Making of a Race Fairing (Formula 302)
 

As of Friday Chart and I have started to build our "race" fairing for our boats. We are still working on the construction of the system but so far think that we have come up with some ideas as to the look that we want. This will be a step by step process as the paint job was.

This First Picture is the original look

Is this your boat? Looks great without the port windows. Also will be nice to see the day to day progress since this topic seems to come up every so often. Are you guys going with Al. ?

This is the original view from the inside

This is the removal of the window. On this boat the window is bolted down from the underside of the deck. We thought we should just leave it like this :D:D

This is the look that we are going for. At this point we are trying to figure out the fit and make templates for what ever new material we are going to go with. As of now the front runners for the material are Honeycomb and/or end grain Balsa btwn the figerglass skin.

This will be a fiberglass painted or Gelcoated finished product.

What do you guys think about this look?

Looks great! I tried to make one on a Four Winns liberator about 5 years ago. We used foam sheeting & balsa. It looked great 'till we started laying glass and resin. It was a hot summer day and it warped very badly when lay'in up. Ended up in the dumpster and I had a buddy in Havasu make me one out of tinted lexan.

1st off, you have done a great job on your boat!

2nd, you may want to make it a little taller. It is a big boat and from the side view it looks unproportional. Also, wind through your hair is great, but after a while it get annoying and slightly painfull. Since you are making it from scratch, maybe pop up windscreens, like what cigarette has. Keep the pics coming!

Personally, I'm a windshield sort of guy. However, I was talking to a guy last week that stuffed his 35 foot Formula, and they were cut up pretty badly from the windshield. He was actually knocked out.

THAT looks great Jon did you price out white Lexan
could be easier to do??

i agree with Ken...
Its tough to do with the rake of the deck. I am also a windshield guy...
but I think one that small would give you the appearance of an old Kaama or an old 37 aronow.. you know the long boat flat deck appearance.
You have done a great job with the boat!!
I came over to the tech section just to see it!!!
perhaps a fairing with a lip at the top will create the bigger look
do you worry about so much of your body being above the fairing?

Looks good Jon, I have been thinking about a similar project on mine as well....keep posting as you progress....Fred

Jon as I said in the general post it looks great , someone in this thread suggested making it a bit taller ,may not be a bad idea. I'm taking my wind screen off this week for paint prep and I have a question. I have found the screws holding down the side skirts but I have two questions. Are there screws below the vent window opening and how many screws hold the front part of the screen down and some idea of location . I ask this about the front because the previous owner siliconed where the plastic trim strip was and I have no clue where to look for the screws and I would perfer not the distroy the wind screen because I am going to re-use it for now. Any help you could give me as always is greatly appreciated. Rick G.

I like it as is. I've done a couple very similar on a 31 and 38 Scarab. They were almst the exact same profile/height. On the 31, I used aluminum and painted it. Looked good and fairly easy to build and work with. The only welds were the 2 sides on to the front piece.
I also did one out of clear Lexan with a black aluminum U channel frame. Again, probably easier than a fiberglass one to build and it looks great.
More pics!
Gary

We are giving a lot of consideration to the wind in the face. HOWEVER the old windshield was at such a angle and height that it put the highest velocity of wind right in the middle of our faces (chart and myself). We have looked at a taller, and maybe steeper fairing, however we opted for this so far due to the fact that we are currently fallowing the lines up on the deck. This did make the windshield quite a bit steeper then stock, and also opened up the cockpit quite a bit, it now seems larger in the cockpit.

Also as has been mentioned we are going to go with a wind deflector on top. This will make the windshield seem a little taller even if we go with a clear one. We stopped by Outerlimits today to see what they were doing :p :p :D :D .

Rick G: As far as the window was mounted, there are obviously two ways that formula did this. One, the easier, and lucky for Chart the way his are, the window is held on with screws under the rubber molding. Just pull out the molding and you are set. If you have what I have then you better sit down as it was a pain (figures mine had to suck :rolleyes: ). I had bolts that were under the frames and through the hull. This required me to pull down my head liner, take out my microwave, and it generally is sucked. There were a total of 6 across the front and 4 on each wing.

Chart also wanted me to mention that once you get the window free, by taking the wing and bending it out, or away from the center of the boat, you can get the window to slide and come apart at the seem to make it easier to take off the boat.

We will have lots more pictures this evening. Stay tuned

Looks sharp Jon. If i were doing it i would try to stay with the same rack as on the boat, as you are doing, big decision on the material aluminum or glass i would think welding one up out of aluminum would be the easiest, that way you could weld flange for top and bottom and upholstrer the back side and cap off the top with upholstry and wouldnt have to lay up a mold unless you think your going to make more than one. But then i believe chart has a boat like yours so maybe thats the plan. Any way keep the project pictures coming and good luck. Will we be seeing ya this year at the lake?
Later
Dave

As you know Jon, the newer Formula windshields, Fastechs, puts the wind in your face. To bad, as it is the finest windshield in appearance and construction out there. The Lip treatment will address that problem. I want to put a lip on my small fairing, on my Activator. One of our OSO members, Jpclear, did a beautiful reverse fairing on his vintage Martini. It works great.
I would like to know more about the blue gauge panel. Is it aluminum? Is it anodized or powdercoated?
I like what I see so far on the Fairing. Looks good.

Chart here, using Jon's computer.

Sorry guys. Left the camera at the shop, so it will be tomarow(sp?) before we post any more pictures.

Yes, in the pictures, the faring does look shorter than it does in real life. Those who posted concerned about it, thank you. We took your suggestions and mocked up a moveable templet to try different heights, and decided that the one pictured was our favorite. A few people who stoped by the shop and saw it in person agreed the curent height works very well on the boat.

We drove to RI today and bought Nida-Core, a honey comb pannel with fiberglass laminated on the sides. Very strong, light, and COOL!! We got one wing cut out and clamped up. Tomarow(sp?) we'll grind, bond, cut, and probably cuss a little. Plan to have Jon's boat well under way by Wed when I fly home with the templates to start on my boat. Yes Later, we have the same boat, but differnt years, and the deck is slightly different also. Prevents us from making a standard mold, and forces us to make one-ups. But the windshilds themselves were the same part number, so the differences to the decks should not be huge.

Too Old, I KNEW you could not leave your mistress alone!! But sure, Jon will be VERY happy to make a faring for you!!! :)

Chart here again:

RLW: the reverse faring, do you mean that it leans forward at the top, away from the cockpit? Do you have any pictures of the boat with the faring on it? We are very concerned about the wind in the face, (meaning HER face) and welcome all ideas on deflecting lips for the faring as we don't have that one decided yet.

Jon's dash pannel is a plasic or accrilic(sp) material, about 3/8" thick.

The blue pannel is just black plexi that was painted. It probably looked good at some point in time but it is quite beat up now and broken. When I make the new one I will have to figure out what to do it out of this time.

Jon

I'll try to get JpClear to post a pic of his reverse fairing. It does lean forward away from the cockpit and is made out of a Lexan type material. His is curved which proved to be a challenge in fabricating.

Audio,

Make a third and let me know what I owe you.

Chart here, on Audio's computer

302SR1: Isn't yours an '85 or an '86? There are differences between our boats and Audio's. Let me work with the templets on mine first. The lines on the newer 302's are different, and these templets now are PERFECT for the older 302's. They should have to be modified to look perfect on new 302's, and I won't know just how before returning home. I'll keep y'all posted.

BTW, I thought you were selling your boat. Do you still need any gauges from GregP's 402? Let me know.

Chart

Chart
My wife and i meet you wife at the St Louis oso gathering, im sure she told ya we had a great time, on my fountain they use a clear acrylic wind venturi (screen) at the top of the fairing which does a remarkable job of keeping the wind off your face, I live in Chesterfield if you need any help give a shot.
Later
Dave

Chart and Jon

Still have the boat, Yea, it's an 86 but I always thought the decks were the same except for the hatches, but if you have two of them there to compare, I guess you would know better. What year is yours? Jon's is an 82, Right?

Yes, I still do have the boat, and I want to do some updates, (Wind Screen Mainly) I guess, though, if someone wanted to buy it, I would sell it.

It's just real hard to rationalize it because it would probably cost nearly triple to replace it.

What do you guys think about me putting the "KAAMA" down the side like they used to do. That's an idea I've been kicking around a little.

As far as the guages go, what ones do you have? I can't remember. The only one I really need is the clock. It just bothers me that it doesn't work. Not that I'd use it. A tach also acts a little funny but it's intermiittant.

This is a picture of what the boat looked like with the window removed.

REAL MEN LIKE BUGS IN THEIR TEETH :D:D:D

This is the product that we are using for the faring. It is called NIDA CORE. It is a honey comb product that can be purchased in any number of thicknesses and with any number of exterior finishes. We saw it with wood, fiberglass matt, or just the cloth. You can spec out what thickness you want the glass to be for different strengths and so far we have found it a JOY to work with. This is a kind of cross section view of it.

This is another cross sectional view. One thing to note is that this product will not hold screws so if you need to mount things to what ever you are making you will need to router it out and drop in a piece of wood or high density foam.

This is us putting it through the old stress test and Failure testing. The stuff took 200 pounds loaded on it the WRONG way and did not break. That piece is only about 3" on the narrow end!!!!

There was a problem with using the NIDA Core at first. The window had a compound curve in it that we were trying to make. We over came this by screwing in 4 pieces of wood to the boat thus allowing us to clamp the fairing in position and attain the correct curve.

This is the outside showing the bracing, and me being a LUSH :D:D

We then papered the boat to protect from any resin spilling and then bonded the wing plates on with a mixture of resin and Micro Balloons. The Micro Balloons allowed us to make a thick paste out of the resin so that it would take up the voids and inconsistancies btwn the hull and our parts. We also wrapped the braces in wax paper (poor mans release agent) and then used wood spacers to evenly space the window in along the edge that we were trying to work with. If you look close you can see the dark brown/almost black spacers.

This is a picture of the 1" thick NIDA Core bonded to the hull. As of now I could probably stand on it and it will not break. This stuff is REALLY strong.

We wanted to test how well this stuff would bend and Chart is considering making a rounded front fairing (guess strait lines are too easy :D) So we did this test. As you can see it bends VERY liniarly and also can take quite a sharp bend. The gentle bend we kirfed(sp?) the back of the material every 1" and the sharp bend we removed about 2" of material.

This also allowed me a chance to show Chart how to glass the stuff up. Glassing is REALLY easy if you take the time to prep things and think everything out before you get HIGH off the fumes. It can be messy but some Accetone and it is quick to clean up as long as you are carefull. Stay tuned we should have more to see after this weekend.

Chart is going to look at his guages for you and see if he has a clock that will work. He may also have a tach that will fit. I have a HOG POG of different stuff that is all going to get replaced this summer. I will have tachs, speedo (gps), water temp, water pressure, oil temp, and oil preasure. I am toying with the idea of tranny temps guages also but I do not think so.

Chart here on Jon's computer:

Yes, Mrs. Chart did say it was a great time meeting you and the rest of the St. Louis OSOers. I think it was very adventurish of her to brave a group of rough-neck OSOers on her own. I regretted missing it, but this project was too important and had been planned for several weeks. I may well take you up on your offer, as at times two people can make this kind of project go several times faster than one alone. Do you keep your Fountain at the lake, or winter-store it back in St. Louis?

Chart

Jon, and Chart, that stuff looks great! Nice job. I like how you can bend it. I may have to consider that. What is that material called again? Where does a guy find it?

Wasn't that stuff used on Ship Shape one time last year?

Great project guys.

That honeycomb material makes a lot of sense structuraly, but it's quite a bit thicker than Plexi-Glass or AL. Do you guys like the way it looks with the increased thickness? It's hard to get a good feel from a pic, but I'm guessing it looks kinda neat, and you won't have to worry about anybody stepping on your fairing and breaking it when they go to set a line.

Chart - Are you a St. Louis guy? I'd love to help out when you do yours. I've been having windshield problems for a couple years, and need to get something done. I'd like to see how you do this, and get a look at the results first hand.

Mike

Jon great job. I like the idea of following the curve of the deck even thought I think my wind screen wings are straight. I'm not sure I would have bonded the fairing right to the deck only because I like the idea of being able to convert back to a wind screen some day if you change your mind. Having said that if you are not going to use your old wind screen would you consider selling it to me , I would like to make a cut down version for my boat. If you are interested you can email at " [email protected] " Thanks and keep the pics coming you guys are doing a great job. Regards Rick G.

I can't wait to see how you guys are going to treat the top edge. That's some neat material. I guess since you bonded it directly to the boat, you are planning on feathering it right into the deck. Did you remove any gel where you bonded to?