan Hillman

Alan Hillman — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 09:52:59 +0000

Hi Phillipe, that looks way complicated! My new Mach 2 has just arrived to keep the Bladeriders company! Give my regards to the Spanish students, good to see Javi still keen after his first time out in the Mar Menor. I hope to see their boats this year in the somewhat warmer south…hope you are coming to Moth Fest! Send Jonnie my regards! Alan, Pro-vela, Spain.

By: Phillippe Oligario

Phillippe Oligario — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 08:50:50 +0000

On the contrary Graham, I think being a mothie is about spirit and passion as opposed to any particular skill. I chose to build the boat now as there is no way I’d be out sailing in this cold weather! Mind you, if I had a boat…..?

By: Graham Simmonds

Graham Simmonds — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 07:57:49 +0000

I am sorry Phil but you are the one who is a true Mothie, not me. All I did was put my hand in my pocket and a Moth magically appeared from China. What you are attempting here is something I could never do. I have neither your skill or your patience to attempt such a project. I wish you the best of luck with it and I will follow your progress with interest.