T2x

OL has always described their equipment as an autoclave....and purchased it used from the original Ten Cara assets as I recall.

In truth the OL process of heated pre-preg is a step beyond normal vacuum bagging. My issue with the OL cat is that the basic design is not as fast as others....or so it would seem based on the spectacular lack of OL cats on the water after an initial flurry of enthusiasm. If I am wrong please correct me, but there has been startling silence about real world numbers with this cat. OL has made a great v bottom for years, although the pricing has always left me scratching my head....I think the OL cat broke the back of the price point bar without delivering what cat buyers want most.......speed and unique design.

The Skater by comparison has so much hand work after molding that you couldn't bake it or infuse it. However, Skater's vacuum bag hulls have been as light as anything that stays together over the years........ As I said there were early pre-preg hulls that delaminated because of the use of ultralight foams and too little actual materials. While ultralight layups may work in aircraft, sailboats and race cars....they disintegrate quickly in high speed power boating applications.


T2x

Uncle Dave

So Skater lays up like my pet company- a balsa core, then vac bagged. (I find that boats made like this have an optimal strength to weight ratio and can be built reasonably cost effectively)

How does Nor tech, and MTI layup? That where I was going-

I expected TX to answer for Skater- where the data on the other guys?

I think OL is stretching on their definition- 180C at 100PSI is a typical carbon fibre first cure temp & pressure- to get the carbon elements to flow around the core material. Id be curious for them to state what their oven can archive temp and pressure wise.

Not taking away from OL- as I said I think they have the most advanced layup- but to lead people to beleive theu get F1 technology - I have yet to see evidence of their process going this far.

Their infusion process does make for a light hull but at a staggering cost and as you say where is the real world advantage?


UD

cowisl

For what its worth, I remember reading that they bought a neighboring sailboat company's autoclave. The tencara assets were sold to Platinum.

salesmanship

Our hull bottoms are solid glass and kevlar- no coring
Hullsides and decks are glass and kevlar, cored with divinycell foam.
Terry
Nor-Tech

Uncle Dave

D-cell 80 or 100?

Sounds a bit heavy on the bottom and light on the top (so is my ex gf)- tradeoff being no need to worry about water intrusion potentially compromising anything if there is a bit of damage from hitting floating bits at 150+ (or whatever it can do) and its easily repaired.

I looked at all of Sharkeys pictures of your new Cat -

Very very nice work. I looked at every single picture he took and could only find minor points to nitpick. (and it is nitpicking)

Thanks for the info.

MTI? How do you do it?

Uncle Dave

Brad Zastrow

MTI methods.
http://www.marinetechnologyinc.com/construction.html

Uncle Dave

Thanks-

Balsa cored & vacuum bagged- my fav.

They dont mention the top vs bottom, but they are likely identical.
They also don't mention if the boat is fully or partially interlined or not

UD

Catmando

...anyone who uses foam core on running surfaces is cruising for a major problem IMHO. Foam cores compress over time with repeated impact leaving the glass layers to flex and eventually separate....and regardless of the claims...I don't think this has been satisfactorily resolved.....ask for balsa on your pads and bottoms. T2x


High Modulus, New Zealand builder of Grand Prix ocean racing yachts, disagrees with you. They build their hulls with vacuum-infused high-elongation Airex linear foam cores coupled with carbon fiber and Kevlar-reinforced epoxy skins. HM says this process is much tougher and lighter than any other they've used.

They built Ermis2, a 124' high speed motor yacht, with this process and not only did the hull come in at 2.2g, over twice as high as Germanischer Lloyd's standard of 1g through the longitudinal center of gravity, but the boat runs 60 knots.

Rik

I believe the word "Autoclave" is being used a bit liberally. Post bake curing is nothing neither new nor exclusive to performance boat builders. Rather it is fairly normal to most, not all, epoxy boat manufacturers ranging from fishing boats to sail boats. All the resin sales guys advise their customers to do this in an attempt to gain 25% more strength (don't ask me how they measure this "strength) than non post bake cured lay-ups.

Basically a lot of these manufacturers are building a wooden frame and covering it with visquen and inserting the boat mold and propane heaters to ramp up the temperature degree by degree and then ramp down the temperature degree by degree over a said period of time. They use little fan motors to suck air in or out of this covered area to adjust the temp.

I've seen a pre-preg application first hand and they built a metal frame structure and attached JM insulation boards to it forming a small house with fans on the sides that would allow air in or out via a computer temperature controller. Then the parts of frozen pre-preg were installed in the mold (with the vacuum lines attached) and inserted into this "house" and the computers took over controlling heaters and fans to ramp the temperature up.

The only boats that I have heard of being in an actual autoclave (vacuum/pressure + heat) were the Tencara (not all of them) and the Platinum V bottom boat which was done in Malaysia as there really isn't one in the states large enough to fit a boat mold into. I've heard somewhere in Missouri there is one that is large enough to do a boat mold but there are differences in the boat molds that can allow them to be used in an actual autoclave.

platinum

Rich,

As some of the threads on this site are taken as gospel, I see the need to correct some misconceptions:

Contrary to what has been stated here, OuterLimits does not utilize an autoclave to postcure their boats. Correct is, that OuterLimits utilizes an oven to postcure a vacuum-consolidated laminate.

The Cougar which delaminated in Key West, was subcontracted by Cougar at DML in England. Neither Cougar, nor DML have ever manufactured an autoclave cured boat.

Platinum Powerboats utilizes autoclave and oven curing, and I can assure you and everyone else that there is a difference. At this time, there is no commercially available access to an autoclave that is large enough to postcure a catamaran. The autoclaves which have a suitable size, are dedicated to components for the F22, the F35 and the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

The only offshore powerboat which has been postcured utilizing an autoclave, is the platinum 41 Raptor. Pictures of the hull mold in the autoclave are attached below.

Andreas