Thad Allen's Apache + The Birth of the Cheetah Cat
05-08-2010 | 05:23 PM
#131
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From: Beautiful Fort Lauderdale www.cheetahcat.com
Bagging on the Foam surface I double tape to avoid leaks and have electronic ears plus my brothers have been bagging with me since the 80's so I had very experienced people in the crew which saved a lot of headaches..
Last edited by Steve 1; 05-10-2010 at 08:52 PM.
05-08-2010 | 05:29 PM
#132
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From: Beautiful Fort Lauderdale www.cheetahcat.com
I was asked about the 28 Powerplays here, My answer;There were only 12- 28 PP's built so they may be a collectors Item
Last edited by Steve 1; 05-10-2010 at 08:53 PM.
05-08-2010 | 05:30 PM
#133
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From: Beautiful Fort Lauderdale www.cheetahcat.com
This was Steve2/Wilson;Radio Active was one of the most enjoyable boats I have ever had the pleasure to work on...I also enjoyed working on ?????'s boat, damn his name slips my mind (pool business in NJ), but you allowed me some additional freedom and had alot of the same tastes as me, LIKE PURPLE PAINT, and that made it more fun!
Last edited by Steve 1; 05-10-2010 at 08:53 PM.
05-08-2010 | 05:32 PM
#134
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From: Beautiful Fort Lauderdale www.cheetahcat.com
Here I was asked about the "Sticky Boat" the answer;That yellow Cobra was built at Elswicks Hollywood shop by a guy he brought in from up north.
Too continue ;Problem was in those days they would initiate a entire 5 gallon pail with 30 cc of MEKP for the working time.
Example US Chemicals 299 resin It was a good resin and a lot of boats were built out of it but at low levels of MEKP you just do not have the Mass to get a decent cure and the surface is designed to stay tacky for the secondary Bond when exposed to air. the Preferred practice was to inhibit some resin with Modifier "C" (wax) and roll it on after everything was completed.
I had a Hull by Eagle Marine they held the molds for Signature and Corsa in those days.
Anyway I lost the bottom in the Magnum Marine Bahamas 100 somewhere in the gulf between the concrete ship and Miami, I took it to Pedro (later of midnight express)he was doing the layup at cigarette in those days.
Anyway the long and short of it was he in a half second pointed out the roving was stacked without any shear Mat, so half the bottom simply came off in fact all that was left under the motors was the Glass we added to level it out for Paint and the Rules pumping their heart out keeping the thing up..
Things in life happen for a reason! That started me on the road to doing my own work.
Too continue ;Problem was in those days they would initiate a entire 5 gallon pail with 30 cc of MEKP for the working time.
Example US Chemicals 299 resin It was a good resin and a lot of boats were built out of it but at low levels of MEKP you just do not have the Mass to get a decent cure and the surface is designed to stay tacky for the secondary Bond when exposed to air. the Preferred practice was to inhibit some resin with Modifier "C" (wax) and roll it on after everything was completed.
I had a Hull by Eagle Marine they held the molds for Signature and Corsa in those days.
Anyway I lost the bottom in the Magnum Marine Bahamas 100 somewhere in the gulf between the concrete ship and Miami, I took it to Pedro (later of midnight express)he was doing the layup at cigarette in those days.
Anyway the long and short of it was he in a half second pointed out the roving was stacked without any shear Mat, so half the bottom simply came off in fact all that was left under the motors was the Glass we added to level it out for Paint and the Rules pumping their heart out keeping the thing up..
Things in life happen for a reason! That started me on the road to doing my own work.
Last edited by Steve 1; 05-12-2010 at 10:07 PM.
05-08-2010 | 05:34 PM
#135
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From: Beautiful Fort Lauderdale www.cheetahcat.com
The thing was I went into the office and tried getting a Vinylester used instead, the reply was" no one uses that!"
I saw the Path right then and there, the resin I was looking at had twice the Physicals as the Polyester they were using at the time.
Anyway we split, Three of us Anglo Meli, Donald Rossi and myself we opened a rigging shop on Ne 17 ave, now we were on our own,Pepe bought stuff from us (we also had a small Machine shop) and Gave us nice rigging work, Thanks Pepe!Cool days back then.
I saw the Path right then and there, the resin I was looking at had twice the Physicals as the Polyester they were using at the time.
Anyway we split, Three of us Anglo Meli, Donald Rossi and myself we opened a rigging shop on Ne 17 ave, now we were on our own,Pepe bought stuff from us (we also had a small Machine shop) and Gave us nice rigging work, Thanks Pepe!Cool days back then.
Last edited by Steve 1; 05-10-2010 at 08:54 PM.
05-08-2010 | 05:38 PM
#137
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From: Beautiful Fort Lauderdale www.cheetahcat.com
The converstaion went to gel time here my reply;I deal with the Labs a lot and some these research chemists are funny and they like our business, anyway I never EVER low line the MEKP (another story)there are three inhibitors in my kit that I use,,,
One on the cobalted Vinylester Resins Binds/hides the cobalt for a little while then goes away and the Cobalt naphanate reappears then the curing process begins, another I use is from the rubber manufacturing it is used as an accelerator there but works as a retarder in our business TBC It gives the Free radicals another target Like Hey we like this better But then it gets depleted and the curing process begins timed till after you have about 5K of the bosses material in place under the bag (I used that at Jaguar) another is Benzohydroquinone which works well in the highly reactive gelcoats I mix it's powder with acetone or styrene.. I watch the crews faces when pouring 250 CC's of MEKP in a 5 gallon bucket in 95 degree heat. then tell them we have an hour and a half (we have 2 and a half)
One on the cobalted Vinylester Resins Binds/hides the cobalt for a little while then goes away and the Cobalt naphanate reappears then the curing process begins, another I use is from the rubber manufacturing it is used as an accelerator there but works as a retarder in our business TBC It gives the Free radicals another target Like Hey we like this better But then it gets depleted and the curing process begins timed till after you have about 5K of the bosses material in place under the bag (I used that at Jaguar) another is Benzohydroquinone which works well in the highly reactive gelcoats I mix it's powder with acetone or styrene.. I watch the crews faces when pouring 250 CC's of MEKP in a 5 gallon bucket in 95 degree heat. then tell them we have an hour and a half (we have 2 and a half)
Last edited by Steve 1; 05-11-2010 at 07:53 PM.
05-08-2010 | 05:40 PM
#138
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From: Beautiful Fort Lauderdale www.cheetahcat.com
When I was laying up the Cheetah by myself I was using a Dow 470-36 I set it for three and a half hours could go further still.
The open time is the killer here you lose Styrene so as I came down the sides I flipped the peel ply down behind me. I studied what they were dumping into it (Resin) for transport and got a clue on one.. The TBC came from Stanley Seer the research Chemist at ICI (Pearl Labs) I had his home phone number, he developed a resin called Atlac 580-05A it was a Acrylic Urethane Vinylester and the one Dupont certified for Kevlar use as the story goes. I used it for Boats, Molds everything in those days, I had two gel timers spinning and learned how to handle the florida heat and get what I wanted.
The open time is the killer here you lose Styrene so as I came down the sides I flipped the peel ply down behind me. I studied what they were dumping into it (Resin) for transport and got a clue on one.. The TBC came from Stanley Seer the research Chemist at ICI (Pearl Labs) I had his home phone number, he developed a resin called Atlac 580-05A it was a Acrylic Urethane Vinylester and the one Dupont certified for Kevlar use as the story goes. I used it for Boats, Molds everything in those days, I had two gel timers spinning and learned how to handle the florida heat and get what I wanted.
Last edited by Steve 1; 05-10-2010 at 08:55 PM.
05-08-2010 | 05:43 PM
#139
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From: Beautiful Fort Lauderdale www.cheetahcat.com
T-4; here I am setting up to infuse strakes with a simple manifold ran down the center along the Keel and Vacuum jumpers where ever I wanted, keeping the runs short. we used a - 45 + 45 fabric as the need was to get as much filament possible across the joint where with a 0-90 you get only half the reinforcement going in the critical direction.
Last edited by Steve 1; 05-11-2010 at 07:53 PM.
05-08-2010 | 05:46 PM
#140
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From: Beautiful Fort Lauderdale www.cheetahcat.com
Now in the early eighties we did a some flats boats one was a 17 footer (still being built) and this my 18 foot boat line
The 18' Hull mold had 38 adjustment points on the bottom so I could touch it up.
Again this Boat was From a panel built plug for the molding, I had a low Glass topped table we Waxed then sprayed Tooling Gelcoat and carefully skinned it out ,then each of the 4 panels 2-side 2-bottom were cored with Divinnycell H-100 sheets (it had the right stiffness) that was then perforated and bagged into the wet laminate 1708 these were mounted onto wood fixture ,again built from the full size lofting, it was a quick build and could have been a boat. Staked out by Ocean reef on a sunday nothing better after a hard week to play on my own boat I got the lines down on paper for that boat in 20 minutes.
The 18' Hull mold had 38 adjustment points on the bottom so I could touch it up.
Again this Boat was From a panel built plug for the molding, I had a low Glass topped table we Waxed then sprayed Tooling Gelcoat and carefully skinned it out ,then each of the 4 panels 2-side 2-bottom were cored with Divinnycell H-100 sheets (it had the right stiffness) that was then perforated and bagged into the wet laminate 1708 these were mounted onto wood fixture ,again built from the full size lofting, it was a quick build and could have been a boat. Staked out by Ocean reef on a sunday nothing better after a hard week to play on my own boat I got the lines down on paper for that boat in 20 minutes.
Last edited by Steve 1; 05-10-2010 at 08:55 PM.
